Episode 27 - All-Star Snubs, an Officiating Firestorm, and NWSL's Big Return

Back From Break: Catching Up on the Week

Caitlin: Hi, I’m Caitlin.

Alex: Hi, I’m Alex. And this is Raising the Game, a women’s sports podcast covering primetime performers, the business behind the athletes in the leagues, and what the growth of women’s sports means for the next generation of women’s athletes.

We’re back from a bit of a vacation away.

Caitlin: Forgot how to do this.

Alex: Yeah, it feels like that was weeks ago that we recorded our kind of in-between episode there, but we hope you enjoyed a little bit diving back into the history of some of our women’s sports trailblazers.

Caitlin: Yeah, listening back to it a little bit today, for me it was a fascinating discussion, to be honest. And I think we hope to do a few more like that as we progress through.

However, there is a ton of sports news that we missed in the week that we were out, with all the different leagues, the Cup going on, Wimbledon going on, all kinds of things. We’ll probably just scratch the surface on some of those here today.

Alex: Yeah, do we want to jump right into favorite thing here?

Caitlin: Yeah, let’s get into it. My big one is NWSL is back. It does feel like there’s been a lot of football attention on the World Cup, but it was nice to see some games this weekend for the women’s league. Also just really exciting player movement over the break, with some international stars coming over, some leaving as well. I’m excited to get that rolling again because I think we had really fun momentum into the World Cup break, and now let’s see what happens.

Alex: Yeah, we’ll see. I think there was a lot of excitement even from some of your relatives over our little vacation there around football in general, not necessarily women’s football, but hopefully that translates into some more additional eyes on the NWSL.

Caitlin: For sure. I’ve seen a whole bunch of posts on social media of people saying, hey, I’m getting into this because of the World Cup, where should I go watch? And resoundingly, there’s always responses like ours pointing to NWSL, WSL, go watch women’s football, that’s where it’s at.

Alex: Absolutely. My favorite thing was not sports related. I had a lot of fun watching the girls just swim all day over a little trip. Our oldest just loved getting out of the water and jumping back in.

Caitlin: Yeah, she found her courage jumping off the dock.

Alex: And then our youngest would put on a life jacket and found out she could just float straight up, and it basically looked like she was riding an invisible bike, kind of kept going and could slowly get places. That seemed like a lot of fun for her.

Caitlin: The confidence that built for her in the water, and we have a video too of, you want to take it down like an athlete vibe a little bit, the positive self-talk, where she jumped off the dock with her life jacket on for the first time, not to an adult. She’s like, I got this.

Alex: She’s like, all right guys, I’m gonna do this.

Caitlin: I’m gonna do this.

Alex: Yeah, that was great. All right, let’s hit these headlines.

Quick Hits: WNBA, NCAA, and Ownership News

Caitlin: All right, we have a few, we’re going to just bop through, Alex and I’ll go back and forth on some WNBA headlines. Most of our content today is going to be WNBA topics, but these are just a few highlights from the last week. You want to kick us off?

Alex: Yeah, New York Liberty take the Commissioner’s Cup over Las Vegas.

Caitlin: Dominique Malonga of the Seattle Storm became the youngest player in WNBA history with a 30-plus point game, with a 37-point career high last week. Very nice.

Alex: Paige Bueckers becomes the fastest player to reach 1,000 points and 250 assists in WNBA history.

Caitlin: Following that, Olivia Miles becomes the fastest player in league history to reach 300 points and 100-plus assists, one game faster than both Bueckers and Caitlin Clark. Competition here.

Alex: Marina Mabrey ties a league record for points in a game, dropping 53 points on the Los Angeles Sparks.

Caitlin: Yeah, when Marina wants to go off from three, she goes off.

Alex: We saw this in Unrivaled as we spoke about earlier this year.

Dallas Wings unveil first look at their 70,000-plus square foot practice facility opening in April 2027.

Caitlin: We may need to put out a matrix graphic of all the different training facilities happening right now.

Alex: We could do almost a whole episode talking about this boom of new training facilities since we started doing this in January.

Napheesa Collier voted WNBPA first vice president by the player representatives. She’ll serve a three-year term.

Caitlin: Yeah, so she replaces Kelsey Plum, who was in that role previously. Nneka Ogwumike, for those keeping score, Madam President, was re-elected to her presidential post. And wrapping us up, Teresa Weatherspoon and Cynthia Cooper are named the All-Star game GMs and they will pick the teams.

Alex: This is interesting. We’re gonna talk about All-Star teams today. Normally the top two vote getters become captains and pick the teams. We talked about that a couple episodes ago. This year, because of the 30th anniversary, they chose to do it a little bit differently.

Moving on, NCAA D1 athletes will be automatically granted five years of eligibility with new age-based eligibility, which eliminates redshirts and waivers.

Caitlin: This is another one where I feel like we could open a total can of worms, but the intent is really to limit the number of athletes in college sports beyond five years and into their mid-20s.

Alex: There’s a significant advantage from a physiological perspective if you’re playing against mid-20s-aged men and women versus 18-year-olds.

Caitlin: So they’re trying to eliminate that. The eligibility clock starts when the athlete enrolls in college, or the academic year following their 19th birthday. So you can take a gap year, but it starts automatically. The latest you could delay it is the academic year after you turn 19. So you will not see any Division I players over the age of 24.

Alex: Yeah. All right.

Caitlin: So I think it’s a good move. It’s interesting, and there’s no redshirts or waivers anymore. You’re just done once that window closes.

Alex: I think the thing you said at the beginning is really interesting. I remember in football in high school, going up against an 18-year-old as a 15-year-old was insane, terrifying. Imagine being a 26-year-old going up against an 18 or 19-year-old.

Caitlin: Yeah, not great.

Alex: Michele Kang officially becomes the sole majority shareholder of Olympique Lyonnais, adding to her ownership portfolio with London City Lionesses and Washington Spirit.

Caitlin: This is interesting though, because the UEFA Champions League has a rule that if you own two teams, they cannot compete in the same tournament.

Alex: Interesting.

Caitlin: We’ll have to go look that up, but I feel like, how do you navigate this if London City ever needed to play Lyon in the UEFA Women’s Champions League?

Alex: Marie-Philippe Poulin will undergo surgery on her right knee from an ACL and meniscus tear sustained during the 2026 Winter Olympics and the PWHL championship run.

Caitlin: Yeah, I’m going to save my thoughts on this. I think we’ll talk about it as we hear more about her surgery and her recovery, but best wishes to MPP. We hope for a solid recovery for her.

Alex: Alexia Putellas makes it official, she’ll join London City despite late-stage talks to come to the NWSL.

Caitlin: London City signed a ton of high-level talent, and they’re a promoted team to the WSL. We just talked about Michele Kang putting a lot of money into that club. It’s gonna be interesting to watch them, because they way overperformed for where they were at in that league this past season, and now they’re just adding superstars.

Alex: Serena loses in her return to singles competition to Maya Joint, tweaks her knee, forces withdrawal from doubles competition with sister Venus.

Caitlin: Yeah, this was gonna be my other favorite thing, just watching Serena play tennis again. I got to sit with my future sister-in-law who loves tennis, plays tennis, and watched that match. There were moments where you were like, it’s there, but you could definitely tell she’s got some rust to shake off, that she is more mature, as we like to say. I definitely don’t think she’s done, and my bold prediction for Serena is we are gonna see her in singles at the US Open in September.

Alex: Clock it.

Caitlin: Clock it.

Alex: Naomi Osaka defeats Aryna Sabalenka in straight sets, advances to the quarterfinals.

Caitlin: Yeah, this was a little bit shocking. I think she beat Sabalenka 6-2 in the opening set, and then it went to a 7-6 tiebreak in the second set. But this is Sabalenka’s second straight early exit from a major tournament, she lost to Schneider at Roland Garros, the French Open. The other interesting note here, Coco Gauff advances to the quarterfinals as well, for the first time at Wimbledon she had to win her match ahead of curfew, otherwise it’s paused and you pick it up the next day, which can totally swing momentum. She got the winning point two minutes before the 11 p.m. curfew.

She had this quote where she said, I am so glad that I did not play a timed sport, normally I don’t like that pressure.

Alex: Yeah. Gotham FC win the Challenge Cup as NWSL returns to action.

Caitlin: Yeah, we’ll talk a little bit more about some of the other games that happened. This was sort of the kickoff back into NWSL, against Kansas City Current. They have another big event coming up this weekend, the Queens Classic against Washington Spirit, played at Citi Field in Queens. They’ve already sold 30,000 tickets, which will set a record for a women’s sports event in NYC.

Alex: Wow. At the Prefontaine Classic, US Olympian Nikki Hiltz beats Faith Kipyegon of Kenya in the 1500 meter with a time of 4:17.49.

Caitlin: So first of all, let’s all just process that they were running a mile in four minutes and 17 seconds.

Alex: Just shy of a mile there.

Caitlin: That’s like my quarter mile.

Alex: Yeah, exactly.

Caitlin: This was just cool, they do this around the 4th of July time period. It was fun to see Hiltz beating, I think I read Faith Kipyegon hasn’t lost this race in like five years, this Prefontaine 1500 meter. Big win for Nikki Hiltz.

Two more for me that I added last minute. The Edmonton Oilers of the NHL invited Abbey Murphy, this past season’s draft second overall pick in the 2026 PWHL draft, to their development camp.

Alex: We just talked about Anne Myers last week and the Pacers, this is obviously a different scenario, but I saw some footage and they’re holding their own.

Caitlin: They were scoring goals, pushing people around. As a side note, Kramer and Primorano are slated to be high draft picks in 2028.

Alex: So they’re still in college right now.

Caitlin: And then my last one here, this is pretty big, kind of a landscape-changing thing. Starting with this last Milano Cortina Olympics, all Olympic athletes will be entitled to a $10,000 grant from the IOC. So no longer are these athletes completely uncompensated for competing. They must pass a drug test six months post-competition.

Alex: And this goes to all athletes, not just medal winners.

Caitlin: But they don’t get that payout unless they are clear.

Alex: Yeah, exactly.

All-Star Voting Breakdown

All right, jump into our WNBA section. Usually our call sheets are like a whole page, this is really short, but don’t let it deceive you, we have a lot here that we are going to talk about.

Caitlin: What Alex isn’t showing our video watchers is the two extra sheets of tables of stats that we have today, and all of my highlighting happening here. So we’re going to start talking through the All-Star starters. The vote, we’ll talk a little bit about the voting process and the scoring process and how that works, and then we’re gonna talk about stats and our opinions on some of the votes and the ways that went.

So do you want to walk us through a little bit of how the voting works?

Alex: Yeah, so basically you have a couple of rounds of voting, the fan vote, the media vote, and the player vote, and the fan vote is weighted at 50%.

Caitlin: Yes, we’re rolling our eyes here right now.

Alex: And then media and players split at 25% each. So we get four starting guards and six starting front court players. Everyone, fans obviously vote, they get two votes a day, sometimes it’s doubled.

Caitlin: There’s all kinds of ways that you can really bolster your voting.

Alex: And the players each get four for the guards, six for the front court to spend, same with the media.

Should we go over who got it, or do you want to?

Caitlin: Yeah, let’s talk through each of these in turn. I’m gonna go through the starters, and then we’ll round that out with the remaining players.

Alex: Before we jump into that, the reserve players will be announced the day after we record this, the day before you hear this. So we don’t quite know who those are, and they are selected by coaches. They get one ballot to select three guards, five front court, and four of any position.

Caitlin: Okay. So from the guards’ perspective, the starting guards in the WNBA 2026 All-Star game will be Paige Bueckers, Olivia Miles, Caitlin Clark, and Kelsey Mitchell. So you’ve got a rookie in Olivia Miles.

Alex: She’s the only rookie starting.

Caitlin: Last year’s Rookie of the Year, Bueckers, the year before that’s Rookie of the Year in Caitlin Clark, and then old dog Kelsey Mitchell rounding out our guards.

We have Rhyne Howard and Allisha Gray of the Atlanta Dream, Kelsey Plum of the Los Angeles Sparks, Sonia Citron of the Washington Mystics, Marina Mabrey of the Toronto Tempo, Azzi Fudd of the Dallas Wings, and Jackie Young of the Las Vegas Aces.

Alex: And this is all in order of their weighted score.

Caitlin: Yes, I just read that straight in order. We’ll talk about what their weighted scores are and maybe some of the differences there.

From a front court perspective, Alex mentioned this already, but you get more players for front court typically, these first six. So you would start two guards and three front court players. The number one scored front court player is A’ja Wilson, no surprise to anybody. Breanna Stewart follows her, Jessica Shepard of the Dallas Wings, Aliyah Boston of the Indiana Fever, Gabby Williams of the Golden State Valkyries, and Natasha Howard of the Minnesota Lynx.

Since we’re keeping score, the 2023 Rookie of the Year is in this group.

Alex: Yeah, and I’m just manifesting that Liv is going to get 2026 Rookie of the Year, although the Azzi fans will come at me.

Caitlin: They will.

And then once we move into the remaining players, we have Angel Reese of the Atlanta Dream, Nneka Ogwumike of the Los Angeles Sparks, Kiki Iriafen of the Washington Mystics, and Dominique Malonga of the Seattle Storm.

These are the players, as Alex mentioned, that were voted most by the fans and then the players and the media. They take all of those votes, create a weighted score based on the 50-25-25 you just described, and say, okay, these are the top 22 players or so total.

Alex: What do we want to talk about here? There’s a lot of different elephants in this room.

Caitlin: A ton of elephants in this room. Okay, I’ll start with this. If you look at this sheet, what was really published and shared around was just a view of the fan rank, the media rank, and the player rank, and the weighted score. What I noticed when I was looking through this is that if you look at the front court players, it is relatively in line, nobody’s really off, aside from Aliyah Boston, who got the number one fan rank and then she’s eighth from a player rank. Everybody else is within a point or two across all three rankings.

So generally speaking, it felt like from a front court perspective, the fans, the media, and the players all kind of agree on these.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: To expand that further, I wanted to look at their stats, what’s their production on the court. If you look at that from a front court perspective, it sort of supports that narrative. A’ja Wilson, I know that we keep talking about how she is playing MVP-caliber basketball, and I also know I’ve said on this podcast, I don’t know if we should just have the same MVP again. But she is in the top five of these all-stars in every single statistical category we looked at, points per game, all the different shooting percentages, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, turnovers, and efficiency rating.

Alex: Yeah, she good.

Caitlin: She real good.

Alex: I think when I look at the stat sheet, the big elephant in the room is Angel Reese sitting just outside the top six.

Caitlin: Averaging a double-double, she’s only one of two players averaging a double-double in the league right now.

Alex: And Atlanta had zero starters.

Caitlin: Yes. Let’s talk about the teams. If we refresh on the starting teams together, we have A’ja Wilson, Las Vegas Aces, Breanna Stewart, New York Liberty, Jessica Shepard, Dallas Wings, Aliyah Boston, Indiana Fever, Gabby Williams, Golden State Valkyries, Natasha Howard, Minnesota Lynx. No duplication there.

I think we could also all agree that the Aces, the Liberty, the Wings, the Valkyries, and the Lynx are the top five teams and have been in the top five for most of the season. The only one that hasn’t is the Indiana Fever, they’re in sixth right now, about the highest they’ve been all season.

We go to the guards, we have Paige Bueckers, Dallas Wings, Olivia Miles, Minnesota Lynx. So now we’ve got two Wings players, two Lynx players in the starters. Caitlin Clark and Kelsey Mitchell both play for the Indiana Fever.

Alex: So we’ve got three Fever.

Caitlin: One of the very noticeable things when this was first released, that didn’t take any digging, was that the Fever have three of the ten starting players and have not been ranked higher than seventh in the league overall until recently. Now, I get this is an All-Star game, you could argue it’s not about the performance of the team.

Alex: But it should be a part of it.

Caitlin: It’s interesting, the timing of this is really interesting, because if you had asked me two weeks ago, I would have said Atlanta absolutely should have, and I still think they should have representation in the starters. They have been on a very aggressive slide.

Alex: There has been a big slide in the last five games or so.

Caitlin: But the fact that you have a team that has more or less consistently been in the top five and has no player representation. The other thing that’s crazy to me is how the Aces only have A’ja Wilson in the starting ten of the All-Star game.

Alex: Yeah, it really is.

Caitlin: But if you look at that more closely, the fan ranking is playing a huge role. Alex mentioned that’s weighted higher than the media or player ranks. Kelsey Mitchell is ranked third in fan ranking from a guard’s perspective, but seventh by both the media and the players.

Alex: Yep, so that’s fine, obviously the fan ranking is a little out of skew from the other two. It’s a bit of a popularity contest.

Caitlin: But Caitlin Clark is ranked second by the fans behind Bueckers, third by the media behind Olivia Miles and Bueckers, and 11th by the players. Some of this is systematically, I don’t know that the fan vote for this should be weighted as highly as it is.

Alex: I would agree with that. I think we’ve talked about, right around the time Caitlin Clark came into the league, is when we started to see this new sports fan.

Caitlin: And I think there’s a lot of things happening in the fan vote that reflect more of, this is a big name, therefore we’re gonna glom onto them and vote for them, and it’s gonna get these players moved up when the players might say they don’t necessarily deserve to be that high.

Alex: I mean, if we want to dig into it further, we can look at Azzi Fudd, who had a four fan rank, 15 media rank, and 28 player rank. She is a great player, but I think a fan rank of four is a little outrageous here.

Caitlin: If you understand statistics a little bit, you can understand that something there is an outlier, and I could totally see the argument that the 28 might be an outlier too. I think some of what’s challenging about Fudd’s perception to other players is that she frankly wasn’t playing a lot at the beginning of the season, she’s just now in the last 10 games or so started to play more for the Wings.

Alex: Yep.

Caitlin: So maybe that media rank lines up more, but that’s still 15th, the lowest by five next to Sonia Citron, who arguably is the best player on her team. I don’t think Azzi Fudd is the best player on the Wings.

Alex: I mean, if you bring it back to an even split, or somewhere near an even split for weighting, I think these kind of suss out a little bit better. I just really don’t agree with the 50% fan-rank weighting on this.

Caitlin: And flipping it around, you look at a player like Rhyne Howard or Sonia Citron. Rhyne Howard is second in player rank, so she has a ton of respect from her peers, fourth in media rank, but she’s ninth in fan rank. And Sonia Citron is fourth in player rank, and then tenth and tenth in media and fan rank. It does make you think, and I saw somebody commenting saying the players shouldn’t get a vote, then it’s just a popularity contest. I’m like, what do you think the fan vote is?

Alex: Yeah, the fan vote is too, and if the media is local media, it’s still gonna be a little biased there. The whole thing is a popularity contest.

Caitlin: So if anything, maybe we should be talking about an even split weighting or something. Obviously you want fans to show up to the game, so the goal is to get players that are going to draw fans there. Sure, that’s fine. But it is really telling, and if we expand this further into statistical categories, you start to see clearly, like we talked about on the front court side, A’ja Wilson clearly dominant.

Alex: Breanna Stewart.

Caitlin: Clearly dominant. Aliyah Boston, clearly dominant. Paige Bueckers on the guards, clearly dominant, she leads in seven of the ten statistical categories we looked at. Olivia Miles, clearly dominant, seven of ten categories. Then it starts to filter down, Caitlin Clark and Kelsey Mitchell both with about five where they’re in the top five. But somebody I feel there are two snubs on here, now granted these are all All-Stars and being named to the team, but Kelsey Plum got really dragged down by her player vote, and I want to know what that’s about.

Alex: She is leading in scoring, high field goal percentage, high three-point shooting percentage, third in these guards in assists, and has the highest efficiency rating. She has played the least amount of games and still continues to be near the top of the league in scoring, right behind A’ja Wilson.

Caitlin: Now her team isn’t doing well, but then if we applied that logic to the Fever, do we see them here too?

The other player who I think was really snubbed on this list is Jackie Young, I didn’t realize what her stat line looked like, but it’s very strong, and she’s on arguably one of the top two teams in the league, and plays really as their lockdown defender when they need it, whether it’s a front court player or a guard, because she has the length to do that.

I just feel like no one fan, media, or player is watching all of these games.

Alex: We know how we try to watch as much as we can, and that’s impossible.

Caitlin: So maybe there’s some inconsistency, but I loved this exercise. It’s really telling who gets the brand recognition and where there’s discrepancy between these different factions, and how their statistical performances line up. I understand statistics are a part of how we measure, there are other things people contribute on the court, but it was fun to look at.

Alex: Yeah, it was. Anything else you want to drain out of these stats?

Caitlin: I’m just thinking.

Alex: My takeaway is that for all those stats we just listed off, it’s going to be an interesting comment section for whatever we clip, without all the nuance of what we just said.

Caitlin: We really need to put a disclaimer out there that we put out a 75 to 90 minute podcast every week that you should go listen to before commenting on our clips, on our Reels.

The Officiating Firestorm

Alex: All right, let’s bring it over to another non-controversial topic, speaking of comments, officiating.

Caitlin: All right, so unless you have been living under a rock for the last 10 days, because this has been everywhere, it’s been in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, this came up everywhere. There was an incident in a game almost two weeks ago between the Phoenix Mercury and the Indiana Fever, where there was a loose ball situation, and Alyssa Thomas of the Phoenix Mercury appears to be going for the ball. She lands with her fist, what looks like a closed fist, on Caitlin Clark’s neck, who was on the ground because of the loose ball. That got still-framed and blasted out into the universe, and it kind of looks like Alyssa Thomas is punching her in the throat.

Alex: Yeah, it does.

Caitlin: She is not, if you actually watch the video, but what this has generated is a ton of really toxic discourse.

Alex: Remember how we talked about threads earlier this year, multiple times, being toxic? It was bad.

Caitlin: It was horrible, to the extent that Alyssa Thomas and her partner, DeWanna Bonner, who plays on the Mercury with her, were getting racist threats, death threats, threats to their children, from people on social media.

First of all, stop that.

Alex: Don’t do that.

Caitlin: This is a game, it’s a sport, it is not that serious. Their lives matter, and none of that should be happening ever, to anyone, ever. Doesn’t matter.

We have talked a lot about this because it was like a flashpoint, we were not going to be recording live. We were like, okay, how do we want to approach this, what are our thoughts on it? What I think is really interesting is that before we took our break, I mentioned what I was going to be watching for in the next 12 to 15 games, the W leading up to the All-Star game, is the officiating. I asked the question, have we figured this out yet, are we settled in, or are we still confused about this updated approach to officiating?

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: I think this is like an exclamation point on this is not working.

Alex: Yeah, and I think the interesting thing about that specific play was that it was not called a foul on the floor. It was gone back, reviewed, and called a flagrant two after the game.

Caitlin: Yep, the next day.

Alex: Yeah, the next day.

Caitlin: And then Alyssa Thomas was given a one-game suspension for that. There’s a lot to be said about that incident, but there have been multiple. So, one, it happened to Caitlin Clark. To your point, no one reacted to it when it happened in the game. The Fever bench was right there, they didn’t react. Stephanie White is right there, she didn’t react. Caitlin Clark is underneath Alyssa Thomas and she did not react to this.

Alex: She gives a little bit of a what happened, and then, because somebody was on top of her probably.

Caitlin: But normally she would have no problem going and yelling, and I don’t blame her for that.

Alex: I would yell about that too, if it was harmful.

Caitlin: Right. So the fact that she didn’t react, the way I see it is, they’re going for a loose ball. Alyssa Thomas has two torn labrums. Any physio person would tell you that having your hand open to balance on something is actually very hard on your shoulder, so she’s probably been trained to use just her fist, or if she has wrist problems even. It looks like her hand slips off of Clark’s shoulder as Clark is raising her hand, and it slides down onto her neck. We’re not, I don’t want to arbitrate this.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: Relitigate what actually happened. What I think is interesting is that there was no call on the floor, and that is the problem, is that there was no call. Somebody still-framed the fist on the neck, it went viral, and then the W felt like they needed to respond. That’s how it looks from our seats.

Alex: Well, I think there’s even a second layer on the officiating after the fact. It was Caitlin Clark it happened to, and it was Alyssa Thomas who has a bit of a reputation when it comes to these things. I watched it again multiple times tonight, I could see people who say it was intentional, I could see people who say it wasn’t. Depending on how you view it, it does look sometimes unintentional. I get that multiple people could see it different ways. The racial slurs, the death threats, don’t do that, but then, getting back to it, the officiating overall just needs to really improve to be able to catch this type of stuff on the floor.

Caitlin: Yeah, I think it’s three things. One, we are playing a game, it is physical, it is going to have moments that look worse than they are, it’s going to have moments that look just as bad as you think they look. That is sports, that is part of sports. We believe the W in particular, in the last couple of years, has an issue with fans sort of infantilizing some of these players and feeling like they need to protect them from elements of the game. The number of calls for protecting Caitlin Clark that I have heard, or seen, or read, well prior to this, is alarming in my view.

So one being, we’re playing a game, it’s going to be physical, these ladies know the game, they know that’s part of it. Two, if the officials call that on the floor, none of this happens. Could they not see it, did they not think it was a foul? But then you can’t, that’s such a slippery slope, when it goes into the court of public opinion and then you look like you are responding, now those people feel emboldened to do it again.

Alex: Like if we make enough of a ruckus, we’re going to get our way.

Caitlin: Our toddler does this, well I guess she’s almost four, our youngest does this all the time, if I cry enough, they’ll eventually cave. And then three, it is the way this has gone from we’re playing a game to now I’m gonna make this a culture war element, we’re now adding in political division as a result of this in the discourse, like the Sophie Cunningham pointing thing as a meme now, which is actually incredibly disrespectful, is not funny, and we’re celebrating it online, mostly with people who appear to be fans that are newer to the W and frankly appear to be mostly fans of the Indiana Fever and Caitlin Clark.

Maybe that’s just a bias because it happens to her, but we don’t see this same level of uproar when egregious stuff happens to other players. Satou Sabally got hit in the head by NaLyssa Smith a couple, three or four weeks ago. She has a history of concussions, it was not intentional, it was a basketball play, but she hit her in the head, that is head contact, that’s a foul. She is now out, she is unable to play. Where is the outrage?

We get a lot of pushback from Caitlin Clark fans online about us having a double standard, and I just want to say, I think you also have a double standard in how this is applied.

So, like I said, it’s the three things: we’re playing a game, the officiating needs to be better, and this does not need to turn into a rage-baiting, culture-war element.

Alex: Yeah, I think players are really confused right now by the officiating, and I think it feels like every night we leave a slate of games and the story isn’t about the play on the court, it’s about something that happened with the officials or between the two teams that had nothing to do with basketball. And I want to talk about basketball.

I think the interesting thing, I don’t know if it’s something scheduled or not, but I’m interested to see if the task force we talked about at the beginning of the year for officiating is going to convene at the All-Star break to say, what is happening here. Because they talked a big game, we have this task force, we’re going to fix officiating, we’re going to protect offensive players, and I think they mostly are there, but it’s still not consistent. So many games last week felt like they were ruined by the refs, and we’re still not seeing it get any better.

Caitlin: Yeah, and protect all players, right. We talk a lot about durability and how we want these players to be able to play for a long time, well this is the kind of stuff that can limit that. So whether you’re Satou Sabally or you’re Caitlin Clark, or anybody else in the league, we need to be thinking about player safety, and that also goes for not threatening people online with really horrible stuff, ever.

All right, so that’s a little bit on our take on that. I do hope that something is done, like a checkpoint with the refereeing. I read an article today from the New York Times saying whoever leads that has kind of come back and said, well, you get what you pay for, and it kind of makes it seem like maybe the league is investing in the tools and things needed to really make sure we have the best refs. That would be nice if we could make an investment there.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: Yeah, and by we, I mean the league, not really.

Alex: Yeah, hopefully I’m not making an investment.

Caitlin: All right.

WNBA Standings and Who’s Trending

Alex: Should we move it on? I think we want to talk quick here about the standings and where things lie. I’m gonna give the top seven, because I think that’s where this really makes the most sense. Number one, we have Minnesota, 15 and five. Las Vegas Aces, 15 and six, hope they’re still 15 and five, we’ll see after this, they were playing while we were recording and it wasn’t the greatest game. Golden State, number three at 14 and seven. Dallas Wings, 13 and eight. New York Liberty, 13 and eight. Indiana Fever, 12 and 8. And the Atlanta Dream, 12 and 9.

The two I have circled are Golden State at number three with a four-win streak, and the Atlanta Dream at number seven with a five-loss streak. What is happening here? Golden State makes sense, we talked about this after we went to that game, they are ballers.

Caitlin: We’ve known from the start that Golden State is a problem. Hats off to Natalie Nakase, we’ve talked about her a bunch, but I think she coaches that team so well. They don’t have any particular superstars, Gabby Williams is an All-Star starter, but you have a really strong cast around her. I feel like she’s not consistently putting up the numbers we’d expect from your single star on the team, not to say she’s not good, she’s very good, but Natalie Nakase does such a good job, we talked about how they defend so well as a team, and they are still the top team scoring the majority of their points from three. Over 40% of their points come from the three-point arc, and they have really good three-point shooters. So as long as that three is dropping for them, that’s very hard to beat.

Alex: Yeah, I have not been able to watch enough Atlanta games, what is going on in Atlanta?

Caitlin: Man, it was probably four or five episodes ago, might’ve been longer, I said they just needed to get out of their own way. They have all the pieces they should need, you’ve got Rhyne Howard and Jordin Canada literally both at the top of the league in steals per game. You’ve got Rhyne Howard and Allisha Gray, who are high from a points production perspective. You’ve got Angel Reese averaging a double-double. They should be better than what they’re showing. They were doing quite well, but this most recent slide seems like it was brewing before, and they were able to pull it out, and now they just haven’t been able to.

I don’t know what adjustments Coach Smesko needs to make. Is it changing up your starters, is it changing up your scheme, what is it? But there’s some obvious frustration, I think I saw a clip towards the end of one of their losses recently, Rhyne Howard looking clearly upset walking off the court. They should be better, but right now they seem to be struggling to close out games, have consistency.

Alex: I thought it was interesting, you’ve got a very strong Western Conference, the top four teams sometimes are from the West, and then the next six teams are Eastern Conference.

Caitlin: I had circled the Washington Spirit because I also said this, Washington, gosh darn it, I’m just getting really excited for the WSL segment. The Washington Mystics, so sorry. I had circled the Washington Mystics because I’d said this way towards the beginning of the WNBA season, they have so much talent on that team, but they’re so young. If they could figure out how to play together and manage those critical moments where usually you rely on veteran experience, they could be really dangerous.

Alex: I think.

Caitlin: They’re proving they can be really dangerous, I don’t think they’re fully there yet, I don’t think they’re going to surge up the rankings from where they’re at, I don’t think they can consistently beat a New York, a Dallas, a Minnesota, but I think they can peel them off here and there and play that disruptor role, or that challenger role we talked about. I’ll be watching them.

I feel like, the Sparks, we thought they might go on a bit of a surge, and they have not, actually gone down since the last time we talked about them, but watch out for Phoenix, they’re on a bit of a win streak, we play them next Monday, I think.

Alex: Watch out for that.

We got a good clip on this WNBA talk, we gotta get into some NWSL.

NWSL Returns From the Break

Caitlin: Let’s do it.

Alex: It is back, we had, while we were out, the Challenge Cup.

Caitlin: Yes.

Alex: Talk about the Challenge Cup.

Caitlin: Well, I don’t have much on it because I didn’t watch it, I was just going to confess right off the bat. I know Gotham won, we were on vacation so we didn’t have an opportunity to watch. To me it feels like not a huge surprise, I think we’ve seen Kansas City Current struggle at points so far this season. They’re also coming off of a break, maybe a little bit rusty, whereas Gotham felt like they were priming the pump to rev up to this game. They have the Queens Classic coming up this weekend, so they know they’re in the spotlight.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: And I think they were ready to be in that spotlight. Doesn’t hurt that they also just signed Sam Kerr.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: She did not play in this game, but she is getting ready to take the pitch for them. It would be cool if her first game is at Queens Plaza.

Alex: That would be cool.

Caitlin: So not much else to say on that, except I feel like it was predictable that Gotham would win that game. There are a couple of rule updates. If you’ve been watching the Men’s World Cup, you know there were some rule changes implemented as that tournament began, some of those are also being adopted in the NWSL. A couple to call out that the NWSL just recently published as they returned to play: there’s an off-field treatment rule, which basically means if you go down on the pitch, once you are removed from the pitch, you have to remain off the pitch for at least a minute. What they’re trying to eliminate is obviously people just going down for no reason.

If you’ve been watching the Men’s World Cup and you watch women’s football, you know that men do this much more frequently than women do, so I don’t think this will be a huge impact. Where it could be big is avoiding some of the gamesmanship that happens at the end of games for teams that are winning and trying to use up the clock.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: Another one, the timed sub rule, we have mentioned this before, this is also in play at the World Cup, but you basically now have ten seconds to get off the pitch.

Alex: Oh, it’s crazy.

Caitlin: And if you are not off the pitch in ten seconds, the player coming on cannot go on for a full minute, so you play down a person for a full minute. Some of the other timing ones you’ve probably seen also in the World Cup, throw-ins have to be within five seconds, you’ll see referees doing the big count. If you take too long on corner kicks, that becomes a goal kick. If you take too long on goal kicks, that becomes a corner kick.

Overall I think they’ve played out pretty nicely so far in the Men’s World Cup, we’ll see what it looks like in the NWSL.

Alex: I think we talked about this earlier this year, I think we were on a walk somewhere and I told you I’d seen a video of some EPL ref talking about his ideas for rules to speed up the game.

Caitlin: It must have been an old video.

Alex: Because it was probably a few years ago, but it came back up, and I was like, this guy got through to somebody. I think it’s great.

Caitlin: Yeah, I mean, time-wasting had become a huge problem in football. There’s an update to the heat policy, let me be clear, we are not moving to mandatory hydration breaks in the NWSL. However, when they are necessary, when they meet the criteria of needing a hydration break, there is now a standard two and a half to three minute break for the teams to take. What it was before was based on the wet bulb temperature, there were two tiers, so they would basically say if it’s at this level it’s two and a half minutes, if it’s at this level it’s five minutes, and now they’re just like, you do two and a half to three minutes, that’s enough, you’re good to go.

It’s a whole other tangent for me to go on about the hydration breaks of the Men’s World Cup, I hate it, I hope they do not keep it for the women’s next year, it fundamentally changes the game of football.

Okay, this last one is really interesting, they have instituted a digital code of conduct for fans.

Alex: Oh, I thought you were gonna say for players.

Caitlin: No. So what this means in their fan code of conduct is that if you harass players or other fans online, and we can link that to you, there are repercussions. You can get banned from games, you can have revocation of your season tickets.

Alex: Like there are penalties for being mean.

Caitlin: I think it pairs up really well with what we were just talking about, and Alex talks all the time about how the WNBA should look at the NWSL and say, hey, you seem to be doing things right.

Alex: Something is working for you over here. Somebody talk to Kathy.

Caitlin: And I love this, because the NWSL’s leadership is literally taking it, not putting it on the teams, they’re putting it on themselves to say, if this gets reported, we will investigate and we will penalize you, and you will not be allowed, because you are not part of the community we are trying to form.

Alex: Yes, yes, exactly.

Caitlin: And it explicitly says, I read the code of conduct earlier tonight, it explicitly says we are aiming to build an inclusive community where everybody feels safe, and if you are failing to do that.

Alex: You’re out.

Caitlin: We don’t want you here.

Alex: All right, that’s awesome.

Caitlin: Okay.

Alex: I love it.

Caitlin: Sorry, I was really excited about that one.

Alex: I’m excited about that one too.

NWSL Standings and Weekend Results

All right, you’re gonna take us through a little bit of standings, maybe a top eight.

Caitlin: Let’s do top eight. We have San Diego still atop the leaderboard with 28 points, Portland Thorns at 27, Washington Spirit at 24, Utah Royals at 24, Kansas City Current at 24, North Carolina Courage 21, Gotham FC at 21, and the Orlando Pride at number eight. I think what to call out here, and we talked about this when we were prepping, is the top seven teams are within seven points of each other, absolutely wild. And just something to call out, at number 14, no longer 16th, Chicago Stars are finding a bit of a groove.

Alex: Yeah, also I’m just looking, Racing Louisville has seven points.

Caitlin: Yeah, the boat is sinking pretty fast. I think I saw a report that Emma Sears, the US national team striker who’s on Racing Louisville, has requested a trade.

Alex: Oh my gosh. All right, makes sense.

Caitlin: Yeah, I’d get out too. I think you called out the point difference across those top seven. What’s interesting is you’ve got North Carolina Courage kind of surging in, they won over the weekend behind an Ashley Sanchez brace, and they were one of the teams we were like, oh, I don’t know if this break is going to be good for you because we were on an upswing, so good to see them starting off on a good foot.

What’s fascinating is you’ve got the wave at 28, and then you get to the eighth spot and we’re at 17 points for the Pride. So there’s a drop-off from your top five teams with 24 points or more, then you’ve got the tie between North Carolina and it’s starting to look like this next maybe two weeks or so of three to four games for each of these teams is really gonna make or break some of these ones on the bubble.

Alex: On the bubble here.

Caitlin: As far as how the season is gonna end, I think this is a really critical moment.

Alex: I think two things I noticed, when we talk about bubble teams, eight through twelve are still all within three points of each other, that is pretty crazy. The other thing to point out is that Washington Spirit are at 24 points in third place, they have two fewer games played than Portland and San Diego.

Caitlin: Yes, potential for a big upswing there.

Alex: Anything else you want to pull out of the standings here before we look at a couple of results over the weekend?

Caitlin: Not right now.

Alex: All right, we’re gonna talk a little bit about who’s hot, I’m supposed to do a who’s not too, but I think that’ll come up here a little bit. The big story here, Utah Royals’ franchise-record ten-match unbeaten streak snapped by Chicago Stars, on a late winner from Jordyn Huitema.

Caitlin: I saw also, if you have not found the clip of Sam Staab’s left-footed free kick in that game for the second goal, go watch it, that’s dirty.

Alex: So they were beaten by a team who has allowed 26 goals in 13 games, the Chicago Stars, and this streak actually went back to March 22nd.

Caitlin: Yeah, yeah.

Alex: So unfortunate for them, fortunate for Chicago, maybe they can be on a bit of a run, they got Mallory Swanson solidly in the starting lineup, she’s captaining the team.

Caitlin: Maybe the break was good for them, they got rid of their GM, they’ve made some changes, they had some transfer window signings, it could be good.

Alex: And then, like we talked about with the Challenge Cup, Gotham FC got some hardware, and then they went to San Diego, maybe San Diego came to them, I don’t remember which one it was, they were in San Diego and they lost.

Caitlin: Because it was Alex Morgan’s birthday.

Alex: They lost two-nil, and San Diego stays at the top of the table.

Caitlin: Was it Barcenas? Yeah, that rocket she had.

Alex: And then she gave the tea.

Caitlin: Yeah, the Wave looked good. The other thing with the Wave is they no longer have their real, kind of primary playmaker, I would say. We’ll see, I also saw the new keeper they signed started and had the clean sheet, and I think there was a rookie record or something, an impressive performance by her, I think we had talked about maybe a bit of a gap they were trying to shore up, and so, one game in, she’s doing all right, looking great, that’ll be fun to watch.

I think the other one I saw from a results perspective, I mentioned Ashley Sanchez with the brace, who’s quietly in the conversation for Golden Boot, we’re not talking about her a ton, but she’s there. The Portland Thorns had a four-nil win, Sophia Wilson scored another goal, they look formidable. Trinity Rodman had two goals in the Washington Spirit’s return to competition.

Alex: Had it right that time.

Caitlin: And then I think the other one I saw that was funny was Bay FC played Boston, maybe, and I think Bay was up and then they ended up tying.

Alex: And Bay just can’t catch a break.

Caitlin: I can’t get it going. All right, well, more on that to come.

What to Watch This Weekend

Alex: Yeah, more to come. All right, let’s dig into what to watch to round out here, grabbed a few games for each league. Saturday noon on ABC, we’ve got the New York Liberty versus the Minnesota Lynx.

Caitlin: We just played them, and we just lost to them pretty badly.

Alex: And then we’ve got the Indiana Fever versus Las Vegas Aces, they also just played, the Fever beat the Aces last night, a couple of rematches, that’s Sunday at 8 p.m. on Peacock and NBC.

Caitlin: Yeah, that was an interesting game, just a quick comment, because they played this past weekend and you didn’t have Caitlin Clark playing, you didn’t have A’ja Wilson playing, both out with injury, it’ll be interesting to see if by Sunday both of them are back. The Aces looked completely lost without A’ja Wilson on the floor, and the Fever looked good without Caitlin Clark on the floor, I think they play better.

Alex: Yeah, I did see, there’s less hesitancy from the Fever.

Caitlin: I saw some stats that they actually do play statistically a little better with her, but they seem to win more without, like they have better play without her.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: It just looks different, which I’d expect, but it is interesting in that contrast, because we talked about it leading up to that game, how is that gonna play out? The Aces, who’s stepping up, you know your 26-points-per-game player’s out, who’s stepping up?

Alex: A’ja is not just the best MVP for the league, she’s the MVP of her team, she’s the only, she’s the MVP.

Caitlin: Yeah, she’s the MVP, and they should have more, Chelsea Gray should have done better, Jackie Young can only do so much, their bench seems, I don’t know about the Aces’ bench, besides Kennedy Carter, anyway.

Alex: All right, NWSL, Kansas City Current at Orlando Pride, Friday, July 10th, 6 p.m. on Prime Video. And then we have San Diego versus Angel City.

Caitlin: SoCal Derby.

Alex: Yeah, Saturday at 7:45 p.m. on ION.

Caitlin: All right.

Alex: Let’s see if I can pronounce all of this right. The LPGA is playing the Amundi Evian Championship Thursday through Sunday this week at the Evian Resort Golf Club in Evian-les-Bains, in France, on the Golf Channel and NBC. And then of course Wimbledon, the semifinals are Thursday, all times to be determined, on ESPN. And then the singles final is Saturday, July 11th, 10 a.m. Central on ESPN.

Caitlin: Yeah, I’m very bummed that we did not get to see the Williams sisters back on the court together, but like I said, I don’t think they’re going away.

Alex: I think they’ll be back.

Caitlin: I mean, Venus never went away, she’s just been there the whole time.

Alex: Are they just trying to bridge it to the next Williams, the daughters coming up and playing?

Caitlin: Yes, Serena’s daughters will take on the mantle. Just kidding.

Momentum and Setbacks

Alex: All right, y’all are getting aggressive, we gotta go to bed. Momentum and setbacks, what do you got?

Caitlin: My setback is Olivia Miles tweaked her ankle against the Liberty, when the Lynx played the Liberty over the weekend, and so she was out of the game today. Like we said, we don’t know how that game ended, but the Lynx seemed to struggle without her, which I think has been consistent throughout the season, when she’s on the floor, they play differently. So pending how that injury is looking, but we should be getting feedback, Dorka played, that’s a momentum maybe a little bit, but my setback is just Miles being injured.

Alex: My setback, I had some things written down here, but then I remembered mid-show about a setback that has to be paired with momentum. Momentum first, our local USLW, is that the actual league or a lower level of that? I don’t remember exactly.

Caitlin: It’s USLW.

Alex: They are going to the semifinals, they won their last game, they’re undefeated at this point all season.

Caitlin: Yes, that’s probably right, they are often undefeated in conference play.

Alex: I don’t think they’ve ever lost a conference game, I don’t think they’ve ever lost a home game potentially. They played on the East Coast one late last night, Pittsburgh. That’s the momentum. The setback is, instead of hosting the semifinal in Minnesota, middle of the country, in about three days they have to travel to the West Coast to play on the West Coast in three days.

Caitlin: Against a West Coast team?

Alex: Oh, against a West Coast team, oh why wouldn’t they just, so they have to travel three time zones over three days.

Caitlin: Oh, brutal.

Alex: To attempt to play the semifinal game.

Caitlin: Oh, it’s rigged.

Alex: I’m salty, I’m salty.

Caitlin: Those who know will laugh at that.

Alex: And then honorable mention momentum, Marina Mabrey, 53 points, has a song that mentions her hustle over luck, by Sosa Man.

Caitlin: Yes, listen for her name drop in there.

Alex: Momentum to bed. My momentum was to bed. I had a friend reach out and say she was listening to our pod, and she said, hey, in episode 25 when Alex did all the stats, he forgot to do a yawn counter for you guys. I’m thinking we need to do that now on our YouTube videos, just like a yawn counter by my head.

Caitlin: No, my momentum, no, I had one right there. Oh, the Minnesota Vixen, we’re talking about Minnesota sports, women’s sports teams, our local professional women’s football, American football team, is playing in the conference final, I believe, this coming weekend.

Alex: Awesome.

Caitlin: So that is cool.

Alex: Yeah, we gotta check that out.

Caitlin: Yes, we definitely do. I don’t think I have anything else at this moment in time. I can’t wait for Fee to be back.

Alex: Yeah, for sure. RTG_pod on Instagram and YouTube, RTGpod.com, Raising the Game podcast on Substack, and raisingthegamepodcast@gmail.com. I think I had them all.

Caitlin: That’s all of them. Thanks for being here.

Alex: Yep, bye.

Caitlin: Bye.