Episode 35 - We Did the Me-Bounds Math, and the NWSL Playoff Line Keeps Moving

This is the last WNBA episode for a while and we are not going to pretend we hate that. The league goes on a FIBA break, everybody gets 17 days, and honestly we need it as much as the players do. We have been talking about this season since January, back when the whole show was basically a CBA podcast.

The other thing that happened this week is that we went to the Minnesota State Fair, walked five and a half miles in the sun, ate the fried food, and ended up retelling the origin story of this podcast. It started on a bus ride to the fair last year. Caitlin was talking about wanting to do more for women’s sports, Alex said “podcast” as a half joke because it was less of a lift than building something in the “real” world, and here we are 35 episodes later. Caitlin does not remember this conversation. That is fine. One of us has a good memory.

Meanwhile high school soccer season has started, our youngest played her first game with shin guards she calls “shields,” and there is a real NWSL playoff race to sort through.

The WNBA Field Is Set. The Seeding Is Not.

All eight playoff teams are locked in heading into the break. Everybody has four games left when they come back, and then it is straight into the postseason. Alex pulled the odds on each team holding the seed it is currently sitting in, assuming they control their own destiny:

• Minnesota, 96% to hold the one seed.
• Golden State, 88% for the two.
• Las Vegas, 83% for the three.
• Indiana, 29% for the four.
• Atlanta, 33% for the five.
• New York, 13% for the six.
• Washington, 28% for the seven.
• Dallas, 15% for the eight. The top three are effectively done. Minnesota’s odds of dropping to the two seed are 4%. Everything worth arguing about is in the five through eight range, where the numbers depend on other results. The Dream, for instance, have a 53% shot at the four seed if things fall their way.

The remaining schedules tell you most of the story. Golden State closes with Portland at home, Seattle at home, Portland away, and the Sparks, which is about as friendly a slate as exists. Vegas gets a home and away against Seattle, then the Sparks and Phoenix, which is arguably easier still. Atlanta has to play two straight in New York, which prompted the only real outrage of the segment:

“This reads like somebody was in the office and it was 10 o’clock and they just put them two in a row right there.” — Alex

Minnesota has dropped two in a row going into the break, and neither of us is especially worried about it. The Lynx had the toughest strength of schedule in the league coming out of the All-Star break, and the two losses came against Golden State and Atlanta, both very good teams.

“I think Cheryl’s actually maybe a little bit excited for them to lose, because they can see what is causing teams to start to beat us.” — Alex

They have had chances to lock up the one seed and keep squandering them. Home court through the playoffs is right there.

Kelsey Mitchell, Caitlin Clark, and a Valkyries Team Nobody Wants

Kelsey Mitchell crossed 1,000 points for the season in Indiana’s August 28 win over Connecticut, a 111 to 91 result where she put up 34. She is only the second player in WNBA history to get there, behind A’ja Wilson’s 1,021 in 2024. Yes, the season is longer now than it used to be. It is still absurd. She is averaging about 25 a game, second in the league, shooting nearly 46% from three, playing heavy minutes, and usually drawing the other team’s best offensive player on the defensive end.

Caitlin Clark became the first player in WNBA history with back-to-back 30-point, 10-assist games. One of them was 37 and 10 with eight of 12 from three, the other 34 and 12 with three steals. In the first of those, she and Mitchell combined for 67 points.

“For the teams that are going to play against them in the playoffs, we should be worried about a locked in Caitlin Clark and Kelsey Mitchell.” — Alex

Caitlin’s theory is that the shooting is not what changed. The technical foul situation quieted down. After the scare around the eighth tech and the one that got rescinded, Clark has visibly reined in the yelling at referees, and the play is better for it.

Then there is Golden State. The Valkyries went 10 and 2 in August, gave up an average of 72 points across that stretch, and held opponents under 70 in something like six or seven of those games. They are holding teams under 45% from the floor on the season. They rotate roughly 10 players a night and their level barely dips when the starters sit. Gabby Williams and Veronica Burton are the names most people know, and that is sort of the point.

The schedule matters here too. That 10-2 August included the Aces, the Wings, the Liberty, and the Lynx twice. This was not padding.

“I am scared of them.” — Caitlin

Alex is too. Neither of us wants that first round matchup.

The Angel Reese Me-Bounds Math

Angel Reese broke three records in about a week. On August 24 against the Sparks she pulled down 26 rebounds, past the single-game record of 24 that Chamique Holdsclaw had held since 2003. That is a 23-year-old record. In the same stretch she passed A’ja Wilson’s 2024 single-season rebounding mark of 451, went 16 and 16 against Portland, 15 and 11 against Minnesota, and hit her 29th double-double of the season to pass Alyssa Thomas’s 28.

We knew exactly what the comment section was going to say, so Alex went and did the arithmetic before anybody could type it.

“I put this on here because I know that as soon as we clip this segment, we’re going to get everyone in the comments saying, yeah, they’re all me-bounds. So we did the math for you.” — Alex

Here is what the numbers looked like as of August 31:

• 485 total rebounds on the season, with nearly 60% of them defensive.
• 56 of those qualify as me-bounds, rebounds off her own miss. That is 11.5% of her total.
• Strip every single one of them out and she still has 429.
• Do the same subtraction for the next two players on the rebounding list and Jess Shepard sits at 409, Shakira Austin at 355. So even in the version of the season where you delete every me-bound, Reese is still first in the league by a comfortable margin, and she would still be tracking to beat that 451 record. The league average rate for me-bounds runs somewhere between 3% and 6%, so 11.5% is roughly double, but the raw count is what matters here: A’ja Wilson is at 5.7%, which works out to 20 me-bounds in a full season. Twenty. The percentage gap sounds enormous until you look at the volume behind it.

Caitlin’s read on it had nothing to do with shooting percentage:

“If you watch Angel Reese in the paint rebounding, she does some things that are unique in how she finds her position. You still have to read the body of the player you’re trying to defend, and then anticipate where the ball is going to go. And she does that better than anyone I think I’ve ever seen.” — Caitlin

The me-bound share will probably come down as her field goal percentage keeps improving year over year. The rebounding instinct is not going anywhere.

The NWSL Playoff Line Keeps Getting Harder to Cross

Six match weeks left. Here is the top eight with points, which is the only way to properly appreciate how tight this is: Gotham 45, Washington 40, Utah 39, San Diego 39, Portland 38, North Carolina 36, Kansas City 34, Seattle 31. Then Denver on 27 and three teams on 26 in LA, Houston, and Orlando. A single result is a six-point swing in that group, and LA beat Boston 5 to 1 while we were recording, which moved them to 29 and past Denver.

Gotham drew Portland 1 to 1 on Friday. Jaedyn Shaw scored from distance, Sophia Wilson converted a penalty to pull it level, and the result told you everything about who Gotham are right now. Six draws in 22 matches, more than anyone above sixth place, and only three losses, the fewest in the league.

“They’re a team that just refuses to lose rather than win games.” — Caitlin

They have 14 goals against on the season and Ann-Katrin Berger has 10 shutouts. They are also one of the lowest-scoring teams in that top tier, which is strange for a roster with that many attacking options. Sam Kerr is back but not fully clicking yet, and Rose Lavelle’s return would add another threat. On paper this team should win a championship.

The North Carolina Courage are the exact inverse and could plausibly draw Gotham in a first round:

• 40 goals for, the most in the league.
• 33 goals against, fourth worst.
• Ashley Sanchez leads the Golden Boot race with 15, Evelyn Ijeh has 11, and those two account for 26 of the team’s 40 goals.

“A lot of times you say defense wins championships, but a really good offense going up against a really good defense, which part of that is going to break?” — Alex

If either Sanchez or Ijeh goes down, that offense has a real problem. Compare that to Utah and San Diego, who are the two most balanced teams in the race and quietly the most consistent. Utah went down a goal in Orlando, to a Barbra Banda finish, and won 2 to 1 anyway, with Cloé Lacasse picking up her 10th assist of the season. San Diego lost Dudinha to an ACL injury and kept going, largely on the back of Trinity Byars, who has 10 goals in fewer appearances than anyone else in the race. On a per-appearance basis she would be winning the Golden Boot outright.

The theme with both is the same, and it is a thing Caitlin says to her high school team: make sure one mistake does not turn into two.

The most underrated result of the week was Seattle beating Houston 1 to 0. Not pretty, and it did two jobs at once. It kept Seattle in eighth, and it let Denver’s 6 to 1 win over Chicago leapfrog three teams at once.

“We talk about all of these superstar power teams, and this one game was really, really important.” — Caitlin

Seattle are the only team in the league sitting at exactly zero goal differential, which is a pretty good summary of their season. Lots of 1-0s, lots of 2-1s, lots of draws, not many goals, somehow always points. That works until the playoffs, where you do eventually have to score.

Two more things worth tracking:

• 10-and-10 watch: Pietra Tordin (Portland) at seven goals and nine assists, Trinity Rodman (Washington) at 10 goals and five assists, Cloé Lacasse (Utah) at seven and 10.
• Golden Boot: Sanchez 15, Barbra Banda 13, Evelyn Ijeh 11, Sophia Wilson 11, Trinity Rodman 10, Trinity Byars 10, Temwa Chawinga 9. Banda missed time for group play at WAFCON and Chawinga went all the way to the final, roughly three and a half weeks. Chawinga has won the Golden Boot the last two years by significant margins. Part of us thinks the WAFCON goals should count.

The Rest of the Headlines

Unrivaled is now valued at $650 million after a $100 million Series C raise, heading into its third season. That is up sharply year over year, and one report Caitlin read projects the league past a billion by 2028. Kayla McBride and DiJonai Carrington are both back, Olivia Miles is joining, and co-founder Alex Bazzell has said they have outgrown their Miami venue and want to take the show on the road.

A’ja Wilson and Kelsey Plum are out of the FIBA World Cup. Plum’s absence is not a surprise given she has barely played since the trade to Phoenix. Wilson’s is more interesting, and there is plenty of speculation that it is about resting for a playoff push. Sonia Citron and Kiki Iriafen come in as replacements, which puts two Washington Mystics on the roster. For anyone asking why a particular player was left off: you had to be in camps and tryouts through the year to be eligible.

The Global Alliance for Female Athletes is expanding from four countries to nine, adding Canada, Germany, Japan, France, and Switzerland to the US, UK, Australia, and New Zealand. It is a commitment to funding sports research done on women, which currently accounts for something like 6% of all sports research. That number is why we still do not properly understand ACL injury rates or return to play after pregnancy.

Boston Legacy FC will play the 2028 season at White Stadium, capacity 10,500, with the 2027 season at Centerville Bank Stadium in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Whether it is the second purpose-built women’s sports stadium depends on how Denver’s timeline shakes out.

The Charlotte Crown beat the Jacksonville Waves 81 to 76 to win the first Upshot League championship, a developmental tier for women’s pro basketball. Deja Kelly took championship MVP, an award named for Ann Meyers Drysdale. Shaquille O’Neal, Cheryl Miller, and Tamika Catchings were all in the building, and Caitlin paraphrased Shaq saying women’s basketball is fundamentally better, more pure basketball than the men’s game. We are not going to argue.

A few more: the Williams sisters got a wild card into US Open women’s doubles. US Soccer announced its 2027 Hall of Fame ballot including Megan Rapinoe, Ali Krieger, Julie Ertz, Amy Rodriguez, Jess McDonald, Stephanie Cox, and Sam Mewis [NAME CHECK]. Masai Russell ran 12.09 in the 100-meter hurdles in Zurich for a world record and kept her undefeated season intact. And Kinley Rasmus [NAME CHECK] of Phenix City, Alabama tied Mo’ne Davis’s Little League World Series strikeout record while also setting a hitting record, before her team’s run ended.

What to Watch

The WNBA has nothing for you. Enjoy the silence.

• FIBA World Cup (USA), from Berlin: China on Thursday the 4th at 7:15 a.m., Italy on Saturday the 6th at 1:45 p.m., Czechia on Sunday the 7th at 1:45 p.m. All times Central, and check your listings for the broadcast because we could not pin it down.
• NWSL: Kansas City Current at Bay FC, Friday 9 p.m. on Prime. Angel City at Racing Louisville, Saturday 5:30 p.m. on ION. Gotham FC at Denver Summit, Sunday 1 p.m. on CBS and Paramount+. Washington Spirit at Portland Thorns, Sunday 3 p.m. on CBS. San Diego at Seattle, Sunday 8 p.m. on ESPN2.
• WPBL: every game at 6:30 p.m. San Francisco at Boston Wednesday, New York at LA Thursday, San Francisco at New York Friday, LA at Boston Saturday, Boston at San Francisco Sunday. San Francisco leads the table, then LA, New York, Boston. Semifinals start next Wednesday.
• US Open: women’s singles running Tuesday through Sunday on ESPN, ESPN2, and ABC.
• LPGA: also on break. Circle Angel City at Racing Louisville. Racing have played spoiler more than once in the last few weeks and Angel City cannot afford it. Gotham at Denver is a live one too, and San Diego at Seattle is a straight test of whether Seattle can hold that eighth spot.

Momentum and Setbacks

Caitlin’s momentum was the Global Alliance news, and it comes from the right place. Careers ending on repeat injuries, especially ACLs in soccer, are the thing she keeps coming back to.

“It is heartbreaking to see athletes’ careers ended by injury, repeat injury, and specifically for women and especially soccer players. The ACL piece, you hate to see it.” — Caitlin

She also gave a shout out to her high school team, who lost 2 to 0 to the top-ranked team in the state but held them scoreless for a half and never dropped their level after going down.

“I’ve never felt better after a loss in my 25 years of coaching.” — Caitlin

Alex’s momentum was smaller and better: the oldest daughter popped out of the goal in rec league soccer, decided to score, and chipped the keeper.

The setback for both of us is the same open question. The WNBA break lands at a strange point in the calendar, four games out from the playoffs. We saw teams come out of the World Cup break earlier this year in completely different shape than they went in. Some fired up, some fell off. Seventeen days from now we find out which is which.

Minnesota is the one we will be watching. Two losses right before a break are useful if you use the time, and Cheryl Reeve has 17 days to figure out what teams have started doing to them.

Listen on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

Full Transcript Transcript is computer generated and may contain errors.

Cold Open

Alex: And I put this on here because I know that as soon as we clip this segment, we’re gonna get everyone in the comments saying, yeah, they’re all me-bounds. So we did the math for you.

Intro and Favorite Things

Caitlin: Hi, I’m Caitlin.

Alex: Hi, I’m Alex.

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

Alex: Episode 35, and I think we’re about to get a WNBA break.

Caitlin: We are. I honestly couldn’t be more excited. I need a break.

Alex: Yeah, we need a break. We need a little break. We need to recharge before these playoffs happen.

Caitlin: Playoffs are going to be exciting. And it’s been a long journey.

Alex: It has been a long journey, considering the season started in January when we started the podcast talking about the CBA. That’s about all we talked about for the first month or so.

Caitlin: That’s very true. I was like, January, you didn’t start playing until, but yes, we have been talking about the WNBA since we started this podcast.

Alex: We basically have, yeah.

Caitlin: Yes. So we’re looking forward to a little breather. We will be talking about the FIBA World Cup during that time, but also shifting into high gear on the NWSL playoff push. We were watching a game just before recording tonight. I think there are a lot of teams going for the last spot in.

Alex: Yeah, and there’s still a lot of movement that could happen.

Caitlin: Yes, yes, for sure. And then of course, just as usual, so many things going on in the women’s sports world, across all the leagues, all the sports, all the levels. So we’ll get into a little bit more of that tonight. And yeah, you want to start with favorite thing?

Alex: No, first things first. Make sure to press all of the good looking buttons on your streaming platform, your social media, anything that’s like a thumbs up, a heart, a star, a subscribe, a follow. All of those things really help. So do that.

Caitlin: Please do.

Alex: Okay, now favorite thing.

Caitlin: Favorite thing. Why don’t you go? But it could be a similar one, so I’m going to pick a different one and then we’ll see if I come back to mine. So we are in, not full swing quite yet, but we just started high school soccer season. For those of you who don’t know, who haven’t read my bio on our lovely website or whatever, I do coach high school soccer, on and off for 20 years since I graduated from the same high school I coach at. The head coach who coached me my junior and senior year of high school is still there. She still lets me hang around. And so that season has fired up, and it’s always fun to be back out with the team on the pitch, helping these young women get better, helping them not only achieve on the pitch, but we are also very focused on developing some awesome young women. So it’s always, always a good time.

Caitlin: We actually just had a game tonight. It’s a little bit of a slow start to the season, but I’ve got a lot of faith in this team. This team, I don’t know if I’ve coached a team that actually shows so much resilience and hangs in games and keeps the attitude really positive. So we’ll see how it goes.

Alex: Mine is not that, but it will tie it all back together, I think, here. Mine was going to the Minnesota State Fair. Not sports related to start here. Going to the state fair, hanging out with the girls, walking five and a half miles on a hot, sunny day, eating fried food, all that good stuff. That was really fun.

Alex: But to bring it back, we were talking about this on Saturday, I think, kind of the whole way that this podcast came about last year. And Caitlin said she doesn’t remember this. I clearly do. We were on the bus on the way to the state fair and she had just started talking about how soccer had started and she wanted to find something more to do for women’s sports. And I kind of jokingly said, like a podcast, or something online, because that’s less of a lift than doing something in the real world, right? And so, yeah, it was fun to remember the origin story of where we kind of started thinking about that.

Caitlin: Yeah, yeah, I don’t remember that, but I believe Alex. I would add to the state fair visit, for those who are viewing us or if you see clips, I did finally procure myself a Minnesota Vixen hat, for our national champion football team. Also, our girls had a fantastic time just running around what they call Fan Central, which was basically inundated by the women’s sports teams, different booths, things like crafts they could do and stuff like that. And then just special shout out, our youngest started playing soccer this past weekend.

Alex: I feel like that probably should have been our favorite thing.

Caitlin: Yeah, probably should have. But it’s so cute, you guys. Her socks, we have to fold them all the way up to her knee and then all the way back down to her ankle.

Alex: They would go all the way up her leg if we did not fold them down.

Caitlin: So she’s trying it out. She scored some goals.

Alex: Took a little while to get her up. She really likes to talk about her shields. Her shin guards.

Caitlin: Her shields, yes. It’s very cute. So a lot of favorite things, both sports and podcast related.

Alex: Absolutely.

Caitlin: All right, should we dive into headlines?

Headlines: WNBA Playoff Field, FIBA Roster Changes, and Unrivaled’s $650 Million Valuation

Alex: Let’s do the headlines. WNBA hits the FIBA break with playoff teams set, but seeding still to be determined.

Caitlin: Yeah, we’ll talk a little bit about games left. I think once we get to that point, I don’t know that there’s a ton of room for movement.

Alex: Yeah, we got some thoughts. Yep. A’ja Wilson and Kelsey Plum ruled out for the FIBA World Cup.

Caitlin: Yeah, this was honestly surprising to see, given that Kelsey Plum’s…

Alex: Not surprising. She’s been out most of the season.

Caitlin: She basically played, what, two games with the Mercury when she got traded there and then has been out. But A’ja being out is, and lots of speculation swirling around, you know, are we just resting to make a push for the playoffs? There’s plenty of other players on that team who are also going to be in the playoffs. So that’s a little interesting. But I am excited to see representation from the Washington Mystics in the form of Sonia Citron, who will backfill for Kelsey Plum, and Kiki Iriafen, who will backfill for A’ja Wilson.

Caitlin: My understanding, I mean, obviously there’s been a lot of chatter of like, why isn’t Kelsey Mitchell, or why isn’t Shakira Austin? I don’t know if they tried out. You had to be in camps and doing these tryouts throughout the year to be eligible for it. Definitely there’s other talent that maybe us as WNBA fans would look at and say, why aren’t these folks on the team? But you have to be kind of part of that flow and that system in the lead up.

Alex: Unrivaled is valued at $650 million after a $100 million capital raise in Series C funding as it looks to start its third season, up 91% year over year.

Caitlin: Yeah, I think this puts Unrivaled at maybe second highest valuation amongst WNBA teams for the league. And it’s three years old. The W has been around. Not all the teams. Golden State, frankly one of the newer teams, is the highest valued team in the W. But I was reading a report on this and they’re actually projecting that Unrivaled is going to be over a billion dollars by 2028.

Alex: Wow.

Caitlin: And it’s also been so fun seeing, they’ve been doing a ton of social media splash on returning players, and Alex and I have been talking a lot. We’re like, we are really excited for that season to come back. It was so fun to follow this last season and they’ve added some new players or brought some back that had played before. Like I saw Kayla McBride, we’ve talked about, will be back. DiJonai Carrington will be back. Obviously we’re bringing in Olivia Miles and a few of the other newer players, but I just can’t wait.

Alex: Yeah. And it’s really interesting because as someone who didn’t watch a lot of WNBA until the last couple of seasons, it’s really easy to start to learn who some of the players are because there’s less players on the floor. There’s more social media, more personalities. It’s really easy to figure out who’s who.

Caitlin: I also heard Alex Bazzell, who’s the co-founder and helps run all the operations for it, he was saying that they’ve actually outgrown the arena down there in Miami. And so I don’t know if they’ll do a venue change this coming season, but they are planning to travel more. We’ve talked about that before, and take their show on the road. But I personally would love to get to an Unrivaled game.

Alex: Yes, that’d be great. Williams sisters get wild card draw for US Open women’s doubles.

Caitlin: Yeah, we’ll see how that goes. They gave it a try at the Cincinnati Open. And I also just saw that Venus, I think, just lost her 15th first round match in a row or so.

Alex: Oh no.

Caitlin: But she’s still fighting, still fighting the good fight. So we’ll see how the Williams sisters do at the US Open.

Alex: US Soccer announces its 2027 Hall of Fame ballot, including US Women’s National Team legends Megan Rapinoe, Ali Krieger, Sam Mewis, Julie Ertz, Amy Rodriguez, Jess McDonald, and Stephanie Cox.

Caitlin: This is quite the lineup. I don’t actually know how many will get advanced coming out of that seven, but I read all those names and I’m like, yeah.

Alex: Yes. Yes. Yes. Just yes. Yes.

Caitlin: So that’ll be fun to keep track of and see who ends up getting voted into that class.

Alex: Absolutely. The Global Alliance for Female Athletes is growing, expanding from four countries, the US, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, to nine countries, including Canada, Germany, Japan, France, and Switzerland.

Caitlin: Good job. That was a lot of country names there. So the Global Alliance for Female Athletes is a conglomerate basically of countries saying we’re committed to funding and supporting sports research done on women. We’ve talked on this podcast before about how I think it’s something like 6% of all sports research is done on women. And we talk about things like ACL injuries, or understanding a woman’s menstrual cycle and her injury prevalence, or things like that. And this needs to be done so badly. So it’s exciting to see other countries committing to that. And hopefully we can continue to collect that data and support the professionals who support these athletes.

Alex: Yeah. Boston Legacy FC will play the 2028 season in White Stadium, the second purpose-built women’s sports stadium.

Caitlin: I saw this headline and I was like, is it the second? Because aren’t Denver building one too? Or is it just maybe a timing thing, that that will be the third by the time?

Alex: I thought Denver, didn’t they get delayed on theirs?

Caitlin: That’s what I’m saying. Yeah, so I think it’s a timing thing. But anyways, very, very cool. Ten thousand five hundred capacity for fans. And then the 2027 season, we’ll see them continuing to play at Centerville Bank Stadium in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. I don’t know why I had to say it that way.

Alex: It just feels like it needs to be said that way. All right. Alabama’s Kinley Rasmus ties Mo’ne Davis’s Little League World Series strikeout record, becoming the breakout star of the 2026 Little League World Series before Phenix City’s run ends.

Caitlin: I also saw, so not only did she break the strikeout record, but I also saw that she had some hitting record as well.

Alex: I think she had the hits record in a game or something.

Caitlin: Yeah, and there was a sequence in a game where they needed to win, and I think she ended up coming in to pitch, had I don’t know how many scoreless innings, but then ended up hitting the game winning RBI or something like that.

Alex: Crazy.

Caitlin: So gotta keep an eye out for that name. That’s all I gotta say.

Alex: Masai Russell clocks 12.09 in the 100-meter hurdles in Zurich, setting a new world record and continuing her undefeated season.

Caitlin: Have you guys ever watched hurdle races? Wild. I don’t know how athletes do that with their bodies. I watched the clip of this, which obviously it was 12 seconds long, so easy to digest. Recommend you go find it. It’s a tight finish, honestly, but it’s just so impressive.

Alex: I don’t think I could do a hundred meters in 12 seconds.

Caitlin: No, you couldn’t. You would hurt yourself. You’d fall down.

Alex: I absolutely would. The Charlotte Crown beat the Jacksonville Waves 81 to 76 to win the first Upshot League championship.

Caitlin: Yeah. So Upshot League, we found out, or did some research, is a little bit of a developmental league, if you will, for women’s professional basketball players. Really, really cool that they’re adding in that tier. A couple of highlights from that championship. Charlotte’s Deja Kelly took the Ann Meyers Drysdale championship MVP award. We should recognize that name here, our podcast audience. She led the league in scoring and assists for the season, but was not named the league MVP. So that went to someone else.

Caitlin: And also really cool, Shaquille O’Neal, Cheryl Miller and Tamika Catchings were all in attendance. I’m sure there were others. But I heard an interview with Shaq and they were asking him about it, and he was like, this is what Shaq said.

Alex: Not my quote, this is what Shaq said.

Caitlin: He’s like, women’s basketball is better than men’s basketball. That’s paraphrased, but that’s essentially what he said, right? He said it’s fundamentally better, more pure basketball. And honestly, we agree here on this podcast.

Alex: I agree. I do agree.

NWSL Playoff Race: The Top Eight and Match Week 19

Caitlin: Okay, we got a lot here, folks. Let’s run through, well, okay. I’m gonna do a little recap of the top eight and then we’ve got some storylines coming out of, what is this, match week 19, I think, at this point.

Alex: Nineteen or 20, I think, at this point.

Caitlin: Okay. Yeah, so we’re getting down to the wire. Why don’t you take us through our top eight? These teams should sound familiar to our audience.

Alex: Well, I’m gonna give you the points too, maybe, just to make it interesting.

Caitlin: Ooh, all right.

Alex: Gotham City at 45, Washington at 40, Utah at 39, San Diego at 39, Portland at 38, North Carolina at 36, Kansas City 34, and Seattle at 31.

Caitlin: Yes. And then I feel like you just have to say, but right outside of Seattle, we have Denver on 27 and three teams still on 26.

Alex: Yes. We talked about that last week. LA, Houston, and Orlando there.

Caitlin: So you start to tilt a little bit one way or the other. Like six point swings, right? If you go from I’m winning a game to I lose a game, that’s a six point swing. There’s a lot that could happen here. So we’ll say in this last match week, nobody in that top five group won comfortably.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: We’re starting to diagnose, we’re starting to think a little bit ahead to the playoffs, right? And like who is going to be successful in a single elimination style tournament, and where are the weaknesses and strengths of these different teams? And then you also have these five teams basically fighting for this final spot essentially.

Alex: Yeah, the last spot essentially.

Caitlin: Yeah, maybe you get up to the seventh spot if KC just plummets all of a sudden, but I don’t think that’s too likely.

Gotham’s Refusal to Lose

Caitlin: So a couple of storylines from the week. We watched this game, Gotham played Portland in kind of a top tier matchup on Friday night. Excuse me, was it Friday night or Saturday night? Friday night. And it ended in a draw.

Alex: Yep.

Caitlin: I do have to say, Jaedyn Shaw’s goal from distance was incredible. And then Portland came back, earned a PK, Sophia Smith, Wilson.

Alex: Yep, still doing it.

Caitlin: Sorry, Sophia Wilson. Gigi’s mom, I should just call her that. Converted a PK for them to pull even. But what’s more interesting, we’re kind of looking through this, is like Gotham’s really good at stealing a point.

Alex: Yeah, they’re really good at not losing.

Caitlin: Not losing, right? So they have now drawn six of their 22 matches. This is more draws than anybody above sixth place. So kind of in that playoff position.

Alex: And they’ve lost three, which is the least, I believe, on the whole chart here.

Caitlin: Oh, totally. Which is why they’re so far ahead in points. They rarely show up and walk away with nothing. The way that you can think about it is like, they’re a team that just refuses to lose rather than win games. They are one of the lowest scoring teams in that top tier as far as goals scored over the course of the season, but they do have the best defense. And so you’ve got, I think they have 14 goals against on the entire season. You’ve got Ann-Katrin Berger, who has 10 shutouts on the season. They just don’t give up much. Very organized with their back line. But to me, I feel like they have so many offensive weapons. It’s kind of wild that they haven’t scored more goals.

Alex: It’s interesting to see how that will go in a single elimination tournament. A lot of times you say defense wins championships, but a really good offense going up against a really good defense, which part of that’s gonna break? And if you don’t score as the good defense, something’s gotta happen there.

Caitlin: Right, we’re gonna talk about offensive juggernaut North Carolina Courage here in a second. And you kind of think about a matchup like that, with the Courage being a little lower in the playoff picture right now, that could end up being a first round matchup. And it’s like, well, does Gotham come out of that?

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: You know? So we’ll see. Now, to be clear, they have all of the components.

Alex: Yeah, they do.

Caitlin: They should. On paper, Gotham should win a championship in my mind.

Alex: And then kind of depending where Rose Lavelle’s at too, with that injury. She comes back and then you’ve got another threat there.

Caitlin: Exactly, exactly. I think too, it’s interesting. I feel like Gotham hasn’t really gotten Sam Kerr really churning yet, right? And they’re learning her styles again. She’s back again. But we’re not really that far into her return. She has scored some goals, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t seem like it’s fully clicking for them quite yet. So we’re going to be keeping an eye on that as we wind down the season here. Can Gotham start to click a little bit more on offense? Does that defense maintain? And then who do you end up matched up against in the playoffs? Because that could be truly a challenge for them, frankly.

San Diego and Utah: Quiet Consistency

Caitlin: All right. You know, I think you’re continuing to see quality from the top teams in the table. Like we said, they didn’t win pretty necessarily over the weekend, but they are winning games, right? And that’s really the separator when you think about top tier teams. We’ve seen this in the WNBA this year. It’s kind of like, okay, maybe you’re not winning by a huge blowout, but you’re consistently able to close out games.

Alex: Lynx games were like that, right? You’re finding the way to win when it’s needed.

Caitlin: Right, right. San Diego is one of those teams where we were kind of like, at the break, the World Cup break, we were like, hey, they’re doing great. Then you had the friendlies between Brazil and USA, and my God, why can’t I think of her name? The Brazilian.

Alex: I’m losing it too.

Caitlin: It’s not Ludmila.

Alex: Was it Gio?

Caitlin: No, no, no.

Alex: Oh, Dudinha.

Caitlin: Dudinha, yeah, thank you.

Alex: Go through all the…

Caitlin: I was thinking like Debinha too. I was rolling around all the Brazilian players except for the right one. Dudinha goes down with the ACL. She had really been a bright spot for them in the first part of the season. And so it was kind of like, how are they gonna come back? But they have hung around and they’ve gotten some great performances from a few players, but one who’s really striking a chord right now is Trinity Byars. So she’s now worked her way into this goal race conversation. She’s got 10 goals on the season and she’s done that in less appearances than any other player in that race. So if you did golden boot based off of percentages, she’d be winning right now. I think they’re a solid, steady team that you have to watch. Great fundamentals.

Caitlin: The other team though, we’ve been talking about them all year, and there’s not a lot of fanfare around them, but it’s Utah, right? They went into Orlando, I think there was a rain delay, because there’s always a rain delay when you play in Orlando. Swear to God, you guys, we turn on those games and it’s like, there’s no fans. And then we find out that the game has been delayed by two hours for some rainstorm. It’s like, well, yeah, because now you kicked off at 9:30 at night. So that’s unfortunate.

Caitlin: I think for Utah in their game, they went down one nil. Barbra Banda is back and scored a goal. And it’s the same story both for Utah and for Orlando. We’ve talked about it all season. Orlando is like, okay, great, Barbra Banda can score goals all day long. But can we defend our goal? And the answer in this game was no.

Alex: Yeah, they could.

Caitlin: You cannot. Utah came back, ended up winning two to one. Cloé Lacasse, in that game, got her tenth assist on the season. So she’s part of that 10 and 10 watch that we have going on. But I just think those two teams, San Diego and Utah, so solid, so consistently good. And we talked about this actually in our game tonight with our high school team, it was like, how do you make sure that one mistake doesn’t turn into two? How do you make sure that one goal doesn’t turn into two really, really fast? And they seem to be two teams that really make sure that the mistakes they do make don’t end up turning into something more.

Alex: It was Utah earlier this year, right? That was basically like, we’re not going to lose. We might not win, but we’re not going to lose.

Caitlin: Yeah, agree, agree.

North Carolina Courage: All Offense, Not Enough Defense

Caitlin: Another team I think worth talking about in that playoff picture right now is the North Carolina Courage, right? They have been on just like a scoring tear. Ashley Sanchez in particular has been on a scoring tear. She’s still at the top of that golden boot leaderboard with 15 goals now on the year, followed actually quite closely by teammate Evelyn Ijeh, who I think is at 11.

Alex: Yeah, I think so.

Caitlin: Check that in just a second here. But what’s interesting, we dug a little bit deeper on this, was North Carolina has 40 goals for, which is the most in the league, but they have 33 against, which is fourth worst, so that would put them in the bottom quarter. And so it’s an interesting one. It’s the flip of Gotham, right? Where they’re scoring a bunch, but they are not as readily able to defend when they need to. And so what’s really interesting is if you did see those two, it would literally be like, what will prevail here?

Alex: Yeah. Well, and the other interesting thing here is that with Sanchez at 15, that’s almost over a third of the goals. Ijeh has 11. Over a third. So you have those two with 26 out of the 40 goals. If either of those two go down, what are you doing?

Caitlin: Injury or anything. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Whereas I think you see a lot more balance if you go look at a Utah or at a San Diego, right, and the goal scorers that they have. Portland, right, and the goal scorers that they have. So it’s also wild to think about a team being the top scoring in the league yet being in sixth place. And I think obviously that speaks to their defense.

Alex: Yep.

Caitlin: I feel like the Courage have had the benefit of a few games where they’ve really racked up the goals. So that’s kind of inflated that number a little bit. And when they lose, they kind of lose three one, or four two. Like they’re allowing a lot. So again, another one that is going to be interesting to watch. I do think that they will stay in the playoff picture. I don’t see them falling out. We talked about that last week. They have a favorable schedule in that way, but certainly not a balanced approach, like we just talked about with a Utah and San Diego.

The One Nil Game That Decided the Table

Caitlin: Okay, the one game over the weekend that I felt like did not get enough attention, probably because it wasn’t very sexy at all, but it was a one nil win for Seattle over Houston. And that kept Seattle in that eighth place position, because Houston is one of the teams sitting on 26 points, just right on the outside looking in.

Caitlin: And this actually served two purposes. It kept Seattle in the playoff picture, and it allowed Denver, on their six one victory over the Chicago awful Stars, sorry Chicago, I feel bad, but you guys are really bad, it allowed Denver to leapfrog all three of those teams, right, to fall into that ninth position just on the outside of playoff contention. And I think it’s such an interesting thing. We talk about all of these superstar power teams, and this one game was really, really important.

Alex: Yeah. Well, if you look at it, if it goes the other way, Houston is above Seattle then, who would be at 28 points, and Denver is now in 10th.

Caitlin: Even with their win.

Alex: Yeah, so that’s wild.

Caitlin: Yeah. So, and I think we’re going to continue to see that. Like we just saw LA was beating Boston 5-1, which that’s going to bump them up into, what were they on, 26? So they’re at 29 now. So they’ll be over Denver now, right behind Seattle.

Alex: Right outside of Seattle, yeah.

Caitlin: So again, that playoff line is going to be so hard to cross.

Alex: It’s slowly getting harder to cross.

Caitlin: And you really look at it, I’m sure each of these clubs right there, you’re looking at it as like, every single time you step out on the pitch, you have to get a point, you have to at least get one, right? Which in my view starts to make for really exciting football, because now teams have to go score if they get down. A little more risky, until you get the lead and then you sit back and do all of your game management tactics and whatnot.

Caitlin: So one other interesting nugget about Seattle. They’re on 31 points. They are neutral in goal differential. They’re the only team that’s just right at zero. And I think this Seattle game against Houston is emblematic, I feel like, of their season so far. It’s a lot of one to zero, two to one, low scoring, a lot of zero zero ties, things like that, right? Not a lot of goals being put on, but somehow they’re finding a way to sneak points. So again, you get into the playoffs, it’s like, you have to be able to score if you’re gonna win. But if you have a stingy defense, like, I don’t know.

Alex: You’re not going to make it very far if you’re scoring one or two a game.

Caitlin: Yeah. Playoffs. Yep. So we’ll be watching here too. I think one other thing I’m just noting in our outline is, I think Angel City have a few games in hand, so they have more potential for points of that group that’s sitting right outside the playoff line.

Alex: Yeah, it looks like they’ve got about one or two in hand on the rest of the league.

Caitlin: Yeah.

10-and-10 Watch and the Golden Boot Race

Caitlin: All right, you want to give us an update on our 10 and 10 watch and our golden boot race?

Alex: Yeah, I think it’s still basically the same on the 10 and 10. Pietra Tordin for Portland at seven goals, nine assists. Trinity Rodman for Washington, 10 goals and five assists. And Cloé Lacasse for Utah, seven goals and 10 assists. Is that, we talked about Cloé, right?

Caitlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. She was the one who just dropped in there. She was the only one who really changed her positioning there. So now she’s got the 10 assists, right? Needs a couple more goals. And then obviously we’ve talked about how we don’t think Trin’s going to be racking up a bunch more assists in the season. She’s going to be racking up more goals if anything.

Alex: Yeah. That brings us, you can talk golden boot too. Like we said, Ashley Sanchez at 15, she’s topping the list right now. Barbra Banda still at 13. No, not still. I think she scored. Yeah, she was on 12 for a while.

Caitlin: She was on 12 going into the WAFCON break and now she’s scored coming back.

Alex: Evelyn Ijeh, did I say that right? North Carolina, 11. Sophia Smith, Portland at 11.

Caitlin: Wilson, right?

Alex: Yeah, that’s my bad. Why do we keep doing this?

Caitlin: Because it’s ingrained in your head. I grew up with her as Sophia Smith. I’m so sorry, Gigi’s mom.

Alex: And I am like a robot. I will read the stat as it says to make sure I get it right. Sophia Wilson, Portland at 11. Trinity Rodman, Washington at 10. Trinity Byars, San Diego at 10. Temwa Chawinga for KC at nine. And then a Houston player at nine, and a Denver player at nine, which I think are the last two we just added, because they’re up there.

Caitlin: Yeah. And I was wondering, we’ll have to do some research and bring it into our next episode. But I’m curious to think about how many times has the league had so many players who may end the season in double digit goals, which is exciting for the game, right? The product is, I love great defense and goalkeeping, but fans like to see goals scored. So you’re starting to see where there’s parity here too. Outside of North Carolina, you’ve got these top goal scorers across multiple different teams. It just makes for a good product on the pitch.

Alex: How long was the WAFCON break? Because I’m wondering where Temwa would have been.

Caitlin: So I think it’s interesting to think about, right? Banda also has played far less games than the folks on this list. Trinity Byars is one who’s much lower. I think she came back from injury or something. I’m trying to remember her story right now. But Banda was out through group play. So that was probably about two weeks off. So you probably missed four or five, maybe six games. And then Temwa Chawinga went all the way to the final. Like at least three weeks.

Alex: Three or four.

Caitlin: Yeah, three and a half. And she just made her return this past weekend in their game on Saturday against North Carolina. So yeah, you do wonder. And also, it’s like we joked before. It’s not like the two of them weren’t producing. Part of me is like, I feel like the WAFCON goals should count. I know that’s not how it works. But obviously, I think Temwa in particular, her ability to chase golden boots, as she’s won it the last two years by pretty significant margins, was hampered by that tournament for sure.

Caitlin: All right. That’s all we got for NWSL for the week here.

Alex: We got about six match weeks left. So we’re coming down to the wire. It’s going to be exciting to see who wraps up those last few spots.

WNBA Top Performers: Angel Reese’s Rebounding Records and the Me-Bounds Math

Caitlin: All right, shall we shift gears to the WNBA? As we have been focusing on, we’re gonna highlight a few top performances from the last week. Familiar names, because I think most of these names were on our list last week, so they’re just having a great run of things.

Alex: Week over week.

Caitlin: Right now, week over week. We may decide to talk about our Lynx losing two games in a row, but we reserve the right to not. We still love them and we hear all you haters out there. We get it. But we will talk about the standings and just some of the things that I think are still to be decided once the teams come back from the FIBA break. And then we will get into a little bit of those changes on that FIBA roster. We talked a little bit about that roster last week and what we’ll be watching for. And then next week, we probably won’t really talk about the WNBA.

Alex: Yeah, not at all.

Caitlin: Because no one will make any news in the WNBA while it’s on a break, will they?

Alex: They could still make some news if they…

Caitlin: I was being completely sarcastic. Something will happen.

Alex: Something will happen.

Caitlin: All right, so let’s talk about those top performers. You wanna kick us off?

Alex: Yeah, well, we’re gonna talk about Angel Reese.

Caitlin: We are.

Alex: August 24th versus the Sparks. She pulled down 26 rebounds, which is a new single game record, beating the old record of 24 by Chamique Holdsclaw, set in 2003, so 23 years ago.

Caitlin: It’s been a minute.

Alex: It’s been a minute. That same week she beat A’ja Wilson’s 2024 record for single season rebounds of 451. And then, yeah, I mean, going 16 and 16 against Portland, 15 and 11 against Minnesota, setting a new record of 29 double doubles in a season, beating Alyssa Thomas’s record of 28.

Caitlin: Yeah, she’s on a tear.

Alex: Yeah, an absolute tear.

Caitlin: She’s on a real tear. And honestly, I know you’re gonna get into maybe a little bit of the me-bounds argument. If you actually watch Angel Reese in the paint rebounding, she does do some things that are unique in how she finds her position. We talk about this a lot in coaching soccer, right? You still have to be able to read the body of the player that you’re trying to defend and whatnot. And she does it honestly, and then anticipate where the ball is going to go. And she does that better than, I don’t know, anyone I think I’ve ever seen when it comes to rebounding a basket.

Alex: Yeah. And I put this on here because I know that as soon as we clip the segment, we’re going to get everyone in the comments saying, yeah, they’re all me-bounds. So we did the math for you. She has 485 rebounds this season as of August 31st. Nearly 60% are defensive. She has 56 me-bounds, which is 11 and a half percent of her total rebounds, which means she has 429 rebounds without any of those me-bounds counted.

Alex: Then if you look at the next two behind her and take out their me-bounds, you have Angel still number one at 429, Jess Shepard is at 409, and then Shakira Austin is at 355. So even if you take out all of her me-bounds, she is still by far the number one in rebounds this year, and will likely beat that 451 number if you were to take out the me-bounds.

Caitlin: Yeah, I think that’s interesting. I also would be interested in this, as you kind of laid out the statistics here, is like, what percentage is a regular average of me-bounds, right? So like Angel, you have here, is 11 and a half percent. I feel like that’s probably, it’s not the highest.

Alex: I don’t think that’s the highest.

Caitlin: Obviously you start to factor in things like volume being a part of it. Because if somebody has a lower volume, but they happen to, you know, there’s a bunch of different ways statistically that you can look at that. But I have to believe Angel is not the highest percentage of me-bounds either. And I think too, that’s a little bit evidenced by, well, not evidenced by, but I think we’ve seen also improvement in her field goal percentage year over year.

Alex: So it kind of bounces around. I have the stats here.

Caitlin: Oh good, he’s prepared.

Alex: Between three and 6% is the average.

Caitlin: Okay.

Alex: So she’s about double the average, but you’re talking about, like, A’ja Wilson has 5.7% me-bounds. She has 20 me-bounds in a season. That’s not that much. Reese has 56. Like, 11.5% is not a huge amount, I don’t think.

Caitlin: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I just think generally speaking, I still feel like we will, as we continue to see Angel get better from the shooting perspective, that will go down. I don’t think her rebounding skill is going away.

Alex: And we’ll remind you, 60% of those rebounds are defensive.

Caitlin: Right, right.

Kelsey Mitchell Hits 1,000 Points and Caitlin Clark’s Back-to-Back 30-10 Games

Caitlin: Okay. So Angel stays in our highlights for the week for her rebounds.

Alex: Rebounds.

Caitlin: Well, last week it was points, honestly, but rebounds this week.

Alex: Rebounds and double doubles.

Caitlin: We do also have a returner. I think we probably talked about her every week because she’s just having an insane season. Kelsey Mitchell crossed the 1,000 points in the season threshold in the Indiana Fever’s August 28th win over Connecticut. She had 34 points in a 111 to 91 victory. She is only the second player in WNBA history to eclipse a thousand points in a season. Now this is obviously skewed, the season is longer now than it was in past seasons, seasons of yore. But A’ja Wilson was the first with 1,021 points in 2024.

Caitlin: Kelsey right now is easily on pace to get over 1,100 points in the regular season if she keeps her average up, which right now is sitting at about 25 points per game, putting her second in the league behind the aforementioned A’ja Wilson. I think the thing that’s really impressive about Kelsey’s points though, and we’ve talked about this ad nauseam, is her efficiency from the floor. She’s shooting almost 46% from beyond the arc. She’s shooting just under 50%, I can’t remember right off the top of my head, from the floor overall. And she’s so high usage. She’s playing so many minutes, which you can make the argument, that’s why she’s scoring a bunch. But that also means she’s playing under fatigue a lot. She’s super fit, which is really impressive. And generally speaking, for the Fever, she is matched up on often the top offensive talent on the other team. So it’s, you know, she’s not just out there scoring.

Caitlin: Yeah, I honestly have gotten to the point where when I do watch the Fever games, if she shoots, I’m like, oh, well, it’s going in.

Alex: Yeah. I think the interesting thing here is that we’re definitely going to start seeing more thousand point seasons as the expansion schedule expands and things like that. But maybe only needing to, you know, on a 50 point season, needing 20, 21 points per game, which is still a lot. But if she could hold 25 down for another season in a 50 game season…

Caitlin: Oh my God.

Alex: You’re looking at what is that now, 1,250?

Caitlin: Yeah, that’s insane. Yeah, it is insane.

Golden State’s 10-2 August and a Bench Nobody Wants to Face

Caitlin: I am going to take us through the next one and then we’ll wrap it out here. But the other thing that really has stood out to us the last couple of weeks, probably because they beat us, we did beat them too, but the Valkyries right now are having really an outstanding, they had a really outstanding August. They went 10 and two in August. They gave up an average of 72 points in that stretch. When I went through their scores and was looking through box scores, I think of that 12 games, they had six or seven of them where they held teams under 70 points. That’s like, wow.

Alex: Very good defense.

Caitlin: They’re holding teams under 45% from the floor for the season so far. And I think the other thing that’s really interesting, and we know the Valkyries pride themselves on really strong defense and three-point shots. The other thing that’s really interesting about them is they have one of the best benches in the league, right? They basically rotate, it feels like, 10 players through in any given game. And they really have this next woman up mentality where you don’t hear a lot of chatter about any kind of superstars. Obviously they have Gabby Williams, and I think Veronica Burton, those are two names that people probably know, or would be like, oh, I’ve heard that, right? But their level does not really drop. And you do wonder, you get into the postseason, you get into playoffs, that’s probably gonna be beneficial for them.

Alex: Yeah, I remember we went to our first Lynx game this season against the Valkyries. And I mean, we were sitting there going, they’re going to figure this out. Like, I think we beat them that night, but they’re going to figure this out and it’s going to be trouble for the rest of the league.

Caitlin: Yeah, definitely agree with that. And that was also, just to be clear, in August they played the Aces, the Wings, they played the Lynx twice, the Liberty. Like, they were not, this was against playoff caliber teams, not just, you know, bottom of the table. Some of those were, but it was a good balance. So I am scared of them.

Alex: Yeah. Come play. I am too. I am too. I don’t want to play them.

Caitlin: I also love Natalie Nakase. I think she’s really brilliant and just a great leader for that team.

Alex: My favorite thing this past week is that Natalie Nakase always looks like she just saw crime being committed. Which is my favorite thing. It’s true, but it works. I mean, she gets that team going, so.

Caitlin: I agree.

Alex: All right, moving on.

Caitlin: What was the other one? I’m sorry, I just have to do, oh, Chris DeMarco looks like a guy who missed the bus but isn’t sure if he did or not, but he looks like he did.

Alex: Yeah, he always looks like that.

Caitlin: And I think that’s accurate.

Alex: Yeah, I think it is. All right, and then last one here, we have Caitlin Clark, first player in WNBA history with back-to-back 30-point, 10-assist games. So she hit this August 23rd in Chicago, 37 points, 10 assists, three rebounds, 13 of 24, eight of 12 from three.

Caitlin: Yeah, she went like half from three.

Alex: Her and Mitchell combined for 67 points.

Caitlin: They’re unreal.

Alex: They’re kind of a little bit of a cheat code.

Caitlin: 100%, yeah.

Alex: And then we go to August 28th against Connecticut, 34 points, 12 assists, five rebounds, three steals, 12 of 19 and six of 12 from three.

Caitlin: Yeah. Yeah. It’s interesting. I think Clark definitely seems to be finding her groove a little bit here, once we got out of the technical fouls. There was a lot of chatter around that. And then we talked about this, but they had the scare of the eighth one that then got rescinded, and I think rightly so. It seemed like a weird incidental contact with the referee or whatever. And you can see in games, she’s trying to rein that in a little bit more. And it seems to be translating, right?

Caitlin: I think some of the challenge that we had early in the season for a player of her caliber was some of the antics, or just the extras, like yelling at referees and things like that. They’re getting in the way of you playing your game. And I think we’re seeing that curbed. Maybe because we’re worried about the eighth tech, maybe things are just finally kind of clicking for her as she gets coaching on that, but it’s coming through in the play.

Alex: And I think for the teams that are gonna play against them in the playoffs, we should be worried about a locked in Caitlin Clark and Kelsey Mitchell. Like if she’s really truly getting locked in now, it’s gonna be scary.

Caitlin: Yeah, I agree. So we’ll see how that goes. Obviously Clark is headed to Berlin, or is in Berlin probably right now, for FIBA. So she’s not getting a break. Mitchell’s getting a break.

Alex: Which I think that’s horrible for the rest of us.

Caitlin: She probably is like, I need a break. But it is interesting. We talked about this back in June, or May I should say, with NWSL, right? It’s sort of like when you’re on a streak, is a break helpful or is it harmful, right? Does it spur you on to get that rest, or does it stifle that momentum? And it’ll be really interesting when we come back. We have like three or four games per team left when we come back, and then we get into playoffs. What team is going to come in and hit the ground running? And I think that’s what we’ll move into next year.

Alex: Kelsey’s going to be slipping the security guards at Gainbridge a hundred dollar bill, like, let me in. I need to shoot some shots.

Caitlin: I need to be in my arena. I’m sure that they can. I don’t think she needs to slip in dollar bills for that.

WNBA Playoff Seeding: Remaining Schedules and the Odds

Caitlin: All right, so we are going to talk a little bit about those playoff teams and just get into what their remaining schedules look like and how we think that might impact the final seeding, right? We did our kind of early, way too early to tell predictions last week. And honestly, I’m maybe feeling a little bit embarrassed about it at this point, but you never know. And so I’m just gonna stand on it. I’m standing on it.

Caitlin: So when we come back from the FIBA break, I think everybody’s got four games.

Alex: We all got four games, I’m just making sure.

Caitlin: So the Lynx right now are in first. They’re two games ahead of Golden State after losing their last two. I honestly think it’s good for the Lynx to take a break right now. Let’s stop that momentum. They come back, they’re gonna play the New York Liberty at home. We are going to try to go to that game. Then they play Connecticut away, and then they play Indiana away and then Indiana at home. So it’s a back to back against Indiana. I think I have it copied in here wrong, but that Connecticut game should be a win. Liberty, never know, they beat us earlier in the season. We beat the Fever in our first matchup. We went to that game. It is going to be interesting to see with us closing out the season back to back against that team, both a home and away, how that goes, but a really good tune up, I think, for the playoffs.

Alex: I think going back to the losses we’ve had recently, I think it’s good for us to lose.

Caitlin: Agree.

Alex: I think Cheryl’s actually maybe a little bit excited for them to lose because they can see what is causing teams to start to beat us. What are we doing wrong? What are they doing right? And how do we start to game plan?

Caitlin: Right, take advantage. Yeah, exactly. And I think you heard that in her post-game presser after the game against the Dream on Sunday. The other thing I’ll say about the Lynx is, we knew going into post all-star that they had the toughest strength of schedule.

Alex: Yeah, that’s true.

Caitlin: They had the most difficult strength of schedule going into the end of the season, and so it’s not surprising. Honestly, it’s kind of surprising that they won as many as they did, right? And that they’ve dropped these last couple, again, to two very good teams in Golden State and the Atlanta Dream. Not all that surprising. Now, they do have an opportunity, they’ve had an opportunity to lock up that one seed and they keep squandering that. And so I would love for them to knock that off so we can have home court advantage throughout the playoffs.

Caitlin: All right, Golden State. They will wrap their season up against Portland at home, Seattle at home, then they go to Portland and then they play the Sparks. Very favorable. Maybe that Portland game away is a little bit of a challenge. It’s always hard to go into the fire pit, but you just don’t know. I don’t know what the Sparks are doing right now. They’re waiving players. They’re doing all kinds of weird stuff. Anyways, they should be able to get at least three of them, if not all four, to keep their hot streak going.

Caitlin: Then you’ve got Las Vegas Aces. They play a home and away against Seattle, then they play the Sparks and then they play Phoenix.

Alex: You’re gonna win.

Caitlin: Very favorable. I would actually argue, and this was why I made the argument last week when we did the seeding, that I think Vegas has a better chance of jumping up to that two spot, because Portland is a challenge, right? And so Golden State, you know, they have definitely a better challenger in Portland than Vegas does in Seattle or LA or Phoenix.

Caitlin: Then we’ve got Atlanta in the standings right now in fourth. They play Connecticut at home, Chicago at home, and they have to go to New York and play two games away. I’m like, what?

Alex: Who came up with this?

Caitlin: That’s mean.

Alex: This reads like somebody was in the office and it was like 10 o’clock and they were like, just put them two in a row right there, yeah.

Caitlin: So that’s kind of challenging, right? And Chicago is not, they’re not slackers, right? They’re hanging out, they’re right in 10th place. They continue to challenge teams. They got pride, they want to win. So I don’t know. That could be interesting for Atlanta. They’re really in this back and forth with Indiana. And obviously whether either one of those teams falls in four or five doesn’t really matter because they play each other no matter what. But I do feel like Atlanta would love to have the home court.

Caitlin: Fever. The Fever play Toronto away and they play Washington at home, which is a playoff team, right? Then they play Minnesota at home in Gainbridge and then they come to Minnesota as I mentioned.

Alex: So that could be easy.

Caitlin: Yeah, they don’t have the easiest path. And then you go to New York. They’re obviously at Minnesota away. Then they play away at Toronto. And then they have those two home games against the Dream. Tough slate for them too, right? The Lynx and then the Dream twice.

Caitlin: And then Washington plays Chicago away, Indiana away, Connecticut at home, and then Chicago at home. So you’ve got one game against a playoff team. The rest are, you know, a little bit lower. Again, I think Chicago enjoys the role of potentially playing spoilers.

Caitlin: And then you’ve got Dallas, who play the Sparks at home, Phoenix at home, then they go on the road to end the season against Seattle. Likely that the Wings will win out the rest of the way. And frankly, I fear for the Liberty, because I think that Dallas will win those four and the Liberty potentially only get one out of those last three, which then really blows up my prediction, because then it puts the Liberty against us in the first round. Which that’s fine.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: As a Lynx fan, I will take that. It just ruins my prediction.

Alex: Let me interject something here.

Caitlin: Oh, please.

Alex: So we have the WNBA playoff picture and the likelihood that each team will get the seed that it is currently sitting in.

Caitlin: Oh, okay.

Alex: So number one, Lynx, 96% that they’ll get the one seed. And they control their destiny at 96%, right? And so all the numbers I’m gonna read here are going to be, they control their destiny for that position.

Caitlin: Okay.

Alex: Valkyries are at 88% for the second seed. Aces are at 83% for the third. Fever, 29% for the fourth. Dream, 33% for the fifth. And then Liberty, 13% for the sixth. Mystics, 28% for the seventh. And Wings, 15% for the eighth. So those are all the positions they control their destiny to get, and those are the percentages that are likely to win those. There are some percentages for those teams where a higher seed may be possible, but it relies on other teams losing, and I don’t have that math.

Caitlin: Okay. Yeah, because I’m like, when you read the low percentages for like the Wings…

Alex: Like the Dream, who had 33% at five, they could get to the fourth at 53%, but that depends on other things happening.

Caitlin: Right. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. So there’s still some movement to be had potentially. I think most of that movement is going to happen in the five through eight slot, right? I really do think the Lynx, Valkyries, Aces are pretty much locked in for those top three seeds.

Alex: The Lynx chance of getting the second is 4%.

Caitlin: Yeah. Yes.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: Hold on. Hold on.

Alex: Yeah. Stop saying things.

Caitlin: All right. But we will have to wait 17 days for more information on this. And during that time, we will also take a break from WNBA, for our health. We will bring some FIBA updates in. We will be watching that as we are able. And just keep in mind that those games, they’re being played in Berlin. So I think Alex will probably touch on them in what to watch, but they are earlier.

Alex: They are, yes, earlier in the day.

Caitlin: In the daytime. Speaking of what to watch, let’s…

Alex: Yeah, you wanna go to that?

Caitlin: Let’s go to that, let’s get into it.

Alex: We also might end up talking about NCAA basketball in the interim.

Caitlin: Oh, yes, yes.

Alex: Little surprise might be coming.

Caitlin: I think I know what you’re talking about.

What to Watch: FIBA World Cup, NWSL, WPBL, and the US Open

Alex: All right, going into what to watch. The WNBA, as we said, has nothing. Nothing this weekend. Nothing for you to watch.

Caitlin: We’re on a break.

Alex: The FIBA schedule for the US is, we play China on the 4th at 7:15 a.m.

Caitlin: Get your coffee.

Alex: We play Italy on the 6th at 1:45 p.m. and then Czechia on the 7th at 1:45 p.m.

Caitlin: Some nice little Labor Day weekend plans for all of you.

Alex: I did not grab the…

Caitlin: TNT Sports. Yes, okay. Yes, TNT Sports. I have no idea, I’m assuming that’s not TNT. I assume it’s something else.

Alex: Sometimes it is, sometimes it’s a different thing.

Caitlin: So just look that up. Yeah. You’ll find it.

Alex: All right, then moving on to the NWSL. We’ve got Kansas City Current at Bay FC Friday at 9 p.m. on Prime. Angel City at Racing Louisville, Saturday at 5:30 p.m. on ION. Gotham FC at Denver Summit, Sunday, September 6th, 1 p.m. on CBS and Paramount Plus. We have got the Washington Spirit at Portland Thorns on Sunday, September 6th, 3 p.m. on CBS. And then we’ve got San Diego at Seattle Sunday, September 6th, 8 p.m. on ESPN2.

Caitlin: Honestly, circle Angel City. Like, you need to win that game against Racing. Racing has played spoiler a few times the last couple of weeks. The other one that I would be looking at, there’s actually, well, all of these, you picked great ones. But Denver, they could get a win over Gotham, right? They’re at Denver too, which is kind of interesting. And then that San Diego Wave, Seattle Reign game. It’s like, Seattle, can you do it?

Alex: There is nothing for the LPGA this weekend. They are also on a break. And then we’ve got the WPBL. Again, everything we got going on here is at 6:30 p.m. So on Wednesday, we’ve got San Fran at Boston. Thursday, New York at LA. Friday, San Fran at New York. Saturday, LA at Boston. Sunday, Boston at San Fran. And then the semi-finals start next Wednesday.

Caitlin: Yes. And so it’s kind of a final push here. I think San Francisco is top of the table, followed by LA and then New York and Boston. And so teams are going to be jockeying for that seeding as those semi-finals get ready to kick off next week.

Alex: US Open, the women’s singles first rounds are Tuesday, and the round of 16 is Tuesday through Sunday of this week, and can be found on ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC.

Caitlin: I think we gotta find out when those doubles matches are.

Alex: Yeah, yeah.

Caitlin: I gotta figure out when Venus and Serena are gonna be back on. All right, so plenty to watch. I would recommend tuning into the NWSL. We just gave you lots of reasons.

Alex: Lots of things to look for. Yeah, lots of things to look for.

Closing: Momentum and Setbacks

Caitlin: All right, wrap it out here with momentum and setbacks. I can see you’re actively thinking about this.

Alex: Yeah, I don’t know. I didn’t come in with any outstanding things in my brain for momentum or setbacks.

Caitlin: Yeah, that’s a good point.

Alex: I feel like the most, yeah, we’re sitting here with dead air, which is wonderful for audio.

Caitlin: We’re fine.

Alex: I mean, it’s nothing to be concerned about, but the losses recently by the Lynx, obviously. I just said you can turn those around and turn them into intel. We gotta pull it together here for the playoffs, and hopefully the break helps.

Caitlin: Yeah, I think I was thinking that for setback as well. I think for me, it’s like not a specific setback necessarily, but building off of that is, like I said before in our segment, I am really curious to see this break followed at such a weird time for the WNBA. How does it impact that momentum? And for what teams is it a setback? And for what teams does it help generate some momentum?

Alex: And we talked about that with the World Cup and then NWSL earlier this year.

Caitlin: And I think we saw some teams really kind of fire up coming out of that. And then we saw some teams kind of fall off a little bit.

Alex: It could also just be a really intense playoff situation, with getting some rest right before that all kicks off, so.

Caitlin: Yeah, for sure, for sure.

Alex: Oh, momentum. Hmm. I’m not sure. I think the momentum is the oldest daughter had a goal score in her rec league soccer. I think she popped out of the goal a little bit this weekend and decided to score, and she chipped the keeper on one and was all over the place, so.

Caitlin: Nice, nice. Yeah, I’m gonna give, I think from a momentum perspective, oh, I had one. Oh, I really loved, I read a little bit about the Global Alliance for Female Athletes. I think that’s great. There’s such a need. We talked about this in lots of different ways, but just such a need for research on women athletes so that we can better understand their bodies, better create training programs and load management and game management and things like that, so that these players can, some of these careers are becoming more lucrative, are becoming things that these women can actually live off of. I just, I wanna see, it is heartbreaking to see athletes’ careers ended by injury, repeat injury, and specifically for women and especially soccer players, like the ACL piece, you hate to see it.

Alex: Or especially making it so that it’s easier to come back after pregnancy.

Caitlin: Pregnancy. Yeah. Exactly. Right. So I love seeing that.

Caitlin: I also just gotta give a shout out to my team, from a momentum perspective. We lost tonight. We lost to the number one team in the state, zero two, but we held them to a scoreless half, which is huge. And again, I don’t think I’ve ever coached a team quite with the level of resiliency and the level that they all continued to play at even after going down two goals. My goalkeeper had a fantastic game. Shout out to her. But we also stayed super organized. I think I said to the other coaches, I was like, I’ve never felt better after a loss in my 25 years of coaching. And so it makes me really excited for how we’ll build on that this season. So it’s good.

Alex: All right, check us out on Instagram, Threads, YouTube at RTG underscore pod, website RTGpod.com, or email us at raisingthegamepod@gmail.com. Email’s definitely the more fun thing to receive, like little notifications. Well, I’ve gotten a few emails.

Caitlin: Oh, what do people say?

Alex: They say, do you want to interview this person? And I go, sometimes I go, yeah, I think we would.

Caitlin: That’s true. Yeah, maybe we’ll do one of those one day.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: All right.