Does Sophie Cunningham have a black belt in Taekwondo? Fever star's martial arts background explored 

Indiana Fever star Sophie Cunningham earned plaudits for seemingly standing up for teammate Caitlin Clark in their hotly-contested game against the Connecticut Sun on Tuesday. She did it by making use of her background as a martial artist.

The veteran roughened up Sun guard Jacy Sheldon late in the Fever's 88-71 home win by taking down the latter face-first as she made her way to the basket.

A brief confrontation ensued but eventually cooler heads prevailed before Cunningham was ejected from the game for committing a flagrant foul 2.

Cunningham lived up to the part of the defender, being a black belt in the Korean martial art of taekwondo as early as six years old, even becoming the youngest to do so in the state of Missouri.

While the play was ruled excessive by game officials, many cut Sophie Cunningham some slack for her action. They viewed it as more of sending a message and standing up for Clark, who received a lot of tough plays herself from several Sun players throughout the game.

Analyst defends Sophie Cunningham's action in game against Connecticut

Sophie Cunningham earned support for her action in their game against the Connecticut Sun from veteran analyst and fellow taekwondo black belt Rachel DeMita.

Speaking on her YouTube channel Wednesday, DeMita shared that while Cunningham did go for a hard foul on Jacy Sheldon, she made sure to put what she learned from martial arts to good use by ensuring it would not lead to any injury:

"Sophie did not grab her and throw her to the ground. She didn't body-slam her, she didn't do anything, in my personal opinion. Maybe I'm biased here but I want to give you guys my straight up honest opinion on this. She bearhugged her, took her to the ground...

"Yes, it was intentional. It was absolutely intentional. It was, for me, a payback for what was happening the entire game. But she (Sophie) did it in a way that she wasn't going to injure Jacy," she added.

(from 9:50 mark onwards)

Cunningham also earned praise for showing control and discipline after the brief dust-up following her rough play on Sheldon and prevented any further escalation of the incident.

For the play, Cunningham was subsequently fined separately on top of the standard flagrant 2 fine.