The Indiana Fever guard explained that men are just “stronger, bigger, athletic” and the matchup isn’t “fair.”
PublishedNovember 23, 2025 5:45 PM EST•UpdatedNovember 23, 2025 5:35 PM EST
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The WNBA sisterhood won’t like Sophie Cunningham for this one.
Not only is the Indiana Fever guard refusing to pile on Michael Porter Jr. for his latest viral take, she’s backing him up on it.
Last week, Porter told Lonzo and LaMelo Ball on the Ball in the Family podcast that he believes a team of elite eighth-grade boys could beat the WNBA All-Stars. MPJ specifically cited scrimmaging against Cunningham’s University of Missouri team when he was “in the 7th or 8th grade going crazy.”
Ball agreed, adding: “I mean this as respectfully as possible, but 9th-grade Lonzo Ball in the WNBA is going crazy.”
Michael Porter Jr. claims he scrimmaged Sophie Cunningham’s team when she played at Mizzou.
(Getty Images)
Not surprisingly, women’s basketball fans lit them up.
But on her Show Me Something podcast on Thursday, Cunningham actually agreed.
“This is my personal opinion. But if you are a professional football player, basketball player, really any sport… If you’re in that elite level group, yeah, you should be able to beat the girls,” she said. “I’m not surprised by that. I just don’t get why it’s continuing to get brought up.”
She continued: “If women are saying, ‘He couldn’t beat them,’ yeah, he could. Any NBA star could beat a female in high school,” she said. “I don’t want to be unrealistic or delusional. Like, men are just stronger, bigger, athletic. They just are a different build. So if you put them up against females, yeah, they’re gonna win.”
When she and co-host West Wilson learned Porter had been talking about 8th graders vs. a WNBA team, Cunningham doubled down. Although she did clarify, they would have to be elite athletes — not just your run-of-the-mill middle school boys.
“The context of it is fair,” she said. “If [the 8th graders] are future pros, it just depends how big they are. And the majority of the time, if they’re going pro, unless you’re a late bloomer, you’re already pretty big.
“So I would say that that’s probably true. It’s probably true!”
Cunningham added she’s not trying to disrespect her fellow female hoopers. She’s just stating what she considers reality.
“I just don’t think that’s a fair matchup,” she concluded.
For the record, Porter’s comment that he played against a college-aged Cunningham when he was an 8th grader might not have been completely true. She is, after all, just two years older than he is.
Still, Cunningham threw her support behind MPJ, saying he was “click-baited” and taken out of context. A big ol’ nothingburger.
