Latest / Raising the Game: Covering WNBA, NWSL, PWHL & More / Episode 14 | UCLA Wins It All, Connecticut Sun to Houston, WNBA Free Agency, USWNT vs. Japan

Transcript

Episode 14 | UCLA Wins It All, Connecticut Sun to Houston, WNBA Free Agency, USWNT vs. Japan · Raising the Game: Covering WNBA, NWSL, PWHL & More

• 0:00
  So UCLA held him in the shooting category.
• 0:03
  They out rebounded them by 10. Any again, any basketball heads
• 0:07
  going to tell you that like if you can win the battle of the
• 0:10
  boards, make your free throws, and then win the turnover
• 0:13
  battle, you will win, right? Hi, I'm Caitlin.
• 0:26
  Hi, I'm Alex. And this is Raising the Game, a
• 0:29
  women's sports podcast covering primetime performers, the
• 0:32
  business behind the athletes and leagues, and what the growth of
• 0:35
  women's sports means for the next generation of women's
• 0:38
  athletes. We're back from a little bit of
• 0:42
  a vacation. Yeah, it feels like it's been a
• 0:44
  while since we. Hope everyone.
• 0:47
  Hope everyone enjoyed last week's episode.
• 0:50
  We have Part 2 coming shortly, coming shortly.
• 0:54
  So we'll get that out potentially next, next week.
• 0:57
  Yeah. I think we'll keep an eye on our
• 0:59
  socials. We'll announce it when we put it
• 1:03
  out there. But we're we're kind of working
• 1:05
  on like when can we work that now into our cadence.
• 1:09
  We've got it all planned out. We just need to find some extra
• 1:13
  time to record. Yeah, but for tonight?
• 1:16
  Back. Into headlines and and just
• 1:19
  normal news. Stuff we had tons to talk about.
• 1:21
  So before we dive into some of those headlines, should your
• 1:26
  favorite thing. Yeah, let's do it.
• 1:28
  OK, so mine my favorite thing came about a week and a half ago
• 1:37
  now we talked about this inaugural home opener for the
• 1:44
  Denver Summit. For those who are watching, you
• 1:46
  can see my I have my Rep in my Denver Summit hat today on the
• 1:50
  pod. They were on this mission to
• 1:55
  initially it was like sell 50,000 tickets to their
• 1:59
  inaugural home opener. They ended up having 63,000
• 2:05
  people at their first game for an expansion team, brand new
• 2:11
  team. And Alex can verify this, that
• 2:15
  we were like watching at home and I was like in tears.
• 2:18
  Yeah, you're, you're crying. Because it was so cool to see
• 2:27
  just the power of community. I think that has grown behind
• 2:33
  these teams. Like, it doesn't even matter
• 2:36
  what the sport is. It seems like we've talked about
• 2:38
  that before, right? Like when sports fans are kind
• 2:40
  of transferable across sports, but I'm like texting my brother,
• 2:46
  he lives in Denver and he's like, oh, my fiance is actually
• 2:49
  at the game. And I was like, well, I'm
• 2:51
  jealous of her. So that's good for her.
• 2:55
  But just like the energy there and just to be a part of
• 2:59
  something like that, it was so cool.
• 3:02
  And what a like, what validation for those not just the Denver
• 3:08
  Summit players, but like all the athletes, right, who were.
• 3:14
  I was, I was thinking back to like the, we did the NWSL, like
• 3:18
  history or history of like women's soccer.
• 3:22
  And I think that first NWSL game was like 5200 people total or
• 3:27
  4200. It was like, yeah.
• 3:29
  So to see it, to go from that and then how many years has it
• 3:33
  been? It's about 13 years to 63,000 is
• 3:37
  pretty phenomenal. Yeah, yeah, it, I mean, it is.
• 3:41
  And it's really a testament to, I think when we talked about
• 3:44
  that episode, like you kind of had the dark period of the Gates
• 3:48
  report and everything that was going on with that, which
• 3:50
  ushered in new leadership. And Jessica Berman has, you
• 3:55
  know, say what you will about her, but she's certainly
• 3:57
  directed them into a growth season for sure.
• 4:02
  Absolutely. So that was really cool.
• 4:04
  We are actually hoping that potentially later in the season
• 4:07
  we go to a Denver summit. Game.
• 4:09
  Yeah, it'd be fun. So what?
• 4:11
  Was your favorite thing. Mine's not as emotional or or
• 4:16
  anything epic like that. It's going to be, it's kind of
• 4:20
  hard to say this. I so UCLA winning the national
• 4:25
  championship in a sense of and I know they were in the top four
• 4:29
  or five the whole year. So they're I would consider them
• 4:32
  a Titan, but the the actual Titans like the Yukons and the
• 4:35
  USC like or South Carolina not winning.
• 4:39
  Kind of the the outsider. Yeah.
• 4:41
  So like for the first time, it feels like in a while we had
• 4:43
  someone outside of those two win it and pretty handily.
• 4:47
  So I thought it was really fun. Yeah, we're going to talk all
• 4:50
  about that. As much as that lost you a lot
• 4:52
  of money in your bracket, I'm OK with it.
• 4:55
  It was, we're like I said, we're going to talk about, I won't get
• 4:58
  into it right now and not about me losing money.
• 5:00
  That's fine. I, I was so close though.
• 5:03
  You were very close, so close. All right, should we go into
• 5:05
  headlines? Let's do it.
• 5:07
  All right, UCLA Bruins women's basketball team wins first
• 5:10
  national title in the NCAA era with blowout win over South
• 5:14
  Carolina. Like we said, we're going to
• 5:16
  dive into this, the final four, all the things.
• 5:19
  I think the one quote I saw from Don Staley was we just didn't
• 5:22
  have it tonight. Yeah.
• 5:24
  It was kind of. The other one I saw from her was
• 5:26
  like, she can swallow losing to a team that's a bunch of good
• 5:32
  people and then coached by a really good person, somebody
• 5:35
  who's trying to really grow the game of women's basketball.
• 5:39
  Denver Summit Smashes smashes professional women's soccer
• 5:42
  attendance record with 63,000 fans attending inaugural home
• 5:46
  opener. We could have cut our first two
• 5:48
  headlines. Yeah, we could have.
• 5:50
  Another first for the Denver Summit.
• 5:51
  The couple days before that game, they actually announced
• 5:55
  that they had secured $40 million in bond, private bond
• 6:00
  funding, which is a first for any organization in the NWSL in
• 6:06
  order to build a state-of-the-art training
• 6:08
  center. And we have had some stories
• 6:10
  earlier in the year about other clubs doing this, but it's
• 6:13
  interesting to see them finance it this way.
• 6:16
  It actually speaks to the the strength of these clubs as like
• 6:22
  a seen as an asset in the bond market.
• 6:25
  So I'm wondering what door does that open?
• 6:28
  For other teams, for other markets.
• 6:30
  Yeah. Or just other forms of funding,
• 6:32
  right, that probably weren't possible even a couple years
• 6:35
  ago. Yeah.
• 6:37
  US women's national team announces April camp roster
• 6:40
  ahead of three international friendlies against AFC champions
• 6:43
  Japan. Yeah, we're going to talk about
• 6:45
  this too. Really excited.
• 6:47
  Sophs back. Sophs back.
• 6:48
  And his mom. It's Gigi's mom and one of my
• 6:51
  favs, Tierna Davidson in that back line, which I think is
• 6:54
  actually really, really important for them.
• 6:56
  We'll talk about it, I think. We've talked about that a little
• 6:58
  bit already. Last weekend at the Miami Open
• 7:02
  Arena, Sabalenka defeated Coco Goff three sets to take the
• 7:07
  title in the Miami Miami Open as the WTA wraps early season hard
• 7:11
  court cycle and moves to the clay.
• 7:13
  Yeah. So that one was, I think there
• 7:17
  was a little bit of a, you know, can Coco kind of get back on top
• 7:21
  before they move into clay court season?
• 7:23
  And she was close at the furthest that she had.
• 7:26
  Gotten, And I believe something I learned today was that she
• 7:29
  also won the Indian Wells. And this is called the Sunshine
• 7:33
  Double. She's the fifth woman to do it.
• 7:35
  Oh, wow. Yeah.
• 7:36
  So what new little piece of trivia for you?
• 7:38
  Nice. At the Figure Skating World
• 7:41
  Championships 2 weeks ago, Kyori Sakamoto won her 4th world
• 7:46
  title. Yeah.
• 7:47
  So we had had this on our like, how can you go follow the
• 7:50
  Olympians after the Milano Cortina Olympics?
• 7:54
  And so this was obviously World Championships for figure
• 7:57
  skating. Kerry Sakamoto had taken second
• 8:00
  or silver medal at the Olympics. And she did something that I
• 8:07
  think only one other woman has ever done.
• 8:09
  Michelle Kwan did it, becoming a four time world champion.
• 8:12
  What a beautiful like swan song for somebody who's just been
• 8:15
  such a pillar of that sport for for so long and skated at such a
• 8:20
  high level. She's retired, retiring now.
• 8:24
  That was kind of her last thing. And then the other thing I loved
• 8:26
  was got to see Amber Glenn get a redemption skate on the routine
• 8:31
  that kind of cost her a medal probably at the Olympics, and
• 8:35
  she nailed everything and looked gorgeous doing it.
• 8:39
  So good to see that. Alyssa Lou signs endorsement
• 8:42
  deal with Nike. Of course she does.
• 8:45
  She's everywhere. I saw her on a box of Lucky
• 8:47
  Charms too. Amazing WMBPA had an ace up
• 8:53
  their sleeves during the most recent CBA Niko negotiations in
• 8:56
  the form of Nobel Prize winning economist Claudia Golden.
• 9:00
  So I don't know if I just missed this, like, while all the things
• 9:03
  were going on or if they literally kept her, like, to the
• 9:06
  vest and it wasn't public. It sounds like it actually was
• 9:09
  known that she had taken this call a couple years ago from
• 9:13
  Terry Carmichael. She's she did this for free.
• 9:17
  Yeah, I learned and what she kept saying in the report I was
• 9:21
  reading about it was she's like the numbers just don't add up.
• 9:25
  And this is something we've been saying as we've talked about
• 9:28
  this on the pod for months now, right, is the numbers just don't
• 9:32
  make sense. And the analysis she had done,
• 9:34
  or at least what I read about, was if the WNBA was
• 9:39
  proportionate to the pay for the players relative to the revenue
• 9:43
  generated as the NBA, they should be getting a third.
• 9:48
  Yes, right. They were getting 180. 180th is
• 9:52
  the stat I saw. 180th just let it sink in for a second.
• 9:58
  And so she's like, it doesn't this makes zero sense, right?
• 10:05
  So she clearly had was Privy to some numbers and, you know, get
• 10:08
  on them for pulling in a a Nobel Prize winning economist.
• 10:13
  Yeah, the Connecticut Sun will become the Houston Comets in
• 10:17
  2027. Hold your comments because we
• 10:20
  will talk about this later. It ends a 23 year stint for a
• 10:26
  team there in Connecticut. You know, Connecticut, obviously
• 10:31
  home of EU Conn Huskies, both very dominant men's and women's
• 10:34
  programs. I think it's a real shame to be
• 10:38
  taking the only women's basketball team in the Northeast
• 10:42
  out of that space. So like you said, I know we're
• 10:46
  going to talk. I want to clock 1 here because I
• 10:48
  may have added it after you took your that.
• 10:53
  Yeah, well, we can't. We can't forget that WNBA free
• 10:59
  agency started. Today and.
• 11:01
  With a big. Yeah, Angel Reese.
• 11:04
  Angel Reese to. Atlanta.
• 11:06
  From the Chicago Sky to the Atlanta Dream, so far that's all
• 11:10
  we've really heard about as far as concrete moves of big
• 11:12
  players. But we're going to talk more
• 11:15
  about that timeline and things to watch for this week as free
• 11:18
  agency really heats up. CBS Sports in the WNBA announced
• 11:22
  long term broadcast deal starting with 20 regular season
• 11:25
  games during the 2026 season. Yeah.
• 11:28
  So I couldn't find more detail on this deal.
• 11:31
  Like they said long term and like long term is not one
• 11:34
  season. That's weird.
• 11:36
  And then it was also what was really, I commented on this to
• 11:40
  you, fascinating to me about the announcement of this deal was it
• 11:44
  was announced just a few days after they had reached agreement
• 11:48
  on the CBA. And we're like, you're claiming
• 11:52
  you're not making any money and you're trying to hold it over
• 11:54
  these players and say they can't get this revenue share.
• 11:57
  And yet you're going to go pull in millions of more dollars
• 12:01
  through another broadcast deal, which great like these these
• 12:05
  networks want these games, then advertisers want to be on those
• 12:09
  games as well. So but.
• 12:11
  I don't want to dig into it too much but it is this like a a
• 12:14
  game of the week type of deal with 20 regular?
• 12:16
  Yeah, I don't know. I think we got more research to
• 12:18
  do on that. The Big 10 and SEC volleyball
• 12:21
  announced plans to play two matches at Wrigley Field next
• 12:25
  season in early September. That's cool.
• 12:27
  Yeah, that's be fun. Could be cold.
• 12:30
  Yeah, it could be very cold. Ever know?
• 12:32
  Tennis records continue to be broken the PWHL with almost
• 12:35
  16,000 fans at the Takeover Tour game in Detroit last weekend in
• 12:39
  March. Followed this last weekend with
• 12:41
  attendance records in both US 18,000 sold at MSG in New York
• 12:46
  City and Canada 17,775 in Ottawa.
• 12:51
  So yeah, that that Detroit game, right, was that first nationally
• 12:54
  televised game for the PWHL. And then the other thing that
• 12:59
  was really interesting that I read is that with some of these
• 13:03
  like bursts that have come post Olympics, the season over season
• 13:08
  average attendance is up 25%, right?
• 13:12
  They're getting almost more than 1000 more fans per game in, you
• 13:18
  know, across the league and, and more in some cases so.
• 13:22
  I wonder, I would love to see it before the Olympic, just to see
• 13:26
  how much of that was like purely Olympic bump or if it's gonna.
• 13:30
  Yeah. So I was, I don't know the exact
• 13:31
  numbers, but I was reading that prior to the Olympics they were
• 13:35
  seeing I think it was 17%. So it it was more than last
• 13:40
  year. But then they've they've had
• 13:41
  this kind of consistent trend upwards since the Olympics, so.
• 13:47
  In NCAA gymnastics, the national semifinal stage is set with
• 13:50
  UCLA, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Arkansas on one side of the
• 13:54
  bracket and LSU, Stanford, Florida and Georgia on the
• 13:58
  other. Yeah, so both of these meets are
• 14:03
  in a couple weeks from now, which I will definitely be
• 14:07
  watching. But UCLA and Minnesota sort of
• 14:10
  snuck in, like, I think their final gymnasts had to score.
• 14:16
  Jordan Chiles had to score a perfect 10 on her floor routine
• 14:19
  in order for them to make it. And.
• 14:21
  She did. She did, yeah.
• 14:22
  She hit her 8th 10 of the season.
• 14:27
  And just like love, there's like a video of her finishing and
• 14:31
  she's super stoked and she is like cheering and then she runs
• 14:36
  over to the Gopher gymnastics team to celebrate with them.
• 14:39
  Oh amazing. And then like all the UCLA ones
• 14:42
  come over. And so like big weekend for UCLA
• 14:44
  One sports, just like I love Jordan Chiles.
• 14:48
  Like everything about her sportsmanship, her performances
• 14:52
  just embodies what it's like to be a awesome female.
• 14:56
  Absolutely. NFL to launch men's and women's
• 14:59
  flag football leagues to harness the world light.
• 15:03
  Worldwide popularity. Yeah.
• 15:05
  So there's 20 million participants through youth men's
• 15:10
  and women's fight Football League variants around the world
• 15:15
  right now across 100 countries. So I think the NFL is looking at
• 15:19
  this saying this is a way for us to grow our game, right?
• 15:23
  The NFL, we don't think about it here in America, but like,
• 15:26
  because it's so dominant here, but it, it does not have the
• 15:31
  worldwide reach of soccer as an example, right, Or even
• 15:34
  basketball, right? And so it's interesting to see
• 15:39
  them something that's like in like so dominant here in the
• 15:43
  States, trying to grow its footprint and doing it through
• 15:46
  an avenue of like, let's expand for all people.
• 15:51
  You've got some big names and investors and, and, and
• 15:54
  supporters here, Tom Brady, the Manning brothers, but you've
• 15:58
  also got Serena, Alex Morgan, Billie Jean King, right.
• 16:03
  Kind of the I was writing this out.
• 16:05
  I was like the list of usual. Suspects.
• 16:07
  Yeah, usual suspects. And I love that too, because I,
• 16:10
  I love that, you know, you're kind of seeing that consistent,
• 16:13
  like here's how I'm going to give back now that I have, you
• 16:17
  know, made money in my sport and I retired so.
• 16:22
  Is is there a masters division and can I join?
• 16:25
  I I want to know, I think I need like, I need competitive sport
• 16:30
  back in my life. I was thinking about this today.
• 16:32
  I'm like that. 'D be great, play football, be
• 16:34
  great, I feel. Like, I could do it.
• 16:36
  I feel like I could do it, yeah. Right.
• 16:37
  Be great. We're looking into it.
• 16:40
  All right, moving on, NCAA women's basketball tournament,
• 16:46
  we're going to talk championship game, I think.
• 16:50
  Yeah, we'll start the championship game.
• 16:53
  We're talking a little bit about the Final Four too, 'cause I
• 16:56
  think it was just like a it was really.
• 17:01
  There's some fascinating dynamics from as far as the the
• 17:04
  teams went. Obviously, there was fascinating
• 17:07
  interpersonal dynamics, which we will comment on.
• 17:09
  We'll talk about that. But like we said in the
• 17:12
  headlines, UCLA just owned South Carolina.
• 17:17
  Honestly, I was, I was kind of surprised that South Carolina
• 17:23
  got blown out so badly. Now, remember, if you, you were
• 17:27
  paying attention last year, they also got blown out by UConn in
• 17:30
  the final. But this is a team that's won 3
• 17:34
  championships in the last seven years or whatever it is.
• 17:38
  This would have been their third in the last five.
• 17:41
  So they're, they're, they're no strangers to that pressure.
• 17:46
  I think they've been in the Final Four for the last six
• 17:49
  seasons or something like that. But UCLA typically known over
• 17:54
  the course of this season for their offense, right?
• 17:57
  They score a lot of points. They got a lot of scoring.
• 17:59
  We'll talk about that in a second.
• 18:01
  A lot of experienced players, they held South Carolina under
• 18:05
  30% shooting, which if you're not a basketball head, like
• 18:08
  that's that's not good. And and frankly early in the
• 18:14
  game I Alex probably heard me like yelling on the couch like
• 18:18
  they South Carolina could not get anything to go into the
• 18:21
  basket. Like it didn't matter if it was
• 18:23
  a layup like a, you know, wide open mid range jump shot, 3
• 18:27
  pointers, like didn't matter what it was.
• 18:29
  I think for a long time they had like one bucket and then like 2
• 18:32
  free throws and that was all. That was it.
• 18:36
  So that was, that's got to be frustrating.
• 18:38
  That actually was a storyline throughout the Final Four.
• 18:42
  Really low shooting percentages all around.
• 18:44
  Yes, for from teams that led the the the nation in shooting
• 18:49
  percentage. I had looked that up and
• 18:51
  actually of those four teams that that made at UCLA, Texas,
• 18:55
  UConn and South Carolina, they were in the top five for field
• 19:00
  goal percentage for the season. And so to see them all shoot
• 19:06
  about 20% lower, yeah, is pretty crazy.
• 19:11
  Yeah, I think there was some kind of social media
• 19:13
  conspiracies going around about rib sizes.
• 19:15
  Sizes and the balls and things like that.
• 19:18
  Yeah. But so UCLA held him in the
• 19:21
  shooting category. They out rebounded them by 10.
• 19:24
  Any again, any basketball heads gonna tell you that?
• 19:27
  Like if you can win the battle of the boards, make your free
• 19:31
  throws and then win the turnover battle, you will win.
• 19:35
  Yeah, right. Most likely, yeah.
• 19:37
  And then they had Speaking of turnovers, they had 19 points
• 19:41
  off of turnovers versus South Carolina's 10.
• 19:43
  So they they won that battle. They won the rebounding battle.
• 19:47
  They they won the three-point kind of contest to which that
• 19:51
  becomes kind of a multiplier when you're thinking about
• 19:54
  winning and losing basketball games.
• 19:56
  So like I said before, UCLA coming into the tournament.
• 20:00
  Known for their offense and really defense was the start of
• 20:04
  the show for them in the final four and into the championship
• 20:07
  that the whole thing is known as the final four even though
• 20:10
  there's. Two games, like something you
• 20:11
  said early on in that game was to get Tessa the ball.
• 20:14
  Yeah. And I think with the stat I read
• 20:16
  was like outside of her the starters shot 25%.
• 20:21
  Yeah, yeah, and and and Alex is referring to Tessa Johnson,
• 20:25
  who's a Minnesota girl here, went to Albertville High School
• 20:31
  and and has now junior down with Don Staley in the in the
• 20:35
  Gamecocks in South Carolina. Minnesotan also on the
• 20:39
  championship Bruins. So Gianna Neapkins from Duluth,
• 20:44
  MN, had started her college career at Utah, transferred into
• 20:50
  UCLA, was a senior this year. That girl had a like a fade away
• 20:56
  with a little kick out that I one of the most difficult shots
• 21:00
  in basketball, but she was draining in all game.
• 21:03
  I think she had like maybe 10 or 12 points or something like
• 21:06
  that. Maybe it was a little bit less,
• 21:07
  but I was so impressed with her. So cool to see, cool to see the
• 21:13
  state representing. I think at one point we had seen
• 21:15
  a graphic that in the suite of the teams in the Sweet 16.
• 21:19
  So going back, you know, a few weekends, this state with the
• 21:24
  most players. Was Minnesota.
• 21:26
  Sweet 16 was Minnesota, and like California and Florida were 11
• 21:30
  and Minnesota was 13. 13. So we produce some Ballers up
• 21:35
  here. We do what we do.
• 21:36
  Produce some Ballers. All right, Speaking of kind of
• 21:40
  that Final Four set, what I, I think, I think sometimes it can
• 21:46
  get sometimes I see fans or just critics maybe seem to find it
• 21:53
  boring when teams dominate, right?
• 21:59
  I don't find that boring because I think the test for teams that
• 22:02
  dominate is can you stay on top? And you become, we've talked
• 22:07
  about this with other teams, US women's national team, like
• 22:10
  UConn, We've talked about it before, like you have to bring
• 22:13
  everybody brings their best game to you, right?
• 22:16
  And so how do you adjust? How do you adapt?
• 22:19
  What was interesting about this year's Final Four, like 2 kind
• 22:22
  of fun facts that I found was this was the first time or the
• 22:28
  second time, excuse me, in a long time where the Final Four
• 22:32
  was the same back-to-back years. So last year you had the same
• 22:35
  Four we had, you know, Texas, UCLA, UConn and South Carolina
• 22:40
  again this year. And the other thing that was
• 22:43
  interesting was these four teams never left the top 4 all season.
• 22:49
  So they traded places outside of UConn.
• 22:52
  UConn was #1 the whole season, but the other three just kind of
• 22:55
  like rotated through two to four.
• 22:58
  And, and I think that's really a testament.
• 23:01
  They they all outside of South Carolina and Texas obviously
• 23:05
  play in the SEC together, but they'll play in different
• 23:09
  conferences. So it's really a testament to
• 23:14
  how good they are. Yeah, I was going to, I'm going
• 23:17
  to talk about this a little bit and get kind of some more
• 23:19
  questions from about this in in my section here.
• 23:22
  But is this like a how does it, how do teams get to that point,
• 23:29
  right? Is it like they have just a, a
• 23:32
  great team one year and the flywheel kind of starts and then
• 23:35
  it's it takes off? Or is it just you get a good
• 23:38
  coach in or you get a good couple players signed?
• 23:43
  Like what? How does a team get there and
• 23:45
  then stay there? Well, 'cause like how?
• 23:52
  How would a team break into this kind of top four, top five and
• 23:55
  and and breakthrough? Yeah.
• 23:57
  I mean, so if you look at that, that group of four, right,
• 24:01
  you've got Gino, who's been at UConn for over 40 years, right?
• 24:07
  Don's been at South Carolina for a long time now.
• 24:11
  I don't know exactly how long Victoria Schaeffer's been at
• 24:13
  Texas for probably as long as Gino's been at Yukon.
• 24:17
  And you've got Corey close, who I think this was her 15th
• 24:20
  season. And now, like you said before,
• 24:23
  UCLA hasn't maybe won the titles and actually Texas hasn't really
• 24:28
  either that the other two have. But I do think in the college
• 24:34
  game, there's there's a there's definitely a value in the known
• 24:42
  factor of the coach. Yeah, I think players choose to
• 24:46
  want to go be mentored under certain coaches.
• 24:50
  Kind of like a Nick Saban. Yeah, and and like how, how
• 24:53
  might this coach help potentially translate me into a
• 24:59
  professional career in this sport?
• 25:00
  And you look at Gino, he's turned out 25 WNBA players and
• 25:04
  like like successful, like the most successful WNBA players,
• 25:10
  Maya Moore, Diana Taurasi, Super Nafisa Kali or Brianna Stewart,
• 25:15
  like those are all his plays, right?
• 25:17
  Rebecca Lobo and and and Don Staley similar, right?
• 25:24
  So I think it I think it does have to do with the coach.
• 25:29
  I think the programs where there's, you know, more flux in
• 25:37
  that space, right? I mean we're seeing right now
• 25:40
  it's like 800 players have entered the transfer portal and
• 25:44
  and so and they're not from those schools.
• 25:48
  So I think, I think it's a good question.
• 25:51
  I think it's a little bit of it is.
• 25:53
  And then the NIL thing also starts to play in here.
• 25:58
  And I don't know enough about exactly how that works, right?
• 26:01
  But if your school is more marketable, you get more NIL
• 26:07
  money. And so I can see where players
• 26:10
  now see this as a way to make money while they're playing
• 26:14
  their sport in college. And so you're going to choose a
• 26:17
  school where there's, there's more financial incentive for
• 26:21
  you. So OK, sorry, I lost my I, I was
• 26:27
  pondering over here just thinking about it.
• 26:31
  So I wanted to talk a little bit about something that I thought
• 26:34
  was like fun, but I in the, in the broadcast around the final
• 26:39
  four, they had this like alt cast.
• 26:43
  So sometimes they do this with NFL games, right?
• 26:45
  They have the Manning cast and Eli and Peyton will have
• 26:47
  different guests on. And it's like, you know, ESPN 2
• 26:50
  is airing it while the the main commentary is happening on ESPN.
• 26:54
  Well, they did this I, I think even last year, maybe for a few
• 26:59
  years prior to this, they had, they had Sue Bird and Diana
• 27:01
  Taurasi did this and they brought in different people and
• 27:04
  they would be watching the game and commenting on the game, but
• 27:09
  kind of through their lens of experience and whatnot.
• 27:13
  And so they, they tried this this year with, they brought in
• 27:17
  just Sims who has done a bunch of different sports reporting
• 27:20
  and just come back to do women's college basketball this season.
• 27:25
  Very, you know, experienced reporter for, for women's
• 27:29
  college basketball. But then they brought in Ilona
• 27:33
  Maher and had her sit side by side with with Sims.
• 27:37
  And then during the final four, they had the stud Bud so
• 27:40
  Courtney Williams and Nateesha Heideman.
• 27:42
  And for the final, they the championship, they had the point
• 27:47
  God, Chelsea Gray and I saw they brought Charlemagne the God and
• 27:52
  to his big Gamecocks fan, I guess Irene.
• 27:55
  And when we were watching during the Final Four, I was like, OK,
• 27:58
  this is kind of cool. Well, first of all, they put it
• 28:00
  on at the bar we were at. We were like, what is that?
• 28:03
  And we need to get home and go watch that.
• 28:06
  And we're, we're big stud buds fans cause we've got T and and
• 28:10
  court here and with the Minnesota Lynx.
• 28:12
  But I thought it was, I thought it was cool.
• 28:16
  I was like, I commented to Alex. I was like, Hey, they're they're
• 28:20
  trying to capitalize on brand notoriety from people who are
• 28:27
  known maybe in like kind of other ecospheres, right, Stead
• 28:31
  buds. Not that like WNBA fans aren't
• 28:34
  women's college basketball fans. They are.
• 28:37
  But like Ilona Maher has millions and millions of
• 28:40
  followers following her kind of Olympic burst onto the scene.
• 28:44
  And it was, it was interesting right now what when I when I
• 28:49
  started to think about it more, I was like, it was cool.
• 28:52
  But I feel like ESPN missed an opportunity.
• 28:58
  So I don't, I don't recall seeing any kind of advertising
• 29:02
  that they were doing this. No, I didn't see that either.
• 29:04
  Right. Why would you not hype that up,
• 29:07
  right? So first of all, you, you have
• 29:09
  people who are followed, have huge followings.
• 29:12
  You could have easily gotten more viewers.
• 29:15
  It would have taken 1 post on Omaher's Instagram to bring
• 29:19
  millions of more people to the. So to me, I was like, that feels
• 29:22
  weird. The second thing was they had a
• 29:28
  real opportunity to maybe coach them a little bit more.
• 29:32
  There were moments when we were watching and they were just like
• 29:34
  silent, like they're just watching the game, like really
• 29:37
  engaged. I thought that T and Court did a
• 29:39
  really, I thought they did a good job, but I I heard we
• 29:42
  didn't watch the alt cast on the final, but I heard that it was
• 29:46
  kind of, it was like a little like weird.
• 29:49
  Weird. And I felt like it would have
• 29:51
  been so easy to have Alona play the, like, help me understand
• 29:56
  basketball role and like, ask questions and she'd have no
• 30:00
  issue. She doesn't seem to have any
• 30:01
  issue doing that, right? And have the basketball experts,
• 30:06
  they're kind of explaining like, what's going on.
• 30:09
  And that would have been really like educational, funny, like we
• 30:14
  were cracking up at court and tea.
• 30:16
  Yeah, they're like dancing, singing the songs.
• 30:18
  That was and they get it right. Like that's kind of their thing.
• 30:21
  And so I feel like they I just feel like they could have done a
• 30:25
  little bit better, like production coaching on that and
• 30:30
  they really, really fumble by not like making a bigger deal
• 30:35
  out of it. I.
• 30:37
  Almost wonder if it was like last minute or the other.
• 30:41
  The other thing that came to my head was like, is there some
• 30:42
  sort of weird? This is on ESPN 2.
• 30:46
  So the the the ad revenue is different accounts different.
• 30:51
  So they actually want to push more viewers towards a certain I
• 30:55
  don't know, it's some weird. I don't know why.
• 30:57
  I don't know why they why they don't advertise that.
• 31:00
  Yeah, it just seemed, it just seemed it seemed weird on on
• 31:03
  hindsight. Like I liked it as an idea and I
• 31:05
  thought it was smart at 1st and it was smart.
• 31:07
  It's just like we'd missed on a few of the execution pieces.
• 31:12
  And like when we're trying to, the whole point is right, Like
• 31:15
  we're trying to bring more people into the fold.
• 31:18
  We want more people watching and we want more people like getting
• 31:22
  excited about the athletes, the sport, whatever it is or even
• 31:26
  the people who are talking about it.
• 31:27
  Yeah, and I think, I'm sorry, I was gonna say I think it's smart
• 31:31
  going into it next time is having somebody who is not a
• 31:33
  basketball fan whatsoever to come in and say what was that?
• 31:37
  How does that work, 'cause if you have a whole bunch of people
• 31:42
  that you're bringing from your social media filing or from
• 31:44
  whatever sport you play to say, oh, this is a new sport for me
• 31:47
  too, I don't really know what's going on.
• 31:49
  And then the announcer just gets to explain the whole thing and
• 31:52
  explain where it's going. Right.
• 31:54
  Yeah. So anyways, that was that was
• 31:56
  one of the things just like unrelated to the basketball that
• 31:59
  I thought was a was was an interesting thing.
• 32:03
  Yeah, I, I, I mean, I think what I wanted to kind of talk about
• 32:05
  and then we're going to talk about it a lot more in depth so
• 32:08
  we don't have to get too deep here.
• 32:09
  But was just the UCLA at WNBA pipeline.
• 32:14
  All five of those started. I think there's five UCLA team
• 32:18
  members that are expected to go first round.
• 32:21
  Bats. Neepkins, Rice, Ledger, Watkins.
• 32:26
  I have Walker and Jacques, Jacques, Jacques, Jacques.
• 32:32
  And so I think it's, yeah, I think it's interesting.
• 32:36
  They have yakkas, probably. Yeah, Yakkas I.
• 32:39
  Think it's interesting they have 5-5 people going straight into
• 32:43
  the WNBA draft, like they're done last week.
• 32:45
  Next week they're probably going to be drafted in the first round
• 32:49
  and I think that's wild. I think from my research, it's
• 32:54
  kind of what Yukon has been doing and all these years is
• 32:56
  like build a team, win and like rebuild, kind of like going back
• 33:00
  to like that flywheel we talked about a little bit or like the
• 33:03
  coach. And so I think more what I
• 33:06
  wanted to get to here is it's going to be interesting to see
• 33:08
  if Corey close is able to continue to get people in.
• 33:14
  And kind of wondering, is it easier now with how the transfer
• 33:17
  portal is so prevalent to get newer, newer players in that are
• 33:23
  going to be able to potentially keep them on the top?
• 33:27
  It's a good question. A couple comments before I get
• 33:33
  to my my response to that. I think so. 1 is what UCLA had
• 33:41
  this season was extremely unique because of transfer portals and
• 33:49
  things like that. You do not hardly ever see 5
• 33:56
  starting seniors, let alone 5 starting seniors that are going
• 34:01
  to go first round in the WNBA draft.
• 34:04
  I actually was, I should look that up because I'm kind of
• 34:06
  like, I don't know if that's, I don't, I don't even think Gino's
• 34:10
  turned that out. So going to that, you know, you
• 34:12
  used Yukon as the, the comparison is Yukon always has
• 34:19
  a, you know, a class, right? Like they keep the, you know, in
• 34:24
  Becker's year last year, you had like Caitlin Chen coming out
• 34:28
  that year and like, so she went to play in the WNBA, things like
• 34:30
  that. But he always has like one or
• 34:34
  two players that he's structuring that next season
• 34:37
  around. And so he's always got one or
• 34:40
  two players leaving and then he's bringing in the next ones.
• 34:43
  And he's just kind of in this like, Wave.
• 34:45
  You actually saw Don Staley in the championship game, bringing
• 34:49
  in younger talent to that game when she kind of knew it was a
• 34:53
  lost cause because she wants to get them that experience so that
• 34:59
  when they're there next time, they're like, they kind of get
• 35:01
  what's going on right? And they're not like deer in the
• 35:03
  headlights. Corey close is I think it is
• 35:08
  going to be harder at UCLA because you had such dominance
• 35:13
  from the senior class who decided to stay.
• 35:15
  And like, kudos to them who decided to stay because a lot of
• 35:18
  times this day and age, seniors will just transfer their last
• 35:22
  year to go somewhere they think they can win a championship.
• 35:26
  And they all committed to one another and said, if we stay,
• 35:29
  there's a lot of stories out there about this right now,
• 35:31
  right? We stay here, we might achieve
• 35:33
  something uncommon together, right?
• 35:36
  And so I, I do think that team will be something worth watching
• 35:40
  next year. Now, just through the
• 35:44
  tournament, I've learned a lot more about Coach Close's
• 35:48
  philosophy and her approach to coaching.
• 35:50
  And she seems like somebody who, and, and they've been good in
• 35:55
  the time that she's been there. She's grown that program year
• 35:58
  over year. And so I think that's her next
• 36:02
  test, right? Can she?
• 36:04
  Can she get there again or can she bring in the right talent to
• 36:08
  get there again? Yeah, and, and, and you also
• 36:10
  have to acknowledge too with UCLA is like they they had a
• 36:15
  singular talent in Lauren Betts. And I say that as singular
• 36:21
  because she's freaking 67. 6-7 like nobody on the Spotify saw
• 36:28
  that. So that's right.
• 36:30
  I didn't just do what our kids do all day.
• 36:32
  And so she is unique in that regard.
• 36:35
  Like there are things that a 6-7 player can do that, you know,
• 36:40
  you bring in all the six, four players in the world, they're
• 36:42
  not going to be able to do that. So it's worth watching.
• 36:45
  It's a really good question. I, I, again, kudos to that
• 36:48
  senior class. They were phenomenal.
• 36:51
  Yeah, throughout the tournament. I I was so impressed.
• 36:55
  Yeah, I think the best quote I think at the the trophy
• 36:58
  celebration was it was the Jack as Jack as she said.
• 37:02
  I think she was asked somebody the fact of what did you guys
• 37:05
  decide to do different or what did you decide to do as a team?
• 37:09
  And she said we decided to win a national championship.
• 37:12
  And it's like, there you go, there you go, there you go.
• 37:16
  But yeah, OK, let's let's move on.
• 37:19
  We got to keep moving Here we have.
• 37:21
  Oh, well, I'm sorry. Oh, you're.
• 37:22
  Going to bring another one in. Well, I would be remiss if we
• 37:29
  did. Oh, we do have to talk about it,
• 37:30
  yes. What?
• 37:31
  Happened between Dino and Don. Yes, we do.
• 37:35
  We've had time, obviously to sit on this and think about it was
• 37:37
  funny. We were watching that game at a
• 37:39
  sports bar, so we had no audio on the game, but we saw it
• 37:44
  happen. We were like, that was weird.
• 37:46
  And then they brought on the I should have talked about this,
• 37:50
  but like the the actual broadcast team of Christine
• 37:54
  Williams, Drea Carter and Shinea Gumuke are they're fantastic.
• 38:00
  That's like our favorite part of women's college basketball, is
• 38:03
  it? Or WNBA, when they do that is
• 38:05
  like those women on the desk. But I'm we're watching this is
• 38:10
  this happened and Yukon is lost and blah, blah, blah.
• 38:14
  And I'm like, I'm like, Alex, look at Shinea.
• 38:18
  Yeah, like. She is.
• 38:20
  She's upset. Mad, like her eyes are angry.
• 38:25
  And so then we get, we're trying to like figure out like.
• 38:28
  What is Instagram and Threads like?
• 38:29
  What is happening? So first of all, it tells you
• 38:32
  like that didn't that wasn't expected from Gino.
• 38:38
  Now maybe it should have been. He is he does not have a
• 38:46
  pristine track record for his behavior.
• 38:48
  And I think I was reading a lot over the weekend about how Page
• 38:53
  over the last four years that she was at UConn really kind of
• 38:56
  softened how he was perceived. But I remember growing up, and
• 39:03
  my dad can vouch for this, that like, I didn't really have a lot
• 39:07
  of respect for how he coached. He kind of came across as more
• 39:11
  transactional, little bit of a hard ass, like just not a style
• 39:15
  that I think is the most effective, especially when
• 39:17
  you're working with young people, any people, but young
• 39:21
  people in particular. Nobody's successful, right?
• 39:24
  And and they can't argue with that.
• 39:27
  But I also think that we use that as an excuse for some of
• 39:31
  the less than ideal behavior. And what we saw on Friday was
• 39:39
  it, it was, I don't even know what the right word is like
• 39:46
  inexcusable, frankly, the way that he came at Don.
• 39:51
  I mean it was a tantrum that he threw based on a MBS premise to
• 39:55
  begin with. Like it didn't didn't really
• 39:58
  make sense. What?
• 39:59
  Yeah, yes, and and and the other.
• 40:02
  He was mad that he lost. Yes.
• 40:05
  But decided to make it about something else so he could throw
• 40:08
  the tantrum like it. It felt so, yeah, wrong.
• 40:12
  It and it and it. And there's been a lot of
• 40:15
  speculation, you know, was he trying to like, do it take the
• 40:19
  pressure or the media attention away from his players who just
• 40:22
  played arguably one of the worst games of their careers?
• 40:27
  I don't think that that's a reason to treat somebody poorly.
• 40:31
  Don't. Do it.
• 40:32
  Yeah, Don. Yeah, Don.
• 40:33
  They had a terrible game. Don didn't do it.
• 40:35
  Don, Don did not do it. And Don, you know, reacted in
• 40:41
  the moment, which I, I don't think you can blame somebody for
• 40:45
  for that. But then she has frankly handled
• 40:50
  herself with extreme professionalism in class.
• 40:53
  And frankly, we've talked about this here on the podcast before.
• 40:57
  But like, she has to, she doesn't have another option
• 41:03
  because if she does comport herself in a way that Gino did
• 41:08
  or if she reacted, she would get a lot more nastiness than he has
• 41:15
  and it's disappointing to see people kind of dismissing his
• 41:22
  behavior. Well she is literally it before
• 41:26
  our eyes being held to a completely different standard
• 41:29
  than he is. One of the things I thought
• 41:33
  about with this, though, is like if you're so pissed off about
• 41:36
  her, like skipping out on this handshake was was that in his
• 41:42
  head the whole game? Yeah, and and and he because
• 41:46
  what's interesting is if you watch the game like Gino got out
• 41:52
  coached. Yeah.
• 41:53
  Like Don executed her game plan and made adjustments.
• 41:58
  When you and you can see like really good coaches, you can
• 42:02
  kind of tell like, OK, they're going to make a defensive switch
• 42:05
  here. They're bringing this sub on,
• 42:07
  you know, she's converting and like she's in hurry or whatever.
• 42:10
  He got out coached and it it actually made me wonder like,
• 42:14
  was he like so pissed off about this handshake?
• 42:17
  And like, what does that say about your resolve and like your
• 42:21
  ability to kind of like deal with the things you can control
• 42:25
  and let the uncontrollables go? Like, I don't know.
• 42:28
  Well, and the other thing is it was it that or was it, was there
• 42:31
  some other news that he got that was so terrible?
• 42:34
  Completely not related to basketball.
• 42:36
  But at that point you either play the game and act like a
• 42:39
  real freaking person or you excuse yourself and don't go to
• 42:43
  the game. Like if it was the handshake,
• 42:46
  that's insane 'cause that's, that's insane to me.
• 42:50
  If it was something else, then you should have done something
• 42:52
  else, like figured out how to get around that.
• 42:55
  Yeah, I think the last thing I'll say on this is it's it's
• 43:03
  really disappointing for a player like Arizona Fudd, who is
• 43:12
  had a phenomenal college career, was at UConn for five years.
• 43:18
  She just lost the biggest game of her life.
• 43:21
  And her. And her coach walked off the
• 43:23
  court and wasn't even there to like support her or her
• 43:29
  teammates. And that to me is like, it's
• 43:36
  just like the, the layer on top of how he went at dawn.
• 43:42
  That is really disappointing. And and I said this to you, we,
• 43:45
  we had a lot of really good dialogue in our household about
• 43:49
  gender dynamics and racial dynamics and things about what
• 43:53
  was going on here. And I think for me, you know,
• 43:59
  you've got a leader, black, white, male, female, doesn't
• 44:04
  matter. But who is in a position of
• 44:09
  power? Who in the moment where they are
• 44:13
  needed to leverage that power the most to lead?
• 44:21
  He failed. Yep.
• 44:23
  Similar to your point and and I just think that that's and it's
• 44:27
  so disappointing, yeah, when somebody that you trust to lead
• 44:33
  you, yeah, just misses the moment.
• 44:38
  Yeah, absolutely. So do better.
• 44:41
  Do you know? I feel like the one, the one
• 44:43
  upside after the whole everything was the championship
• 44:45
  was over was kind of very close from UCLA was mentored by John
• 44:50
  Wooden, which yeah, kind of the opposite, very much, very much
• 44:54
  the opposite of Gino, but extremely successful, right.
• 44:58
  And so just seeing someone mentored by him and having that
• 45:01
  same type of leadership style, yeah, actually came out on top.
• 45:05
  Yeah, agree. Agree.
• 45:07
  OK, that's enough with. That now we're moving on.
• 45:10
  Now we're moving on. WNBA expansion draft.
• 45:14
  Oh, it's on. Free agency.
• 45:17
  Everything. Yeah, so we let's get into this
• 45:21
  quick here. We had the expansion draft over
• 45:24
  the weekend. I'm going to be honest, my whole
• 45:26
  thought on the whole the thing was like, this could have been
• 45:28
  an e-mail. Yeah, this is underwhelming.
• 45:30
  The broadcast was silly. It wasn't like a pick pick back
• 45:34
  and forth. It was like this team picked
• 45:36
  this person, this team picked this person.
• 45:38
  Oh, and here's the rest of the rest.
• 45:40
  Yeah, it didn't. It didn't have a draft feel to
• 45:44
  it. So I feel like they could have
• 45:45
  done better with that. Basically the results of that.
• 45:49
  We've got our two expansion teams, the Portland Fire and the
• 45:52
  Toronto Tempo. Portland Fire had the first
• 45:55
  pick. They took Bridget Carlton of our
• 45:58
  Minnesota Lynx Seas here. We're sad to see ABC go, but,
• 46:04
  you know, that could be a that could be a good career move for
• 46:06
  her. Yeah.
• 46:07
  See a team built around her versus her being, you know, kind
• 46:11
  of a fifth wheel. Everyone thought she was going
• 46:12
  tempo. Well, I think, I think they did
• 46:17
  because she's Canadian and I think that Portland with that
• 46:20
  first pick was like, we have to pick her, otherwise they're
• 46:22
  going to take her. But the fire ended up with BC
• 46:27
  shook Sutton from the Washington Mystics and then really had to
• 46:31
  my eye more youth, like kind of less experienced players.
• 46:36
  And then the Toronto tempo. I was shocked by this, but got
• 46:40
  Marina Mabry from the Connecticut Sun.
• 46:43
  Now I was reading that Mabry I think had expressed interest in
• 46:47
  leaving. So there's maybe there maybe was
• 46:49
  almost like a mutual decision to not protect her and let kind of
• 46:53
  let her go. But they ended up with more what
• 46:57
  looked like more vets, more experience.
• 47:00
  They both have a pick in the first round of the WMBA draft,
• 47:04
  so it'll be interesting to see who they pull.
• 47:07
  But let's just get us caught up here on the.
• 47:09
  Can I ask one quick question? So I think from my research, the
• 47:14
  the Valkyrie actually did kind of the more veteran expansion
• 47:18
  draft when they came in and they went 500 in their first year.
• 47:23
  Which do you think is better in this shortened season?
• 47:26
  A youthful, more useful, youthful team or a more veteran
• 47:30
  stacked team? Well, I don't think the season
• 47:34
  is shorter, is it? Well, the compressed.
• 47:37
  Lead up to the season and. Normally this expansion draft.
• 47:40
  Experience pressure, Yeah, there because you got players who have
• 47:43
  been in camp before and like, understand kind of how it rolls
• 47:47
  now. You're also, you know, these
• 47:49
  players have gotten drafted. They didn't know they were
• 47:51
  getting drafted. They now have to move, you know,
• 47:54
  to wherever they're going to. And it could be far for some of
• 47:57
  them, but I think I would take experience if you want results
• 48:02
  right away. Yeah, I would take experience if
• 48:06
  you're playing the long game, which, yeah, you might be right.
• 48:09
  You you build on the youth and you build a team and and that
• 48:12
  sort of thing. So.
• 48:14
  All right, our free agency timeline, we are now buck wild
• 48:18
  for the rest of the week here on, you know, glued to my
• 48:22
  threads, WNBA threads, whatever they call.
• 48:27
  Me what I guess. Thread qualifying offer so free
• 48:31
  agency opened today. We already mentioned Angel Reese
• 48:34
  was treated to the Atlanta dream for like a couple first round
• 48:38
  picks over the next few years, which I think shows how to me
• 48:42
  shows how little Chicago actually valued her or
• 48:46
  something. I don't know.
• 48:47
  That was always off it. Was always a weird.
• 48:48
  It was always off. So yeah, starting today through
• 48:53
  through Wednesday release date of this podcast, qualifying
• 48:56
  offers are due. The core designations can be
• 49:00
  made on players. We'll get into that at a
• 49:02
  different time. And then negotiations begin
• 49:05
  midweek to the end of the week. So this is when those offers get
• 49:08
  made to the players, then they're going to negotiate and
• 49:11
  then they can start signing contracts basically on Saturday
• 49:16
  and then you've got the WNBA draft on the 13th.
• 49:19
  So you've got to imagine the teams need to have their rosters
• 49:22
  kind of sorted. Mostly figured out.
• 49:25
  By the 13th so that they know who they need to go pick and
• 49:29
  then training camp start or pre season, excuse me, training camp
• 49:34
  starts on April 19th. So that's couple weeks, yeah,
• 49:38
  just a couple weeks. And then the regular season tips
• 49:41
  off on May, right. So Speaking of that draft coming
• 49:47
  up a week from today, it'll actually be happening probably
• 49:50
  while we're recording. Yeah, we'll maybe get to watch a
• 49:54
  little bit of the first round before this.
• 49:57
  We've got our first round draft order and it's pretty
• 50:00
  interesting. We were talking about this
• 50:02
  before, but you've got like a blend of like teams that made
• 50:05
  the playoffs and their teams that absolutely did not make the
• 50:07
  playoffs. So you've got the Dallas Wings
• 50:10
  with the first pick. They were 10 and 30.
• 50:12
  Yeah, they were not great last year.
• 50:14
  They were not great last year. They were 10 and 34 finished at
• 50:18
  last in the league. We'll talk about kind of where
• 50:22
  who we think is going to get picked there.
• 50:24
  You got them followed by Minnesota, which is the flip
• 50:27
  side of 34 and 10. And you said you were kind of
• 50:31
  looking into like how I was like, how on earth did they get
• 50:34
  a second pole? Like meme slide of like how we
• 50:37
  got here and it was kind of crazy.
• 50:39
  Was it an agreement? Like was it from last season or
• 50:42
  was it from a couple seasons ago?
• 50:43
  Part of it was giving up a pick for Angel Reese's spot.
• 50:47
  That Angel Reese's been a couple, yeah.
• 50:49
  Yeah. It's like it's been a couple
• 50:51
  years that this happened. So like, which is, I mean, we'll
• 50:55
  take it. Yeah, Seattle follows the links.
• 50:59
  They were in the playoffs last year.
• 51:00
  Washington, Chicago also 10 and 34, but I think on a tie break
• 51:05
  or something beat out the the Wings for the last place team.
• 51:09
  Then you've got that followed following Toronto and Portland
• 51:12
  with their picks. So you're still in like the top
• 51:15
  ten there. Yep, top 7 or so.
• 51:18
  And then Golden State, last year's expansion team, who also
• 51:21
  made the playoffs, followed by Washington again.
• 51:25
  And then Indiana, who made the playoffs, followed by Washington
• 51:29
  again. So Washington gets three first
• 51:31
  round picks, Connecticut, Sun, Atlanta and then Seattle again
• 51:36
  and then Connecticut again. So, you know, you got a couple
• 51:39
  picks for a few teams. Seattle, Connecticut,
• 51:42
  Washington, Mystics all get multiple picks in that first
• 51:45
  round, which is kind of silly. It's like, how does Dallas just
• 51:50
  get one? But they're probably going to
• 51:53
  get a good one. So the top kind of comparing
• 51:57
  that you have the top 15 draft prospects right now and we've
• 52:01
  got a mix of internationals and then obviously those college
• 52:05
  players, as Alex mentioned before, of these 15 top picks,
• 52:09
  five of them are UCLA players. So 1/3 of this pool is coming
• 52:15
  out of that national championship team.
• 52:17
  So we've got how a fam center from Spain, she just played Team
• 52:22
  USA at the invitation of Puerto Rico a couple weeks ago.
• 52:27
  She had a good showing against them.
• 52:28
  She's 19. That's one thing you'll notice
• 52:31
  about these international stars coming out.
• 52:34
  They are, they're teenagers. I think if they weren't, they'd
• 52:38
  go to college here somewhere, right?
• 52:40
  And so she's 19 years old. Izzy Fudd, guard from Yukon.
• 52:46
  Olivia Miles, guard from TCU. We saw her in the tournament.
• 52:50
  Now we've got Lauren Betts and Kiki Rice from UCLA, Raven
• 52:54
  Johnson from South Carolina, and then Nell and Gloma from France.
• 53:00
  Forward, 19 years old again. Gianna Neapkins, who we've
• 53:03
  talked about already from UCLA, Flage Johnson from LSU,
• 53:10
  Gabriella Yakuz from UCLA, Hakuz, it's Anaya Latson from
• 53:16
  South Carolina, Iyana Martin from Spain.
• 53:20
  Spain is churning out some good talent over there, it seems
• 53:24
  Charlize Ledger Walker from UCLA and then Cody McMahon from Ole
• 53:31
  Miss was the 15th one in there. So we were looking at this and
• 53:37
  we were kind of talking before the episode today, like, you
• 53:42
  know, who do you think Minnesota is going to be?
• 53:44
  Honestly, we care about the links, but.
• 53:45
  Everyone's saying Olivia. Yeah.
• 53:47
  Olivia Miles. Yeah, I'm.
• 53:49
  So confused. It seems like that's what they
• 53:52
  want. Like that's what they're
• 53:53
  projecting to me. You know, Alex and I talked
• 53:55
  about this a bit like I said, off off camera, off mic, but to
• 54:00
  me that doesn't make sense. I would be kind of surprised if
• 54:03
  they took her over an AZ FUD. To be clear, it's looking like
• 54:07
  our fam is going to go first to the wings.
• 54:10
  She seems like a good fit for them.
• 54:14
  It could yeah. I don't I don't Lauren Betts
• 54:20
  draft stock went way up right for sure.
• 54:23
  And so it's possible that, you know, maybe they would take if
• 54:29
  you're looking for a big right, which fam's a big maybe.
• 54:36
  But if I had, I think if thinking about it more, if I had
• 54:38
  to rank who Minnesota is going to take it #2 is probably AZ
• 54:43
  one. If if not then bets, if not then
• 54:47
  miles. That would be my guess.
• 54:55
  I would bet it on AZ. That's what I think.
• 55:00
  Yeah, I just, so what's interesting, we didn't go into
• 55:06
  like a ton of detail on, there's another Lynx player who we lost
• 55:10
  in the expansion draft, Maria Kalundakova, and she was our big
• 55:14
  essentially like our center. So to me it's like they lost, we
• 55:20
  lost our best 3 point shooter. Lazy Fudd is a phenomenal 3
• 55:24
  point shooter and we lost our only like, you know, 65 pluser,
• 55:31
  right? And so to me, it could go either
• 55:34
  way. I'm curious the calculus and we
• 55:41
  were we also were joking earlier, like we realized we
• 55:42
  don't have to make these decisions.
• 55:45
  The calculus on, you know, what gives you better matchups
• 55:52
  against other teams. You know, we talked about Lauren
• 55:56
  Betts being kind of singular, one of one with that height.
• 56:00
  You have some other guards and Williams and Heideman.
• 56:03
  Now, whether or not they are still on the team, this is the
• 56:06
  other thing is that we don't have all the variables because
• 56:10
  we're, you know, we're still. In What's going on right?
• 56:13
  Now so we shall see I. Think, I think the other thing
• 56:16
  that I saw is the interesting thing will be in the season is
• 56:20
  to see how Dallas and Alafam work out.
• 56:24
  My understanding is that she's a little bit inconsistent from my
• 56:29
  research. And also there is it's kind of
• 56:34
  like one of those high risk, high reward type of scenarios.
• 56:37
  My understanding is she hasn't really had a lot of elite adult
• 56:42
  play or a lot of high volume stats there.
• 56:44
  So you're you're kind of going off of just what she's done so
• 56:47
  far against not WNBA elite players yet, right?
• 56:51
  So. And it does make you wonder,
• 56:54
  like, would the Wings want somebody who is more a little
• 56:58
  like, no offense, but she's 19 years old, right?
• 57:02
  So it's kind of like a little bit older, not that much older,
• 57:05
  but like a little bit older. And, and, and then again, it's
• 57:09
  like, what's your play? Is it long?
• 57:11
  Like they kind of need help now. They can't really wait for
• 57:15
  somebody to like incubate and like figure it out.
• 57:18
  So I, I just one more thing on this and then we can move on to
• 57:22
  your storyline. Like I honestly wouldn't be
• 57:26
  surprised to see Gabriella Hawkins go higher.
• 57:31
  She, she had a great tournament and kind of prove that she can
• 57:34
  play. She's got a motor on her.
• 57:38
  I think the question is a question for a lot of these
• 57:41
  players too, right? You've got a outside of miles
• 57:48
  Raven Johnson here in like the top 10 on flage.
• 57:53
  You've got teams that aren't in the S or players that didn't
• 57:59
  play in the SEC. The SEC is known for more kind
• 58:03
  of a style of play that's more akin to the West than the big
• 58:08
  Easter, big 10. And so I do kind of wonder too
• 58:13
  if like that transferable skill of, of playing a little bit more
• 58:17
  in that style where it's just it is more you got to be strong,
• 58:22
  right? So.
• 58:24
  We'll see. We'll see how it goes.
• 58:26
  Let's talk about this Connecticut Sun moving to the
• 58:30
  Houston Comets. So we're not, I'm not going to
• 58:36
  go into detail on the whole timeline here, but I'm going to
• 58:39
  try and get as much of it right as we can and then we'll get to
• 58:44
  why here in a second. The Mohegan Tribe put the sun up
• 58:48
  for sale in 2024. I think you were talking, do you
• 58:53
  remember the original? I think it was like 250.
• 58:57
  They put it they wanted out or it was valued at like 240 or
• 59:00
  something like that. Anyways, the Celtics minority
• 59:04
  owner offered three, 125 million to move them to Boston.
• 59:07
  I think we also said $100 million practice facility.
• 59:11
  Yeah. There was also a former
• 59:14
  Milwaukee Bucks owner that offered three 25 to keep them
• 59:18
  somewhere in New England. Most likely Hartford.
• 59:23
  I think yes. And then the now it comes out
• 59:28
  that the league facilitated the sale to the I'm going to try my
• 59:33
  best, please don't cancel me for Tita family for $300 million,
• 59:39
  which is $25 million less to move them to Houston.
• 59:45
  And fans were all over social media going, what in the
• 59:50
  collusion is this like? So we were, I mean, we were, we
• 59:54
  were talking about a little bit earlier and we we found out that
• 59:59
  it was a thing where the league just said we want to go to
• 1:00:01
  Houston, the team's going to Houston.
• 1:00:04
  It doesn't matter what what you have to offer us at this point.
• 1:00:07
  Yeah, it's so weird. Like we, we smelled this right
• 1:00:12
  away. We're like, this smells weird
• 1:00:17
  because like, especially if you take it in like juxtaposition
• 1:00:20
  with the CBA negotiations. Sketchy the numbers have always
• 1:00:24
  been. Well, and just like the money,
• 1:00:26
  like, it seems odd that they would take less money.
• 1:00:30
  So there's something there. And what I was reading, and I
• 1:00:33
  told you this earlier, but it seems like Adam Silver inserted
• 1:00:39
  himself. So Adam Silver is the
• 1:00:40
  commissioner of the NBA. He's Kathy Engelbert, the WNBA
• 1:00:45
  commissioner's boss. He seems to have inserted
• 1:00:49
  himself late stages of this fall of last year and basically said
• 1:00:56
  we are moving this to Houston. We want to ensure that NBA
• 1:01:04
  ownership is a part of. Just muddy the financial
• 1:01:09
  picture. WNBA even more.
• 1:01:11
  And yes, if you recall the way that the league is split up
• 1:01:15
  right now, it's like 42% NBA, 42% WNBA owners.
• 1:01:19
  And then there's a 16% stake. That's all by outside
• 1:01:22
  investment, which is actually in some cases the same people.
• 1:01:25
  The same people. And so there's, there's
• 1:01:29
  something about the like inbreeding that, for lack of a
• 1:01:33
  better word that's going on there, that they wanted to get
• 1:01:37
  it out of the hands of the Mohegan tribe.
• 1:01:40
  And I was reading even that the state of Connecticut offered to
• 1:01:44
  put a stake in with the Mohegan tribe to keep it in Connecticut.
• 1:01:48
  And that was obviously turned down.
• 1:01:51
  I, I said that a little bit earlier, but I think there's
• 1:01:54
  more to it now that I've, I've thought a little more on it is
• 1:01:56
  like, I do believe that certain private businesses should be
• 1:02:02
  able to do the things that they want to do.
• 1:02:05
  But in situations like this where it's being offered
• 1:02:10
  25,000,000 more dollars and you say, no, I'd like it.
• 1:02:14
  Really there should be some sort of antitrust.
• 1:02:16
  Just like when people decide, companies decide to merge,
• 1:02:20
  there's antitrust like has to get approved by the government.
• 1:02:23
  I think there's got to be a little bit more oversight into
• 1:02:25
  something like this or I feel like, you know, this could open
• 1:02:30
  the NBA up to some sort of audit potentially.
• 1:02:32
  Which we've already talked about could be possible with the like
• 1:02:35
  the CBA stuff. So it'll be interesting to to
• 1:02:39
  follow that storyline. I know fans are, like I said in
• 1:02:42
  the headlines, that's that franchise has been around for 23
• 1:02:46
  years. Like, that's kind of gut
• 1:02:49
  wrenching. But also also think about the
• 1:02:51
  fans potentially in Boston, potentially in Hartford that
• 1:02:54
  were like 325 in Boston and $100 million.
• 1:02:57
  We've got this in the bag. And then yeah, feels like it's
• 1:03:00
  pulled out from under you, like. Yeah, that sucks.
• 1:03:03
  It does suck, all right. We're moving on here.
• 1:03:07
  Moving on. We got some round UPS here.
• 1:03:11
  US women's national team, we've got three games over the next
• 1:03:15
  week and 1/2. Yeah, this is this is big.
• 1:03:19
  Honestly, these are the three friendlies against Japan.
• 1:03:25
  Japan's just coming off of winning the Asia Federation or
• 1:03:30
  football championships. Excuse me, Asian federation puts
• 1:03:34
  that on. And they have been just in such
• 1:03:38
  good form. They they beat the US last year.
• 1:03:41
  It was Emma Hayes first loss as US head coach and just I, I
• 1:03:49
  talked about them and one of the first times we talked about
• 1:03:51
  international soccer, like their style of play is so disciplined
• 1:03:56
  and so technical. They're so patient.
• 1:04:01
  They're so willing to just hold their position and wait for you
• 1:04:06
  to make a mistake like a Venus flytrap or something.
• 1:04:09
  I don't. Remember what the I didn't write
• 1:04:10
  the stat down. What was their goal differential
• 1:04:13
  in that Asian Cup? It was.
• 1:04:15
  O289 to one, yeah. 29 to one yeah, which is something like
• 1:04:21
  that it like they didn't allow they allowed the one goal but
• 1:04:24
  they were scoring which is the crazy part for Japan that's not
• 1:04:28
  usually their MO so these are going to be great tests.
• 1:04:32
  I think the thing that I I'm excited about is this roster has
• 1:04:39
  tightened since she believes right.
• 1:04:42
  And we're going to we're this is about as close as I think we're
• 1:04:46
  kidding to what we're going to see for qualifying.
• 1:04:50
  There's a few players still out on injury or so you've got
• 1:04:54
  Katherine Macario just signed with the San Diego wave coming
• 1:04:57
  off of a heel injury. You've got Mal Swanson hopefully
• 1:05:00
  working her way back. She has been practicing with the
• 1:05:04
  Chicago red stars. So, you know, and there's still
• 1:05:09
  some questions defensively, but like outside of that, like I
• 1:05:12
  think I think we're seeing more or less what Emma Hayes is
• 1:05:17
  expecting for World Cup qualifying and to play a team
• 1:05:23
  three games in a row, same team with your group that like this
• 1:05:28
  is a real. I'm going to be so locked in to
• 1:05:31
  watch the different line UPS she chooses, the different formation
• 1:05:37
  she might play with those lineups and then the just a
• 1:05:40
  different strategic approaches because Japan doesn't.
• 1:05:45
  Now this will be interesting to watch for Japan.
• 1:05:47
  Japan does not usually vary their tactic, right?
• 1:05:51
  Their tactic. They have a style that's very
• 1:05:53
  unique to them. And so I'm, I'm curious to see
• 1:05:56
  how Emma approaches that over the course of of three.
• 1:06:01
  I think my, that was kind of LED right into my question was I
• 1:06:05
  think Emma had said she's not motivated by necessarily winning
• 1:06:09
  these games, but kind of more figuring out what that those
• 1:06:13
  different, where those different pieces are going to go.
• 1:06:16
  And so like, how does the casual fan kind of what do they watch
• 1:06:19
  for in this type of game? I think along with that, the
• 1:06:24
  other stat I saw was 37.4 average caps on this team versus
• 1:06:30
  6.6 average in January. So she's she's not experimenting
• 1:06:35
  anymore, but she's experimenting a little bit like with other
• 1:06:39
  things. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:40
  And there's still there's still some, there's still some
• 1:06:44
  experimenting from the the player perspective.
• 1:06:47
  But I do think it is more about, I think it's building a little
• 1:06:52
  bit on some of the she believes stuff.
• 1:06:53
  So some of the things she talked about, what she believes was you
• 1:06:56
  played some really physical teams, some teams that are they
• 1:07:00
  want to get under your skin in Argentina and Colombia.
• 1:07:03
  And I think she's going to be looking in this game of like,
• 1:07:07
  can we outpatient the patient? People.
• 1:07:11
  Right. Can we hold our positions and
• 1:07:14
  our formation and not force and make sure that we're getting
• 1:07:17
  good balls in against a really kind of a low block, which is
• 1:07:24
  what Japan typically plays? I, I, what I'm hopeful to see.
• 1:07:30
  And I think something that I, I have to imagine she's hopeful to
• 1:07:33
  see is can we score goals? We haven't really been putting
• 1:07:37
  on a show from a goal scoring front since those early
• 1:07:40
  friendlies in the year. And so now with this group, it's
• 1:07:43
  sort of like, can I find that combination that has the
• 1:07:46
  creativity and the freedom to move around the pitch and
• 1:07:50
  generate scoring opportunities? Defensively, I'm not super
• 1:07:57
  worried. I would say that that left back
• 1:07:59
  position continues to kind of be like, oh, what are we doing
• 1:08:02
  here? And then I also think we saw we
• 1:08:05
  talked about this was she believes.
• 1:08:06
  But like the US women's national team with the current roster is
• 1:08:11
  best at least against the the teams.
• 1:08:15
  I don't know if this will be true against Japan, but when we
• 1:08:18
  have that true six, that true, like yeah, coffee playing that
• 1:08:22
  defensive center midfielder so. Yeah, I think from from my side
• 1:08:28
  of things, I just wanted to point out Sofs back.
• 1:08:32
  So Jesus, mom hasn't played for 17 months with the US women's
• 1:08:37
  national team. So excited.
• 1:08:39
  I'm just like stat dumping essentially here.
• 1:08:41
  She will be the 18th mother to play for the US women's national
• 1:08:44
  team and if she scores the 9th to score a goal, Emma Hayes
• 1:08:50
  said. I couldn't believe she's had a
• 1:08:52
  baby and come back to perform at that level.
• 1:08:54
  Speaking about for most recent I think.
• 1:08:56
  NFS games she's been starting last couple games for the Thorns
• 1:09:01
  and just almost dare I say like looking in a weird way like
• 1:09:09
  better like hungrier. I don't know She she's had I've
• 1:09:12
  listened to a few interviews with her and she's she's got
• 1:09:15
  like a freedom to Alex Morgan had this too, coming back of
• 1:09:19
  like I'm not my whole identity is not soccer now.
• 1:09:23
  Yeah, right. My my primary identity is, is
• 1:09:27
  mom and and somehow that like lifts a weight from a
• 1:09:31
  performance perspective for these really, really high
• 1:09:33
  performing athletes. So.
• 1:09:35
  My question was specifically for you.
• 1:09:38
  I have two questions and maybe it's the first ones, maybe a
• 1:09:42
  little bit for male listeners, speak to how impressive it is
• 1:09:46
  for her to come back after having a child in September of
• 1:09:49
  last year. I'd seen crazy.
• 1:09:52
  I I think some people who may be younger haven't had kids yet,
• 1:09:56
  probably think 6-8 months, whatever it's been not that big
• 1:10:01
  of a deal, but it doesn't work like that.
• 1:10:04
  No, I mean the thing to think about is like you think of other
• 1:10:11
  big injuries, ACL tear, right? I'll use that as an example that
• 1:10:16
  has a I don't know this day and age, 7 to 9 months, 10 months, 8
• 1:10:23
  to 10, whatever. I don't know something.
• 1:10:25
  Like that you used to be like 13.
• 1:10:26
  To 16 yeah, used to be you were done for a year right and when
• 1:10:31
  that happens and you think about the importance of the knee in
• 1:10:36
  most sports, right you now have like a very specific relatively
• 1:10:45
  speaking, like protocol, therapeutic protocol you're
• 1:10:47
  going to follow. And if you do it right, you can
• 1:10:52
  still train like the rest of your body in certain, right.
• 1:11:00
  Pregnancy is like changes everything in your body.
• 1:11:06
  So you literally have just spent nine months, like rearranging
• 1:11:10
  your insides. Your hormones are still, I mean,
• 1:11:13
  six months postpartum, like her hormones are still, yeah,
• 1:11:17
  through the roof doing well. They're doing different things,
• 1:11:19
  right. They're not at their kind of
• 1:11:21
  normal baseline and stuff like that.
• 1:11:23
  And depending on if she breastfed, if she's still doing
• 1:11:27
  that or whatever, like that's a whole other, you know, factor or
• 1:11:29
  consideration for for her. You obviously can get on to
• 1:11:33
  hormonal therapy therapies and and maybe that was a choice that
• 1:11:36
  was the right one for her too. That kind of helped balance that
• 1:11:39
  out. But you think of the importance
• 1:11:43
  it go back to the ACL, like the importance of the knee in these
• 1:11:46
  sports, we do not pay enough attention to the importance of
• 1:11:53
  your core. We take that for granted a lot.
• 1:11:57
  Everybody who has ever tweaked their back before knows that you
• 1:12:00
  take for granted that your back functions most of the time,
• 1:12:03
  right? And then all of a sudden you
• 1:12:05
  tweak it and you can hardly walk.
• 1:12:07
  Well, think about like that. But like the whole, you know,
• 1:12:10
  abdominals, pelvis, right hips, etcetera, all of this stuff.
• 1:12:15
  And so it's just like a this day and age, you probably do have
• 1:12:26
  better access to support staff, physical therapy, regular, you
• 1:12:32
  know, pelvic floor training. Like that's a big thing.
• 1:12:34
  Like that is not even talked about to women right now.
• 1:12:39
  And like as an athlete, you need your your pelvic floor as part
• 1:12:43
  of your core, right? Like you need these things.
• 1:12:45
  And so like she, she has more potential or like these women
• 1:12:49
  have more potential to come back and, and be in a a good position
• 1:12:53
  to compete at the levels that they were at before or, or at a
• 1:12:56
  high level. But it is impressive, super
• 1:13:01
  impressive. Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:13:03
  Yeah, I think it's everyone should be given round of
• 1:13:07
  applause to all the moms out there who come back and compete
• 1:13:11
  at any level. Yeah, frankly, I'm going to join
• 1:13:13
  flag football, apparently. Yeah.
• 1:13:14
  There you go. Here we go.
• 1:13:15
  OK, let's move on to NWSL. Let's take a look at the
• 1:13:21
  standings. Yeah.
• 1:13:22
  So I think just coming on the heels of discussing the national
• 1:13:25
  team, we're headed now into an international break.
• 1:13:28
  So that started on Sunday. It's two weeks.
• 1:13:31
  You've got, you know, teams playing as they tune up for
• 1:13:34
  World Cup or there's qualifiers going on.
• 1:13:37
  We've kind of talked about that schedule before.
• 1:13:40
  What we're curious about is how does this impact the current
• 1:13:44
  momentum in the NWSL? So right now we have some some
• 1:13:49
  some teams at the top of the standings that like we frankly
• 1:13:52
  weren't expecting to see there. So leading, yes, leading the
• 1:13:57
  league at as we hit the brake here or the San Diego Wave,
• 1:14:01
  which if you had asked me that even like Alex switching his hat
• 1:14:06
  for those on the pod to his San Diego Wave hat, if you had even
• 1:14:12
  asked me like 2 weeks to go that they'd be here, I would have
• 1:14:15
  said no. I think we even talked about on
• 1:14:17
  this podcast that they like. But then you think about the
• 1:14:21
  pieces that they've kind of pulled together and like we were
• 1:14:24
  watching the other night and Mel Barsanas's goal, the goal of the
• 1:14:28
  week in the NWSL last two weeks ago now.
• 1:14:32
  Beautiful. And they've got Kat Macario
• 1:14:34
  waiting in the wings once the WSL season is done.
• 1:14:38
  So San Diego at the top of the table, 12 points, 4:00 and 1:00.
• 1:14:43
  You got followed by Portland. They've been in form.
• 1:14:45
  They've looked good. You know, they won a game with
• 1:14:49
  nine people on the field. Somehow they just lost to the
• 1:14:54
  North Carolina Courage over the weekend.
• 1:14:56
  Olivia Moultrie has had a fantastic season to start.
• 1:15:00
  Standing right now, the. Youngest player to 20 goals in
• 1:15:03
  net of USL history, but sitting on 10 points, 31 and 1, followed
• 1:15:08
  by the Seattle rain. Who you know, they're, they've
• 1:15:11
  been kind of like, I'm not really sure what their identity
• 1:15:14
  is going to be. I did just see for them.
• 1:15:17
  Their goalkeeper, Claudia Dickey, who's been in the US
• 1:15:20
  national team rotation, just passed Hope Solo.
• 1:15:23
  For. All time career saves for the
• 1:15:26
  rain, so that's cool. Also on 10 points, 31 and 1
• 1:15:30
  followed by LA Angel City FC, they came out hot, they won
• 1:15:37
  their first three games and now they've they've lost 1, so
• 1:15:40
  they've played less games. This international break also
• 1:15:43
  makes the games played a little bit goofy, but they have the
• 1:15:47
  highest scoring differential. They've been scoring a lot of
• 1:15:51
  goals and then the rounding out the top five, we've got the
• 1:15:54
  Houston Dash, which is also not a team I expected to see in this
• 1:15:58
  grouping here, but they're hanging tight, similar to LA
• 1:16:02
  with 9 points, 31 and O so. Oh no, Gotham, what is your
• 1:16:08
  twoing way down there? Yeah, Gotham, Gotham and Kansas
• 1:16:12
  City and Washington are all you know outside of that.
• 1:16:17
  Yeah, but you've got Denver hanging in there in the middle
• 1:16:23
  of the pack at #9 and then the poor bosses.
• 1:16:26
  Don't know who they are yet. On and on.
• 1:16:28
  I don't know if they've scored a goal yet, but for Chicago, every
• 1:16:33
  time we turn Chicago on, oh, yeah, we're like, oh, you guys,
• 1:16:37
  uncle's gonna quit. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:16:40
  Which is a listener. He just knows.
• 1:16:41
  Who don't know. Looks upset.
• 1:16:42
  She's always like hands on her hips, like what is happening
• 1:16:45
  here? So we're, we'll be, we'll be
• 1:16:48
  very curious once they resume play post break here kind of
• 1:16:53
  beginning of May, they'll be back in the swing of things to
• 1:16:56
  see how that momentum may shift or can these teams maintain what
• 1:17:00
  they've built on here in the early season.
• 1:17:03
  And they get a full month of play, then a whole nother month
• 1:17:06
  off. Yeah, for the World Cup, right.
• 1:17:08
  So I think in that window they might be doing the Champions Cup
• 1:17:14
  or whatever the hell that thing is.
• 1:17:16
  The bubble cup? Was that the bubble cup or?
• 1:17:18
  Was that the bat? It was in the bubble, but they
• 1:17:21
  call it something. Yeah, they have a different name
• 1:17:22
  we should know. This we are, but we don't.
• 1:17:26
  So anyways, I think that's this is gonna be an interesting
• 1:17:31
  season, yeah, for the NWSL with those breaks.
• 1:17:33
  Those different breaks, yeah. All right.
• 1:17:35
  To move into what to watch, Yeah.
• 1:17:37
  Let's talk about what to watch here.
• 1:17:39
  I mean, we've already talked about it.
• 1:17:40
  The the national team games one and two, game one on the 11th at
• 1:17:45
  4:30 central and Game 2 on April 14th next Tuesday at 6:00 PM
• 1:17:52
  Central. Those are on TNT, Max Peacock.
• 1:17:58
  But yeah, we had, we discussed, you know, Sophia Wilson, Tierna
• 1:18:00
  Davidson and yeah, here's that STAT 29 and one Japan outscored
• 1:18:05
  their opponents at the Asian Cup.
• 1:18:06
  So these are going to be fun games to watch.
• 1:18:09
  It'll be interesting to see if they test our defense with that
• 1:18:12
  level of scoring. They don't usually, but I mean
• 1:18:16
  they do. It's not that they don't score,
• 1:18:18
  but I'll, I don't know. I will be very curious.
• 1:18:20
  We'll see what happens. League we didn't talk about
• 1:18:22
  today PWHL we've got the Boston fleet versus the Montreal
• 1:18:26
  Victois Saturday at six central on ion or clash of the Titans
• 1:18:32
  this is top of the table TD Garden debut they're playing at
• 1:18:35
  the garden so we'll see how see how that goes I.
• 1:18:39
  Wonder what the capacity is there.
• 1:18:41
  Do you think they can beat the I?
• 1:18:42
  Think it's less OK? I think it is.
• 1:18:44
  They're just looking for a shot, a sellout.
• 1:18:46
  Sorry. Maybe a shout out too.
• 1:18:48
  There is playoff seating. On the Lions there, so home,
• 1:18:52
  home ice advantage exactly which we really want to get as.
• 1:18:56
  Yeah, and I'm going to talk about next Minnesota frost
• 1:18:59
  versus New York sirens Saturday at noon on FanDuel Sports N PWHL
• 1:19:04
  YouTube. We did clinch Minnesota clinch
• 1:19:07
  earlier this week, last week. In a thrilling 11 goal game
• 1:19:13
  that. Was that was wild.
• 1:19:15
  Holy buckets chasing home ice advantage as well.
• 1:19:19
  Also, Kelly Panic is one point from tying the single season
• 1:19:23
  scoring record. Kelly Panic is a machine.
• 1:19:25
  She's did she score three goals in that game like this or
• 1:19:27
  something? She had some defrost by
• 1:19:31
  themselves though, like they have so many scoring weapons.
• 1:19:36
  It's kind of scary. I I think like her and Heisey
• 1:19:40
  and and curl or something are all or maybe Zumwinkle at this
• 1:19:45
  point. I don't even, I can't even keep
• 1:19:46
  track are like leading the league.
• 1:19:48
  And then you've got Coyne Schofield who just got back from
• 1:19:52
  LTIR who like somehow had so many points that she's still in
• 1:19:57
  the top like 8 or something even though she was out for like 6
• 1:20:01
  weeks so or whatever it was. Just a quick talk about the New
• 1:20:06
  York Sirens. Here they are when you're
• 1:20:09
  looking at that fourth playoff spot, they are in 3rd place for
• 1:20:12
  the fourth playoff spot. So they have to hope that Ottawa
• 1:20:19
  and Toronto who both play each other by kind of split and they
• 1:20:25
  have to beat us this game. They have to hope that Ottawa
• 1:20:28
  and Toronto lose to. They have no control over their
• 1:20:31
  situation right now. They could just can do the best
• 1:20:35
  that they can do. About the only one that controls
• 1:20:37
  their destiny right now is Toronto.
• 1:20:39
  If they can kind of playing those two Ottawa games and
• 1:20:42
  against New York, then they're kind of gold.
• 1:20:44
  So that's kind of where that fourth spot sits.
• 1:20:47
  It's going to be pretty tight there.
• 1:20:49
  To finish and we didn't even mention we're going to the game
• 1:20:52
  on Saturday. Saturday, there we go.
• 1:20:54
  We'll be there in the house. You'll.
• 1:20:56
  Know what our favorite thing is? Grand Casino Arena still sounds
• 1:21:01
  weird. We talked about it earlier, the
• 1:21:03
  WNBA draft. This is Monday the 13th, 6:00 PM
• 1:21:07
  on Central on ESPN. Yeah, we talked about all the
• 1:21:11
  picks. I don't think we have to go into
• 1:21:13
  Nope anymore. Why you should watch that?
• 1:21:18
  WNFC are women's. National Football.
• 1:21:20
  Conference Week 3 matchups starting at 6:00 PM Central on
• 1:21:25
  Victory Plus on Saturday. Yeah, early days and that so
• 1:21:29
  standings are kind of a little bit arbitrary at this point.
• 1:21:33
  Check it out. It's fun to watch.
• 1:21:36
  I'll be honest, you don't realize that they're actually
• 1:21:39
  women until you kind of look at some of the mannerisms that
• 1:21:42
  like, it's very interesting because you're like, oh, this is
• 1:21:44
  another football game. Like it's yeah, because of the
• 1:21:47
  pads and stuff, so. I will say they could use.
• 1:21:50
  I would recommend if they want to keep viewership growing they
• 1:21:55
  could use some production investments.
• 1:21:58
  Yes, yes. Well, I think that is what that
• 1:22:00
  we talked about. That billion dollar, whatever it
• 1:22:02
  is, they need it, yeah. We also have LOVB.
• 1:22:07
  Playoffs are here. Wow, we got a lot here.
• 1:22:10
  We have Austin playing Atlanta at 3:00 PM and Salt Lake plays
• 1:22:15
  Houston at 5:30 on Victory Plus. And then what looks like we got
• 1:22:19
  some ESPN 2. On Saturday, Austin plays
• 1:22:22
  Atlanta again at 5:00 PM and a nationally broadcast volleyball
• 1:22:26
  game. On Sunday, Salt Lake plays
• 1:22:28
  Houston at 1:00 PM. Yeah, so it must.
• 1:22:31
  I didn't. I didn't under They Must Play 2.
• 1:22:34
  Yeah. Or they already played a third.
• 1:22:37
  I'm kind of like, I don't know how this works because if you do
• 1:22:40
  a tie I, there's there's a championship match scheduled for
• 1:22:45
  next Thursday from what I could see.
• 1:22:47
  So we'll talk more about it maybe next week in our what to
• 1:22:50
  watch. But wanted to bring attention
• 1:22:53
  back to that they've they've had some some good viewership
• 1:22:56
  numbers over the season with that game of the week and or
• 1:22:58
  match of the week. So.
• 1:23:00
  I think there was a, there was a quote by Holly Rowe that said I
• 1:23:02
  was after covering for however many years she's been covering
• 1:23:05
  women's sports, she thinks it's the next big thing, so.
• 1:23:08
  Big thing, you heard it from the sports siren herself.
• 1:23:12
  All right, let's get into these winners and losers and kind of
• 1:23:16
  wrap this out. All right, Losers, losers.
• 1:23:19
  Losers first. Gino Ariema for the loss this
• 1:23:24
  past week. Absolutely.
• 1:23:26
  Self-explanatory. Yeah, I I do have a different 1.
• 1:23:29
  I don't know if you wanted to say anymore.
• 1:23:31
  Nope, I said what I needed to. Say also do better white men.
• 1:23:34
  We we don't claim, we don't claim him.
• 1:23:37
  Not all of us. I was going to say the state of
• 1:23:41
  Connecticut. Oh yeah, that's.
• 1:23:43
  Lost their WNBA franchise. UConn lost in the Final Four.
• 1:23:48
  Gino. We don't even know what's going
• 1:23:50
  on. Right now I was going to say,
• 1:23:51
  should I run out quick and look at her TV and see if the men's
• 1:23:53
  team lost? Gino kind of embarrassed the the
• 1:23:56
  school there. Everyone didn't go well.
• 1:23:59
  Yeah, that was a bad week. A couple weeks there, a couple
• 1:24:02
  weeks winner. Let's see UCLA, man, just like I
• 1:24:10
  said before, like learning more about the story that the of
• 1:24:14
  those seniors getting to that point, Corey Close's journey and
• 1:24:17
  like her, the mentors. Showing the camera my nose.
• 1:24:20
  She's literally sealing the exact winner I had.
• 1:24:24
  I take it away. The the the mentors that she's,
• 1:24:28
  you know, benefited from, Alex mentioned she was mentored by
• 1:24:31
  John Wooden before his passing. Don Staley's has mentored her
• 1:24:36
  among many others I think I loved.
• 1:24:39
  I posted this actually a repost on our stories today of her
• 1:24:42
  giving a little speech. It looked like potentially the
• 1:24:44
  Angel City FC actually, where she was talking about how she
• 1:24:51
  keeps a broom and a shovel in her office.
• 1:24:54
  And they're reminders to her that the broom is a reminder to
• 1:24:58
  be a servant leader, that you do The Dirty work.
• 1:25:01
  It doesn't matter what your rank or whatever is.
• 1:25:04
  And then the shovel is a reminder that the most important
• 1:25:08
  work that you do when you're growing something is
• 1:25:11
  underground. It's the roots.
• 1:25:13
  It's not the prettiest stuff that you see on top.
• 1:25:16
  It's building those deep directions.
• 1:25:20
  And I love that she's really embodied this approach of like,
• 1:25:23
  I want to coach in a way that is empathetic and caring and my
• 1:25:30
  players feel like they I care about them and that I am not
• 1:25:35
  transactional that I am and truly transformational.
• 1:25:38
  So that's got to be my. I think the only ones I would
• 1:25:41
  add to that was the we're going to learn how to pronounce this.
• 1:25:44
  Yeah, yeah. Aquez Aquez going off while her
• 1:25:49
  brother who plays in the NBA was there.
• 1:25:53
  But that's that's yes, she has sister who's on the team.
• 1:25:57
  They they got to win a national championship together, which is
• 1:26:00
  which is fun. And then, yeah, like I said, a
• 1:26:03
  lot of these girls are just going to go get drafted by the
• 1:26:05
  WNBA in a. Week and you're off so cool.
• 1:26:09
  So yeah, shout out to the Bruins.
• 1:26:11
  You're not who I picked, but I am glad you won yes actually,
• 1:26:15
  because I don't think I would want my pick to win now after
• 1:26:18
  shenanigans on the weekend. All right, all right, folks.
• 1:26:23
  That's it for now. That's all for this week.
• 1:26:25
  We will have plenty to talk about next week.
• 1:26:30
  Where can they find us? RTG under score pod on Instagram
• 1:26:33
  and threads and YouTube sub stack, RTG pod.com.
• 1:26:41
  Think that's all of them that we have for now.
• 1:26:43
  For now, until next time. Yes, until next time.
• 1:26:46
  Bye. Bye.