Episode 40 - The College Sports Bill's Title IX Loophole, Angel Reese's DPOY, WNBA Semis

Cold Open: Why You Should Watch the WNBA Semifinals

Caitlin: If you have never watched a WNBA basketball game in your life, tune in for the semifinal games. This is honestly some of the best basketball, individual performances, team performances, that you are going to see. 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.

Episode 40 and What’s on the Docket

Alex: Here we are. Episode 40. We’ve made it. We are here.

Caitlin: We finally got there.

Alex: We officially made it.

Caitlin: You were a little premature last week.

Alex: I was. Last week we were kind of in the middle of the first round of the WNBA playoffs, and we’re already…

Caitlin: We were one game in. One game in. The middle is generous. And now…

Alex: We are in the semis.

Caitlin: In it, yeah. It went fast. We’re going to talk about that. Obviously, NWSL, a little update. We’re going to keep that brief this week. They’re headed into an international break, so we’ll have plenty of time to talk about that when they come back. But that means we get the U.S. Women’s National Team taking on Spain. Sorry for the singing. I just get really excited about that team.

Alex: She gets a nice mic in front of her face and she’s like, I can sing now.

Caitlin: And we also have some really important topics to cover that are kind of related to the larger ecosystem of women’s sports. So I’m excited to get into those today. It’s going to be a ton of content.

Alex: Yeah, we got a lot.

Caitlin: So hang with us. They’re all really, really important things for us to be talking about, exciting things for us to be talking about. And I’ve got to be honest, there’s some disappointing things.

Alex: Yeah, for sure.

Caitlin: We’ll get into it.

Alex: Yeah, we will. All right. We’ve got favorite thing first.

Caitlin: Well, don’t we have to like and subscribe?

Alex: Oh, yeah. That’s my favorite thing, when people like and subscribe and press all the good buttons.

Caitlin: I like sharing. I like when you share. That’s a good one, with friends or family. Or if you really don’t like what we put out, share it with people you don’t like, as long as it’s a win win.

Alex: For an Instagram post, it’s like, 340 people shared it, and I’m like, what?

Caitlin: I don’t know.

Alex: That’s odd. That’s weird.

Caitlin: We love it. Thank you.

Alex: Yeah, thank you.

Caitlin: Thank you. All right. Now we can do it.

Favorite Things: Playoff Basketball on the Patio and High School Soccer

Alex: Yeah, let’s do a favorite thing. I should have thought about this beforehand. I think, sports wise, it was fun to just sit on our patio yesterday with the TV outside and watch both those games and kind of take that all in.

Caitlin: Yes. It was nice. It was beautiful outside, a beautiful October day here in Minnesota, where we could actually be outside and be very comfortable. I would agree. It’s nice to watch playoff basketball without a dog in the race. Although, and I realize that our listening audience can’t see this, but I have a Lynx hat on right now. They obviously bowed out spectacularly in the first round. We’ll talk about it. But my new dog in this race, y’all, and this has been, to be clear, my Eastern Conference team all year long…

Alex: She’s got the Dream hat on.

Caitlin: The Atlanta Dream, baby. And so that’s sort of my dog in the race now. But I like watching playoff basketball.

Alex: She also likes when she’s forced to buy two hats because she needs free shipping.

Caitlin: Sponsor me. Sponsor me and my hat game. Yes. I need a lot better display for all of these. We’re getting out of hand. Okay, anyways. Yeah, I think that was nice. I was going to say, one of my favorite things, I think I’ve mentioned before on the podcast, I coach high school soccer. We are getting down to the end of our regular season. It’s been a very, very fun season. We’re having a lot of success on the field, but also having a great time with the group of young women that we have, and it’s just one of my favorite things.

Alex: Yeah, it’s going a lot better than last year.

Caitlin: A lot better than last year.

Women’s Sports Foundation Report: The Youth Pipeline Gap

Alex: All right, should we dig into these headlines?

Caitlin: Let’s do it.

Alex: The Women’s Sports Foundation releases its inaugural report, which shows gaps between the meteoric growth of professional women’s sports and the pipeline to the top levels of competition.

Caitlin: Okay, so we’re going to break this down a little bit. We’ll talk about what the report is looking at first and then some of the results. So this report looks at and surveys girls and young women from first opportunity to play all the way up until about college. So eight through 18, 3,000 participants roughly. It comes from a YouGov poll that’s put out there, and then they also polled, I think it’s 80 sports industry experts, if you will. So these might be athletic directors, they might be coaches, they might be business people who monitor the market. And it looks at things like participation rates, barriers to participation, sense of belonging, and then that industry leader sentiment that I mentioned.

And I think what’s really fascinating, and we’ve talked about this before, but there’s a point for young girls, and this survey points that out very clearly versus young boys, where they just kind of stop playing. Usually it’s around 12 to 14, that’s typically when we see the biggest dropoff. But what the survey found was that girls want to be playing. And when they’re younger, they actually say at the same rate as boys that they want to be able to participate in sports. But things like cost and access and sense of belonging tend to get in their way of continuing on.

And I’m going to actually bring in this soccer team I just mentioned to this. We just had a team talk the other day where I asked the players, why, when you were starting to play soccer, why did you want to play? And they were like, friends. They just want to be around people who support them. And so to me, there’s two things. Either families are being priced out, which we’ve talked about, we’ve barely touched the surface on pay to play, but that’s a problem, or these girls get into these environments and they don’t feel included.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: And you think about some of the trends we’ve seen all the way up into the professional ranks, where now the teams might feel included, but the fans start to feel…

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: And so there’s something there. I also think one of the big things that they found was this visibility gap for young girls. I think it was under half of them could actually name a professional sports player, and almost none of them were women. And so some of it is this sociological thing, the way that we expose our kids to certain things, that maybe girls aren’t getting as exposed to sports and don’t understand that that is an opportunity for them beyond a certain age.

Why this is important, and then we can move on, I promise, is there’s this gap, as Alex said in the headline, between what we see as far as the growth and rise in professional sports, and even at the collegiate level, the exposure that’s happening there in some of the major sports, and what you’re gaining from these results from young people who need to be the pipeline to continue the momentum in the growth. And so there’s a definite disconnect there that I think, hopefully, organizations like the Women’s Sports Foundation can continue to share results and we can continue to solution for that problem, fix some of these gaps in access, make sure that the sports are a place where girls feel like they belong.

Unrivaled Adds Issa Rae, an LA Tour Stop and Its Final Signings

Alex: Yeah, for sure. LA announced as the eighth tour stop for Unrivaled, will be part of opening weekend.

Caitlin: Y’all, Unrivaled was just dropping bombs of information today. I could hardly keep up. LA, as you mentioned, eighth stop. Great, we’ve rounded that out, that whole circus is done. But they have more announcements. So award winning actor, producer and entrepreneur Issa Rae joins the league as an investor. She was part of its Series C fundraise, which valued the organization at $650 million. And then we also got news that the final roster spots have been filled out. They signed Sydney Taylor from the Chicago Sky to a multi-year deal. They signed Satou Sabally, which is great to see her back. She’s been out basically all season with a concussion injury. She’s a multi-concussion, she’s had this happen in the past, so it’s more serious for her. Aneesah Morrow and Kiki Rice become the final signees. We kind of know the player pool, and we expect that those club rosters are going to be announced in the near future.

Rebecca Lowe Joins Netflix for the 2027 Women’s World Cup

Alex: That’ll be fun. Rebecca Lowe will join the Netflix broadcast team for the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup.

Caitlin: Yeah, this is just exciting. She’s a huge get. She’s a phenomenal voice in professional football around the world. And so to have her joining that broadcast team is fantastic.

PWHL Schedule, Conference Alignment and New Playoff Format

Alex: Yeah, it’s going to be fun. The PWHL announces its season schedule, conference alignments, and a new playoff format.

Caitlin: And we’re going to probably get new team names. I think I’m stealing from you. The names will probably be out by the time this comes out. So, regular season, I think we talked last week, begins the first weekend in December. There are going to be 180 games. So obviously adding four more teams adds a lot more games. 96 total game days. The Eastern Conference is going to consist of Montreal, Boston, New York, Toronto, Ottawa and Hamilton, and then the Western Conference is Minnesota, Vancouver, Seattle, Detroit, Las Vegas and San Jose. And when you look at those conferences, what is the biggest difference between the two?

Alex: Travel.

Caitlin: Oh my gosh.

Alex: Holy smokes.

Caitlin: The Western Conference has to travel thousands of miles.

Alex: Detroit is just going to get burned.

Caitlin: The other thing I was thinking about Detroit, they’re Eastern time zone, so they have to go three.

Alex: Yeah, that’s not going to be fun.

Caitlin: And then you look at, if you go plot on a map, y’all, where the Eastern Conference teams are geographically, they are all… you could drive.

Alex: Yeah, you could probably drive.

Caitlin: I mean, they won’t. But yeah, it’s not far.

Alex: I’m hoping that they at least try to plan out the West Coast.

Caitlin: Yeah, exactly, so that you’re not doing a lot of back and forth. Again, player safety. And then from a playoffs perspective, we had been speculating, and we actually contemplated talking about it last week and throwing our guesses out there, but we ran out of time. And we were like, they have to change the playoffs.

Alex: Yeah, they do.

Caitlin: And here they are. So the top four teams from each of these conferences will advance to the playoffs. And then the quarterfinals will be a best of three series, and then semis best of five, finals best of five. What remains to be seen is, do they just take the top four and then seed them after that? I would think that’s how you do it. It wouldn’t be automatic, like, if you finish one and one, you’re one and two based on record or whatever.

Alex: I’m going to miss the top team getting to pick their opponent.

Caitlin: Oh, they might still do that, though.

Alex: Oh, okay.

Caitlin: You never know, right? They could do it within the four potentially.

Alex: Ooh, that’s a good wrinkle. I like that wrinkle. Or the gold plan with the points, or…

Caitlin: They might still have that. We don’t know if it’s gone. We’ll see. Let’s not assume. They’ve got lots of tricks up their sleeve.

Alex: You stole my next one, so we’ll move on to the next one.

Caitlin: I’m so sorry.

Project B Opens in China in January

Alex: Project B will open its season January 19th through 24th in China.

Caitlin: So this is an alternative kind of offseason league from Unrivaled. It is based more internationally. So they are going to play seven two-week tournaments, I’m trying to make sure my numbers are right here, across Asia, Europe and the Americas. So they’re kind of touring basketball around the world. There’ll be six teams, 11 players on each team. Executives: Grady Burnett, former Google and Facebook executive, and Geoff Prentice, who is the co-founder of Skype. I believe the president of operations, or whatever the leadership is, is former Duke and WNBA star Alana Beard. I grew up watching her. She was fantastic. So they’ve got some good leadership at the helm. They’re going to have training camp in South Korea, early weeks of January, just to obviously get everybody, speaking of time zone changes, get everybody over there, kick things off in China.

You might be wondering, we’ve talked a lot about Unrivaled. We are very biased towards Unrivaled, Alex has a Phantom hat on tonight. But there are a number of WNBA players, names that you’ll recognize, that are going to be playing in this Project B league. I think what remains to be seen, and we’ll definitely share once we know, is how do you watch it? Obviously them playing all around the globe means that being able to watch them live is going to be challenging. And then also, how do they get that out? Who are they streaming with? But if you’re interested, players like Azzi Fudd, Nneka Ogwumike, Alanna Smith, Kelsey Mitchell, Jonquel Jones, Awa Fam, Jewell Loyd, Kamilla Cardoso and Leonie Fiebich, just to name a few. That’s just a couple of names that I pulled out. So again, names you’re going to recognize. It’s kind of this alternative option.

Alex: Five on five?

Caitlin: Five on five, yep. So it’ll be cool. We’ll definitely keep our eyes on that.

The Search for the Next WNBA Commissioner

Alex: All right. The WNBA announces the search firm Excel Search and Advisory has been retained to lead the identification of the next WNBA commissioner.

Caitlin: Yeah, so just a reminder, Cathy Engelbert, the current commissioner, is scheduled to retire at the end of the year, and the WNBA is likely to announce her replacement before then. Both the WNBA and the NBA Board of Governors will reportedly have input into that final decision, but ultimately it’s Adam Silver’s hire to make. It is worth mentioning Excel Search and Advisory is the…

Alex: They’re like the agents.

Caitlin: The agents for a lot of star players. Napheesa Collier, Caitlin Clark and others. I think there’s nine players in the W who are represented by them. So it’s a known entity, understands the league a little bit. So we will also keep you posted on what we start to hear about that.

Denver Summit Breaks Ground and Jen Millet’s Speech

Alex: In the NWSL, Denver Summit breaks ground on their new stadium, and club president Jen, is it Millett or Millay?

Caitlin: I don’t know. Millay.

Alex: Millay gives an awesome speech.

Caitlin: So finally. I think this was delayed a little bit longer than the Summit would have liked. They had to get all the appropriate permitting for that Santa Fe Yards area, which we drove past when we were in Colorado visiting my brother and his wife. But this speech, go look, this speech was fantastic about basically the importance of having your own space as women, as professional athletes. And one of the quotes that I pulled out was, quote, the shovel going into the dirt today is the ultimate expression of taking up space.

Not to get philosophical, but I think women are oftentimes made to feel like they need to shrink to exist, to put it simply. And I think in professional sports in particular, you are often the second or third tenant of a space, and those spaces, we’ve talked about with CPKC Stadium for the Current, that space is designed for women. These other spaces are not. And so having a place that can feel like home, you think about the safety piece, you think about the psychological safety piece of that, it’s just so important. And I think we’re continuing to see these strides create venues, whether it’s training venues or competition venues for women, that are just going to allow us to continue to elevate their game.

Equal Prize Money at Combined WTA 1000 Events in 2027

Alex: All combined WTA 1000 tournaments will award equal prize money for men and women starting in 2027.

Caitlin: This is amazing. This is the work that Billie Jean King started back in the 70s. It’s been almost six decades since she started that fight. And to see that we’re finally here, it’s a little bit bittersweet, because it’s kind of like, why did it take so long? But also we’re still battling for these things in other sports. And I think it’s awesome that Billie Jean King gets to see this happen. Like, she’s alive for it. And it’s just a great thing. It’s a great thing.

The Protect College Sports Act and the Title IX Language That Got Left Out

Alex: All right, let’s move on to something that may kind of relate exactly to that, with the Protect College Sports Act.

Caitlin: Yeah, so I think this just passed in the Senate last week. I think it passed the day that we recorded and we just didn’t feel prepared to talk about it, but we knew it was coming down the pike as far as legislation goes. And we want to share a little bit about what that piece of legislation is, I guess, intended to do, and then what it, in our perspective, very much omits and how it might impact women’s sports in particular.

So, as many people who follow sports know, college sports has created a system of revenue sharing. You had the NIL thing happen, which rightly so, players should be compensated for the use of their labor and their likeness that generates money for the school. That money has started to be given to players. And the challenge that we’re starting to see is that I think that has started to happen, and for whatever reason…

Alex: Well, I think we can speculate.

Caitlin: Yeah, I’m ready to speculate. Suddenly we’re going to pass legislation that is very favorable to the universities and, we’ll just say, the probably wealthy donors to these programs.

Alex: Media companies.

Caitlin: Media companies, things like that. So we have this piece of legislation that comes forward and it’s like, okay, you have to do this a certain way and blah, blah, blah. And it claims that it is protecting college sports and thereby protecting women’s sports. What we notice in our research on this, and it seems that others who follow women’s sports do too, is an omission of particular language that actually allows for some of the application of Title IX as a legal precedent or a legal standard to be enforced in this revenue sharing.

Alex: I think, just so people do get the whole picture, what we’re trying to say here is that the bill does mention Title IX. It says it does not override, modify, or amend Title IX. But what Caitlin’s talking about here is that it omits the specific language that is kind of a workaround to Title IX.

Caitlin: Yeah, so to put that in perspective, I have a quote here from the NWSL Players Association executive director, Meghann Burke. She said this, quote, there is a profound contradiction at the center of this legislation. The claim that the Protect College Sports Act protects women in sports. In reality, the bill risks undermining the promise of Title IX. Schools should not be able to evade their Title IX obligations simply by calling revenue sharing payments compensation rather than athletic benefits. At a time when college athletes are beginning to exercise their collective power, we should not be putting new barriers in their path towards collective bargaining.

And what she means by this is that in this piece of legislation, this revenue sharing is called compensation, or payments. Title IX stipulates that athletic benefit, and I think we have some other words for it in here too, that legally it would fall under that, has to be distributed, there has to be equal opportunity for men and women. We’ve talked about Title IX a lot. And so by circumventing that through language, it puts universities potentially in a position to now have a case to start to defund or cut what are inevitably the non-revenue generating ones.

The point of Title IX is not, just to be clear, the point of Title IX is not to generate revenue. I know y’all are going to come at us and say, well, they’re not making money, they shouldn’t get any money. That is not the point of that legislation. That legislation is to provide equal opportunity, because if it didn’t exist, it would be wildly inequitable, okay? And so the point of this going forward, if it goes forward, the concern I should say, maybe not the point, is that because they’re doing all of this quote unquote revenue sharing, and that is going to go disproportionately towards male athletes, you are going to end up with a series or a swath of women’s programs cut by only the rationale that they don’t generate revenue.

Alex: And as soon as somebody tries to test this by saying, well, we’re going to sue you because we don’t think that’s what the law says you can do, they get to come back and say, well, no, it’s very clear that this is compensation and not athletic benefit, therefore what we’re doing is completely legal, and then not within the spirit of Title IX at all.

Caitlin: I also think, and I think you have some more to say on this, but I also think that there’s components of this legislation, and Alex and I are not lawyers, just to be clear, this is just kind of our read on what we can discern from it, but that there’s going to be some impact to the college athlete’s ability to collectively bargain. This is like pre, it’s like union busting before the union has started.

Alex: Yeah, and I’m just trying to pick out, I think there were a few points I had down here on that. Basically they can kind of squash any sort of collective bargaining before it happens. They can cap and limit the amount of money that the athletes can get from name, image and likeness deals. What was the other one I had? Yeah. The Protect College Sports Act, they’re saying, really what the language within it says is it’s actually not protecting…

Caitlin: The athletes.

Alex: The athletes, or the sports. It’s protecting the…

Caitlin: The current structure of…

Alex: How people make money via college sports, which is essentially off the backs of these amazing athletes.

Caitlin: Who are often people of color.

Alex: Yes. And so to say that it’s protecting them is really a huge misnomer.

Caitlin: Who are mostly people of color. Let me amend my statement.

Alex: Yeah. So I think that’s the big thing. It’s essentially trying to, like you said, union bust before the athletes can form a union.

Caitlin: Yeah, they can see the writing on the wall, that the progress we have made for these college athletes to be more fairly compensated now might take money out of their pockets, and they’re trying to hedge against it.

Alex: Like you said, full circle, that’s going to disproportionately affect women.

Caitlin: Yep, women and people of color. We’re going to move on from this section, but I also just, I can’t not say this: also, why are we doing this right now? There are so many other things that I would love our lawmakers to be focused on. This didn’t even occur to me that this needed to be talked about right now. It makes me really frustrated.

Alex: I think, just for some other facts on it, I think it passed relatively bipartisan. The good part is it hasn’t passed in the House yet. The House is out of session until November 9th. So if you want to call your House members and tell them to vote no on the companion bill, or whatever they call it, make sure to do that.

Caitlin: Yeah, agree, agree.

WNBA Awards: Angel Reese Wins Defensive Player of the Year

Alex: Let’s talk basketball.

Caitlin: We’re going to talk about the playoffs. So Alex mentioned at the start, a lot has happened in the WNBA since we talked last. I think we’re going to start with some more of the regular season awards that have been announced, some really exciting ones that we are eager to discuss. And then we’ll do a quick recap of the first round of the playoffs. I think we were talking earlier and I was like, I think I have a one to three sentence summary. And we’ll kind of go back and forth. And then we want to talk about these semifinal games that happened. Really good. I’m going to get into it. We’ll give a little bit of predictions on who we think are going to win.

But I’ll start with this, honest to goodness. If you have never watched a WNBA basketball game in your life, tune in for the semifinal games. This is honestly some of the best basketball, individual performances, team performances, that you are going to see. We’ll share a few of them, but it’s been so good.

Alex: I think when I really started getting into it a couple of years ago, it was playoff basketball that really got me in.

Caitlin: Playoffs, yeah, it was probably two or three years ago, playoffs. Because the stakes are higher.

Alex: A lot higher. All right.

Caitlin: Let’s talk awards.

Alex: All right. Your Defensive Player of the Year is, drum roll please, Angel Reese of the Atlanta Dream. She got 46 of 74 votes.

Caitlin: Yes, followed by Gabby Williams of the Valkyries.

Alex: The first Defensive Player of the Year in Dream history, and the first East winner since Sylvia Fowles in 2013.

Caitlin: Ah, pre her move to the Lynx.

Alex: Yep. 16.4 points per game and 1.8 steals per game. Top four in defensive rating, defensive rebound percentage and defensive rebounds. Led the league in defensive win shares, and also set the single season rebounding record at 500.

Caitlin: Yeah, I mean, this is…

Alex: You only need to watch one of these playoff games to know why.

Caitlin: To know, exactly. This is just impressive on its face. Again, if you watch Angel play, she is… I wasn’t necessarily convinced a few years ago to be this declarative about it, but now I am for sure. She is the best rebounder I’ve ever seen. Her ability to get to a ball and somehow do it through a bunch of traffic is unparalleled. The way she reads angles of people and the ball off the glass and things like that is incredible.

Now, the thing that I think really took center stage this year was her on ball defense, and her ability to guard one through five. She can guard anybody on the court and she will steal the ball from you. She had this incredible poke out of Breanna Stewart’s hands, I think it was Stewie, during the semifinal game, where it was just like, the ball is there, and then now it’s gone and she’s gone.

Alex: Or the block on Stewie too. Oh my gosh, amazing.

Caitlin: Yeah. And I think too, I just want to finish, the other piece of this that’s extremely impressive to me is that Angel Reese has probably faced, I might argue, the most hate from outside noise since coming into the WNBA, and even when she was in college. The whole reason that we have the eyeballs on the W right now started with this rivalry that sort of was media created, but on court, like play rivalry, between her and Caitlin Clark. And she, I don’t know how that woman did not sink into a deep, deep, deep depression, but the fact that she continues to show up, she continues to believe in herself, believe in her game, believe in her teammates, get better, you are seeing that in this award.

Alex: Well, and it helps that Atlanta has just completely embraced her.

Caitlin: It’s been really good to see.

Alex: Yeah, I think the other thing that I wanted to say was, I don’t know, three or four weeks ago, we talked about some of the rebound stuff. And the other thing I brought up is that she is slowly also bringing her field goal percentage up. She’s becoming a better shooter. I think she’s starting to hit some of those layups that she should be hitting every time. That was one of the…

Caitlin: Criticisms of her game, which is fair.

Alex: Which is fair, but she has, that’s gone from, I think she was like 35, now she’s like at 44 or something like that over the past couple of years. So she’s starting to become a better offensive player. Well, obviously the defense is where it’s at.

Caitlin: Yeah. So if you actually saw, circulating as that award was announced were some videos, maybe it was Holly Rowe posted some video of Angel, like little teeny Angel, playing defense, and it was like, she’s always been just fierce on defense. So, you know, flowers for Angel. We have really enjoyed watching her grow as a player here in this league. And I think, again, her influence goes way beyond the court as well. And so I just continue to kind of admire her drive and her willingness to put it all out there. And I’m going to talk about her more in just a little bit. So we’ll move to the next one.

Most Improved Player: Jessica Shepard

Alex: All right. Next up, we had Most Improved Player, which is Jessica Shepard.

Caitlin: Which we kind of guessed would be the choice.

Alex: 29 votes to Shakira Austin’s 25.

Caitlin: Which also would have been a good choice. Both very close there.

Alex: 14.5, 11.1 and 5.3, up from career highs of 8.1, 5.4 and 3.5. She led the league with six triple doubles and shot 57.5 percent.

Caitlin: And I think was probably a huge part of Dallas’s turnaround, right? From a 10 win season last year to 17 this year. Just that production allowed for somebody for Paige to work off of, which she didn’t really have last year.

Alex: Becoming more of a central piece is why that improvement really came through. She was kind of relegated to different duties on the Lynx last year.

Caitlin: Exactly. But awesome to see, I think, a player who, again, leans into their opportunity. She took a chance on Dallas, leaving the Lynx to chase that bag. You deserve it, girl. And you were able to perform and produce. Now, I would have loved to have seen her show up a little bit bigger in the playoffs.

Alex: Yeah, oh yeah.

Caitlin: We’ll talk about that here in a second.

Sixth Player of the Year: Janelle Salaün Goes Unanimous

Alex: All right, and your Sixth Player of the Year is Janelle Salaün. She got a unanimous 74 of 74 votes. 12.7 points per game, led all reserves. She has the reserve single season records for points at 509, threes at 93, and 10-point games at 27. She shot…

Caitlin: 39.2 percent.

Alex: From three. She’s plus 160 for the season, and Golden State went 6 and 0 when she scored 20 plus.

Caitlin: Do you remember early in the season we went to that Golden State game?

Alex: Oh yeah.

Caitlin: I was like, oh, we’ve got to go. And we’re watching and we’re like, damn, this team’s good. And I swear to God, every single time a three went in, I was like, who’s that girl? And it was Janelle Salaün. And she was just lighting us up from three. Now, she must not have scored 20, because we beat them that game. But she was just unstoppable. And so, awesome for her. I don’t even think that was, obviously it wasn’t a question from the voters.

Alex: No, it wasn’t.

Caitlin: Great season. And I think really a testament to Golden State, and how deep they go on their bench, and how Natalie Nakase has built that team to say, hey, you maybe would go start on any other team, but here you’re going to come off the bench, but you’re going to play a ton of minutes and you’re going to have just as big an impact as a starter might.

Alex: Yeah, for sure. All right, we just have MVP left, and we don’t know, have they announced when we will know?

Caitlin: Probably after the semis. I don’t know.

Alex: I don’t know.

Playoff Round One: The Liberty Become the First Eight Seed to Beat a One Seed

Alex: All right. Let’s talk about these playoff matchups.

Caitlin: All right. We realize we’re late to the party on reacting to these, so we’re not going to spend too much time. We will have a lot of time in the offseason to talk about these teams and why they left early and all those things.

So, as we know, the Lynx beat, excuse me, ha, the Lynx did not beat anybody.

Alex: No, they didn’t.

Caitlin: The Liberty beat the Lynx in two. This is the first eight seed to beat a one seed. I have a few things to say about that. These are the things I have to say about that. The Liberty were, I don’t care, the Liberty were not a normal eight seed. They were an eight seed, in my view, as a byproduct of having some very early season injuries and just riding this roller coaster of injury kind of through the first two thirds. And then, frankly, their ramp up happened post All-Star, when I don’t know what somebody fed Breanna Stewart. I want to know what her diet is, what her sleep routine is, whatever is going on for her, because she looks like she’s never tired and she’s carrying the team.

Alex: I think she walked up to Chris DiMarco and was like, look at me, I am the captain now.

Caitlin: She owned FIBA. She’s just been on this run. And part of my question for the Liberty going forward is, how long can Stewie do this for? And maybe the answer is all day. Maybe it’s all day.

Alex: Yeah, I think maybe the Lynx should look at just trying to ease off the gas the first half.

Caitlin: Yeah, I would agree. I would rather be like the Liberty. So anyways, I don’t actually think, if you were to look on paper, that they were a true eight. And the Lynx, again, they were kind of sliding, but they had built up enough of a lead that it didn’t matter in the end. Horrible matchup for the Lynx.

Alex: Yeah, the Liberty were hands down the worst matchup the Lynx could have gotten.

Caitlin: Hands down. They’re so big. They are so long, and they can shoot the three ball pretty well. And so when you have that going for you, which the Liberty very much did in this first round of the playoffs, it doesn’t really matter what you do. We would have had to shoot lights out to be able to beat them, I think.

And so anyways, also just for the record, going into the playoffs last week, we talked about how we went to the game. I was like, not feeling it. I did not think we were going to be doing anything. I was obviously trying to be optimistic, manifest, put it out into the universe, but the way the Lynx played the last, call it four weeks, with FIBA in there or whatever, I was kind of like, something’s going on here. And we’ll save our diagnosis for the something later. I do think the big question as Lynx fans coming out of this season is, does Fee stay or go?

Alex: Because that will affect all other roster decisions.

Caitlin: Exactly. I also think Liv looks like, I don’t know if Liv was more hurt than we realized, or just tired. When you’re a rookie, you’re coming right off of college into the W. So anyways, not making excuses, but she obviously didn’t play that much. There’s got to be a reason for it. Maybe it’s just Cheryl trying to teach her a lesson, but that didn’t seem to be their vibe the whole season. So we’ll see.

Valkyries Beat the Wings and Arike Ogunbowale Sets a Playoff Record

Caitlin: Okay, you want to start us off on this epic series?

Alex: The Valkyries beat the Wings two to one. Super entertaining series.

Caitlin: Best series, hands down.

Alex: What was that? I don’t even remember what the first game’s score was.

Caitlin: It was a lot to a little.

Alex: Yeah, but the Valkyries went up early in that series.

Caitlin: I did not think Dallas had a hope at all. At all.

Alex: And then obviously Arike comes out, scores 45 points in game two. This is a new WNBA playoff single game record. There were three people who previously held it. It was 42, shared by Fee, Stewie and McCoughtry.

Caitlin: Angel McCoughtry, yeah.

Alex: So yeah, I mean, she just came out ballin’, and they needed it in that game.

Caitlin: Yeah, well, we knew Dallas was going to need some big individual performances against the Valkyries. You will get shots on them, but they have to go in, and you kind of have to feed the hot hand.

Alex: And that’s on top of Gabby Williams hitting 36.

Caitlin: Yeah, who’s also been playing crazy good since FIBA. I think I might have to retract everything I said about how she played hot in FIBA and doesn’t really… she’s looking great. She’s looking great. They also had help from the vet, Alysha Clark, 21 points off the bench in game two. She was hot from three, ties her playoff career high. I think she’s in her 14th season or something. She’s so awesome to see. I love how she shows up, man. She’s just like, I’ll do whatever the team needs me to do. I’m going to be out there busting my ass. And I’m going to bring that wisdom, that calm. I just love to see it.

Alex: I think the one thing to point out here in the stats is Paige in game one, 21 points on nine of 10. Then she went three of 13 in game two and three of 14 in game three. Although in game three, she shot 10 of 10 from the line.

Caitlin: Yeah, I love Paige. My two cents, and we talked about this when we did our going into the playoffs good and bad. They had to ride her so much during the season to get to those 17, you know, 17 more wins than they got, their 27 wins total. I just think she was tired, or the knee injury is maybe a little bit worse than we realized. We did see her kind of babying it in the second game, I think.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: And she had like an extra wrap on under her normal knee sleeve too. So I think there was something going on. And she just looked tired to me. Didn’t have that chipper, exuberant, she’s usually kind of goofy, and she just seemed like she was a little out of it.

Alex: But one thing to say is that the last time Paige lost in a playoff scenario…

Caitlin: What’d she do next year?

Alex: Won the whole thing.

Caitlin: Won the whole thing.

Alex: So, we’ll see what happens.

Caitlin: You want to come to Minnesota, Paige? Come on over. This year. The Lynx fans are going to hate me for saying that. All right. We’ll talk more about the Valkyries here in a minute.

Aces Beat the Fever, and the Fan Problem at Gainbridge

Alex: Okay. Ah, the Aces beat the Fever two to one, and this series was not entertaining in the slightest.

Caitlin: Not at all.

Alex: Not at all. Where do you even want to start?

Caitlin: Man. Okay. So the Aces kind of whooped the Fever in the first game. That was fine. They show up on Tuesday to Gainbridge. You knew that was going to be tough. The Fever are tough to beat in Gainbridge. The Aces were struggling in that game, but it was still closeish. They kept it. They fought back. I think the game ended up being about 10 points or whatever.

This is obviously the game where there is the incident between A’ja Wilson and the fan who got up out of his seat and pointed at her, took steps towards the court and pointed at her. The old lady, whoever’s with him, is literally pulling him back into his seat, and A’ja didn’t like that. And so she stepped out there, but then there was like a whole bunch of afters. We’ve got Theresa Plaisance and Sydney Colson from the Unsupervised podcast getting into the mix, which I have no, I don’t even know why they were there. I am very curious to listen to their podcast episode this week.

Alex: Yeah, we want to hear it.

Caitlin: We want to hear it, but anyways. We’re going to come back to this, but this is probably the third or fourth game this season that we’ve watched where it’s been the Fever at home in Gainbridge where something has caused the game to pause for some amount of time because of a fan. So we’re going to come back to that.

Alex: We don’t watch every single game across the league, but we watch a lot. I have not seen that anywhere else.

Caitlin: Okay, so then game three. Now tensions are high, series tied 1-1, winner take all, they’re back in Vegas. This was the story of both the Indiana Fever and the Aces, kind of in a nutshell, to me. The Aces have three amazing weapons. You don’t know which one is coming for you on any given night. And on this night, A’ja Wilson was A’ja Wilson. But Chelsea, the point god, Gray, went off in the second half. And she is very capable of that. She’s a veteran. She understands the moment. She knew what she needed to do. She took her assignment and she ran with it. The Fever played okay in the first half, and then they went cold in the second half, and their defense is not good enough to keep them…

Alex: To not score.

Caitlin: To not score, yeah. They have to be kind of keeping pace. And I think there’s more to dissect on this game from a statistics perspective, and like how it actually played out. There were obviously other things going on with foul calls and non foul calls both ways. We had the bloody tooth incident, which is, in my opinion, I’m sorry, but really gross, to go up to somebody’s face and stick your bloody face in front of them and then not clean your hands.

Alex: Play like that.

Caitlin: Yeah, it’s just weird. But I think the thing for me in that third game, and again, we’ll talk more in post and in offseason about these things, but the Fever shot horribly in that game in particular, which again, we said, their defense just can’t withstand that. But they just don’t get a lot of production from anybody else.

Alex: Did Boston even?

Caitlin: Boston was fine. She had 19 points. She did what she needed to do. She had a double double. But you’ve got Lexie Hull, who starts for you, who didn’t even attempt a shot.

Alex: Okay.

Caitlin: So doesn’t have any points.

Alex: Bold move, Cotton.

Caitlin: And doesn’t have any, the argument I always hear back is like, she’s a defensive specialist. She has no steals, no blocks, four fouls. Like, that’s not a…

Alex: Okay, so she got some numbers. I was wondering, is it all zeros?

Caitlin: She has three rebounds, I guess. We’ll give her that. But then they had to go to their bench, and their bench just isn’t able to produce. So anyways, I think they’re going to be looking at, how do we get a better balance of bench players and not solely rely on their three? Now, obviously Kelsey Mitchell is also going to be a free agent. And so that will be interesting, because if they don’t retain her and you look at some of these problems, where do you get your scoring from?

Okay, so that was that series. I do think it’s worth mentioning, going back to the fan incident with A’ja and the number of things that we’ve sort of seen as just what feel like excessive fan behavior in Gainbridge, in real life. It’s interesting to me that then every team does exit interviews a few days after they’re done, and their GM, Amber Cox, came out and basically said, nothing to see here. Essentially, actually what she said is that the attacks on her fan base have no basis in reality and they need to stop.

Alex: Except it’s always there that it’s happening.

Caitlin: That we see, right? And I’m trying to give benefit of the doubt, but at the same time, you don’t hear about this in other arenas.

Alex: I guess Chicago, when some idiot tried to go onto the court.

Caitlin: Or when people are throwing sex toys onto the court. Okay, so not real fans of the game.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: I think the other thing that’s really troubling about those statements from a leader like Cox is, you don’t have to necessarily throw your fans under the bus, but you could take a little bit of responsibility and lean into like, we know there’s been some things, we’re going to assess. Leave it vague and open. But what you did is, one, you walked right into getting heavily criticized, and I think people are bringing receipts. That’s the vibe I’m getting. We had Brianna Turner come out and immediately say this is unequivocally false. Who knows what Sid and TP are going to be getting into in their podcast, they’re former players, Sydney Colson was literally on the Fever last season. And then you have your own top scorer, Kelsey Mitchell, coming out in her exit interview saying that it’s hard to show up, play in front of fans who may or may not like you. And you go and look at posts where they’re trying to promote her for MVP, and a bunch of people are ragging on her saying she has no relevance until Caitlin arrived, which is zero percent true. Okay. And I feel like her making those comments makes it okay.

Alex: Yeah, you’re just emboldening the fans who think that this is okay.

Caitlin: Exactly. And bigger picture, we’ve talked about this all season on the podcast about how the league needs to step in and do a better job at protecting its players and protecting its fans. I don’t want to go to a game and listen to somebody spewing nonsense next to me.

Alex: Have them be questioned by security and then sit them right back down.

Caitlin: Yeah. And to be clear, to be clear, I understand that sports fans are rowdy, boisterous, passionate, that they’re going to say negative stuff about players. I am not concerned about that. What I am concerned about is racist, homophobic, threatening language directed at players. Did that man in this particular incident do that? Allegedly, no. Allegedly, no. But there have been other instances where… I don’t think that these players are reacting because somebody says, you suck at basketball.

Alex: You’re really bad at threes.

Caitlin: Yeah, they just aren’t. Women also just, again, for the record, are way more unbothered by this type of shit than men, because we have to deal with it all the time. Okay? So it’s not like, oh, they’re just being sensitive. You’re saying something really nasty and you shouldn’t be saying it. That’s why they complain to the referees, to get it under control. Okay, that was a little bit of a tangent. It felt important to talk about. It comes back to, again, what we want to protect, as you said. That product and the fan experience and the player experience.

Dream Sweep the Mystics on the Back of Turnovers

Caitlin: All right, you’re going to wrap us up.

Alex: Yeah, we got the Dream sweeping the Mystics two to zero. I think kind of a couple of things here were turnovers and Jordin Canada. Not together, but kind of.

Caitlin: Turnovers, she creates them for other people.

Alex: The Mystics had 22 turnovers in game one, 19 in game two. And if you include the Dream’s game before the last game in the regular season, they had 63 turnovers over three games, which turned into 82 points. Wow. So they’re averaging, over the last three games, 21 turnovers per game, or not…

Caitlin: Forcing 21.

Alex: Forcing 21 turnovers per game.

Caitlin: Yeah. I mean, I think when I think about the Dream and the Mystics series, this was like one of the top defenses in the league. And the thing, I’ll get into that in a second, but then it was the Mystics’ inexperience. They were often in the game at halftime. Close, they out-rebounded Atlanta, which is a hard thing to do, frankly. But that third quarter was always where it was do or die, and they just kind of died. And taking care of the ball a lot of times is more of a younger player challenge. You tend to do less of it as a more seasoned player, because you just know.

Alex: Minor correction. I meant those two games and the first game of the semis.

Caitlin: Yeah, that’s fine. Okay.

Semifinals Game One: Dream 92, Liberty 82

Caitlin: So we advance to the semis. We had two games yesterday. You will have two more games the day that this comes out, in the evening. Atlanta played New York, so you’ve got the four versus the eight, and then you had the Valkyries playing the Aces, the two versus the three. We’re going to go through Atlanta and New York first.

So Atlanta won game one, 92 to 82. Closer games, you’re going to notice that as a theme here, which makes sense. As you’re playing top against top, and these also tend to be lower scoring than what we saw in the regular season as well. Okay. What were your takeaways from watching this one?

Alex: Jordin Canada could beat any man in a foot race on a basketball court.

Caitlin: She’s so fast. Back and forth. It was so crazy. And she’s so fit too. And the thing that’s crazy too is she got in foul trouble early. So they actually had to pull her off the court for a time. And then the extra impressive thing is Smesko got to put her back on the court and she didn’t pick up more fouls. She’s a very smart defender. She also had 25 points, just casually. I think she scored 15 fast break points. 15 fast break points, just layups. She was just picking pockets and doing layups.

I don’t know why it took New York seven passes too many to figure out that passing the ball straight across the top of the key is not a good idea against this team. And they finally switched to the dribble handoff, or more of a pick and roll type situation, or a pick and pop, to pass the ball. But like I said, seven passes too many. You got 15 points hung up on you by Jordin Canada. What else did you notice?

Alex: I mean, I was just realizing that DeWanna Bonner had 23 points.

Caitlin: Yeah, she did.

Alex: I kind of feel like…

Caitlin: Speaking of veteran presence.

Alex: I didn’t watch enough towards the end after she had come onto the team to really notice her, but I noticed her that game a lot.

Caitlin: Yeah, I think DB brings, she stretches the floor for them, because she’s a three point shooter with like a seven foot wingspan. So she can help protect the rim, but then she also can stretch the floor on the offensive side, which is very like, that’s why she’s, what is she, the second highest scoring player in WNBA history. And then I think she also brings this sense of maturity and calm to a relatively young team, inexperienced team, certainly not a team that’s been in these playoff situations. And I read that she might’ve been the one to rip into the team at halftime. Buckle down here, we’re going to lose. And lo and behold, that move. Lo and behold. Yeah, there you go. So she’s a big pickup for them, late in the season there. And honestly, you know what? There’s a lot of fun things as far as outcomes for these teams. DeWanna Bonner winning her third ring in however many years she’s been in the league would be pretty cool. Pretty cool.

All right. I’ve got a couple on the Dream side, and then we can talk Liberty. So, the Dream won. Allisha Gray, what did she play? I’ve got her minutes right here, because it wasn’t very many. 10 minutes, 10:47 to be exact, because she dislocated her finger on her shooting hand and then came back out, tried to play, dislocated it again. And so now it’s kind of like, what’s going on there? So that’s going to be a watch spot for sure. But she’s one of your highest scorers, if not your leading scorer on your team. And she barely played the game. And you won by 10. So that’s promising.

And then Angel MF’ing Reese. I can’t get enough of her play. This woman is not shying away from this moment.

Alex: No, she’s not.

Caitlin: I love it. I think that she is the first of this new generation of superstars coming from college into the league to get her moment and own it.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: Right. Yeah, like play to the level that she needs to as a rising star. And the woman is a walking meme.

Alex: Oh yeah, 100 percent.

Caitlin: She’s a walking meme. Everything she does, I’m like, memeable. I need just a slew of Angel Reese gifs in my work.

Alex: Yeah, for sure. Just a whole folder of them.

Caitlin: What was her thing, like, wrap this shit up, right?

So, all right, on the Liberty side of things, Stewie went 40 minutes again. Again, what is your diet, Stewie? But she only had 19 points. And most nights you’d be like, 19 points is great. Good night.

I think Stewie has to score 30 points each game against this team if they’re going to hang. Otherwise, they need massive production somewhere else. We did get to see what I would call more vintage Sabrina Ionescu play, which honestly, I realize, I think people forgot that she also is like an incredible basketball player. She’s been dealing with injury basically on and off all season, and then has been shooting horribly until now.

Alex: Just no.

Caitlin: So, there’s a good time to get hot, Sab. That’s all I’ll say. We’ll see if you can also hang a 30 piece every game. And generally speaking, if the Liberty want to win this, they have to take better care of the basketball.

Alex: Yeah, you just aren’t.

Caitlin: No. You’re not. The Dream are too good.

Alex: Yeah. They’re too good.

Caitlin: I say Dream in four.

Alex: Yeah, I think that’s probably right.

Caitlin: Yeah, so there we go. Okay.

Alex: All right.

Caitlin: I think Stewie wills the Liberty to a win. At least one. On her, at least one, but then I think she’s just going to peter out. 40 minutes, 40 points, and it’s done. She’s out. Prove me wrong.

Semifinals Game One: Valkyries 71, Aces 60

Caitlin: All right, Golden State, Vegas.

Alex: Golden State in Vegas. Golden State wins 71 to 60.

Caitlin: That is a low score.

Alex: It is very low, yes.

Caitlin: I don’t know. We should go look, when was the last time the Aces were held to 60 points?

Alex: 60 points, that’s insane.

Caitlin: So this is a master versus apprentice situation. You’ve got Becky Hammon coaching the Aces. You’ve got Natalie Nakase, who coached under Becky Hammon for a number of years, won a championship there and then moved on to Golden State, obviously, in 2020 for the 2025 season. Speaking of Becky Hammon, I just love her. She’s so quotable.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: She says, this is a quote, the good news is we played like ass and only lost by like 10. And honestly, agree.

Alex: Yeah, I agree.

Caitlin: You guys played horribly from an eye test perspective. Then I went in and looked at the stats, and it’s actually not like Golden State played that much better. Where they won was offensive boards. The Valkyries had 17 offensive rebounds. They had 17 offensive rebounds, y’all, of 52 total rebounds. That’s a lot of rebounds, for those who, to the Aces’ 25 total rebounds and two offensive boards. So playing like ass means you decided not to box out at all.

Alex: Yeah, at all.

Caitlin: Okay.

Alex: I think Cheryl needs to take the good news as, we played like ass and only lost by 10, as a quote.

Caitlin: Okay, so Golden State didn’t shoot that much better than the Aces. I thought that was going to be a bigger discrepancy. My theory, I was saying this during the game, is both of these teams had to go three games. They were competitive third games. I just think the…

Alex: And then like a night of rest, maybe?

Caitlin: For Golden State, it was less than 48 hours before they had to play again. I just think the legs weren’t there.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: I think we’ll see a little bit better shooting game on Wednesday when they play. The legs weren’t there for shots. But man, the energy was high from Golden State.

Alex: They were all over.

Caitlin: If you go watch clips of this game, watch their defensive rotations. It’s literally like they are connected, and one person rotates, and then just the whole circle goes. Everyone has a string, and you’re just rotating there. It’s really impressive. They’re always in the right position. They play team defense so, so, so well.

Really, their thing is, if we were to contrast their defense versus Atlanta’s defense, Golden State’s like, I am going to make you go really late in the shot clock and force you into a bad shot that you’re more likely to miss. I’m just going to keep rotating, keep rotating, and then I’m not going to let you get the ball once you shoot. Atlanta’s is like, I’m going to steal the ball from you. And it’s very high tempo, up pace. You have my ball, I need it. And so you’re going to have more scoring there.

Interesting to think about, if that becomes a matchup, which honestly, I really want it to be a matchup, is like, you kind of have this really good in half court in Golden State against really good in the fast break in Atlanta. And how does that mesh together? Very fun to watch, very fun to watch.

Alex: I think Golden State in five.

Caitlin: Golden State in five. You think the defending champs are going out?

Alex: Yes.

Caitlin: I think that might be right. And you want to know my other factor in that? Just going to look here. Okay, game one. The Aces are having some injury troubles right now, but they played one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight players. Golden State, what is one of their strengths? We’ve said it many times on this podcast.

Alex: Their bench.

Caitlin: Their bench. They played one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten players, of whom only one of them, Janelle Salaün, funny enough, I wonder if she got hurt, played under 10 minutes. So you’re able to play 10 players for at least a quarter of the game. Right. Who’s going to have fresher legs? Who’s going to be able to outlast longer in a series?

Alex: All right. Done with basketball for a week.

Caitlin: If you can’t tell, we’re really excited. You should watch the playoffs.

Alex: Yes, you should.

Caitlin: So fun.

NWSL Playoff Race With Four Games to Go

Alex: All right. Let’s move into NWSL. We’re just going to hit the quick table here, I think, and then move into the women’s national team. So obviously, San Diego clinched this weekend, so we didn’t have them quite there last week, but we have Gotham and San Diego have clinched. Third is Washington, they have 49 points. Four is Utah with 46. Five is Kansas City with 44. Six is LA with 43. Seven is Portland with 43. Eight is North Carolina with 42. And then you’ve got Seattle at nine with 40, and Denver at…

Caitlin: I think Houston and Orlando are all but mathematically eliminated at this point. In fact, I think Houston is eliminated because they lost to Washington and there’s only four games left. So, and I’m assuming North Carolina has the tiebreak on them. They definitely do, because they have 50 fricking goals.

So I think, interesting from this week’s results, you have these top teams who are struggling to take care of business, if they’re taking care of business at all. So San Diego took care of business, they did their thing. They beat Orlando. Gotham draws LA, draws ACFC. That was a big one point, honestly, for Angel City, to get to stay kind of firmly lodged in the playoff picture. And then Gotham doing what they do best, which is not lose. Still on that draw game.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: Denver won, they got a critical win, which keeps them very close in that playoff hunt. Then you had that head to head of North Carolina and Seattle. So North Carolina flip flops, Seattle drops out, North Carolina goes into a playoff spot.

Portland, that game was a mess. Sophia Wilson got sent off with a straight red for a hair pull, which she was arguing was not intentional. The girl got her hair pulled. And so I’m actually surprised that they even got two back. I am surprised that Boston poured in four on them. And we talk about that goal differential matters.

Alex: Yeah, it matters.

Caitlin: So Portland giving that up and now falling into seventh is not great.

Alex: Interestingly enough, I think it’s now 31 at home for Kansas City.

Caitlin: True, true, true, yeah.

Alex: Sorry, 31 unbeaten.

Caitlin: Unbeaten at home, yeah, with the 5-1 win over Bay. So, again, it’s a wild ride, especially in that middle section right now. We watched a little bit of the Washington and Houston game. That looked like Washington was just dominating, and then Houston snuck one back right before halftime. And then it was like a back and forth in the second half. And if I’m one of the top teams right now, I am asking a lot of questions about, why am I not able to consistently get the result? And how do I, on this break, you have time to step back and, how do I shore that up in these final four games before playoffs?

Alex: Yeah.

The 10 and 10 Watch and the Golden Boot Race

Caitlin: So, a quick update before we start talking national team on our, I guess, what do we call these, a 10 and 10 watch, and our golden boot race. So changes in our 10 and 10 watch for two players. So Pietra Tordin had a PK in that Portland game. So she’s on eight goals, nine assists. Also we’ll celebrate in a minute, but she got her first senior side national team call up. Trinity Rodman…

Alex: Got that assist.

Caitlin: Got that assist.

Alex: We’re getting close.

Caitlin: She’s on 11 and eight, so she’s actually, well, I guess Cloe Lacasse is even with her, kind of. And then Cloe Lacasse still sitting on eight goals and 10 assists. And keep in mind that Lacasse and Croix Bethune are also both on 10 assists, which ties Tobin Heath’s regular season record set in 2016. You want to take us through golden boot?

Alex: Yeah, have we actually, was this Ashley Sanchez? I think it was…

Caitlin: Same as last week.

Alex: So she’s at 20. Just hanging out.

Caitlin: Hanging out.

Alex: Yep, hanging out there. Barbra Banda at 17.

Caitlin: Added one.

Alex: Oh, she added one, all right. From last week. Yeah, we need to put the last weeks in these notes. Sophia Wilson at 13.

Caitlin: I’ll tell you the changes.

Alex: Janine Sonis at 12.

Caitlin: Janine and Temwa. Both added ones.

Alex: Temwa’s at 12 as well. I’m going to try and say it right. Evelyn Ijeh, I think they pronounce it differently on TV.

Caitlin: EJ?

Alex: EJ. Ijeh. They pronounce it differently every time. So at least I’m not the only one with name pronunciation issues. She’s at 11, Trinity Rodman at 11, Trinity Byars is at 10. I’ll hand this one off to you.

Caitlin: Aya Sata.

Alex: Aya Sata at 10, and Jaedyn Shaw at 10 as well.

Caitlin: Yeah, so Jaedyn Shaw’s name we were not talking about in this goal race, and now she’s on 10. And then you’ve got still Kat Rader, Maiara Niehues, Haley Hopkins and Mina Tanaka all on nine, with four games to go. You guys, I think we can do 15.

Alex: 15. How many are there right there? One, two, three, four. Yeah, about 15.

Caitlin: So again, very exciting. Lots of goals. We love it.

Emma Hayes Names the USWNT Roster for Spain

Caitlin: Now, we also love national team soccer, and the roster predictably came out the day after we recorded last week. So you’ve seen it probably for a week now, but this is our first opportunity to talk about it.

Overall, I would say, what’s going on? I think in the back line, midfield line, relatively what I expected. One-ish little question mark there, which I’ll get into. But man, we went a little wild with the forwards. And I think I’m trying to read into what Emma’s thinking. And my thought is, this is probably the last camp where you can really test anyone out. My other thought is that Emma Hayes is never only thinking about the next thing. She’s thinking about the next, next, next, next, next thing. And so I think some of it is, I want to give some players a… I’ve maybe got players who are going to be on my World Cup squad who are not 100 percent.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: And so I’m going to give some other players some time. I have more to say on that when we start to actually go through the names here, because I’m trying to build, but she’s thinking, because I’m trying to build for 2031 and beyond.

So generally speaking, goalkeepers. We have Claudia Dickey and Fallon Tullis-Joyce, who we didn’t think would be pulled in. And then Jordan Silkowitz, who has no caps, coming in. So instead of going veteran leadership, like I started with Jane Campbell, we went Silkowitz. Silkowitz has been having a fantastic season.

Alex: Yeah, I was going to say, I think we were watching the game the other day where they were talking about…

Caitlin: Yeah, she’s having an incredible season for Bay. So I think that’s great. I still think that this solidifies for me that Claudia Dickey is number one.

Defenders. We’ve got Tierna Davidson, Emily Fox, Naomi Girma, although she is hurt. She’s still hurt? Well, she maybe wasn’t, and then now is. I don’t know what changed. She’s not in the lineup anymore. They brought in Kate Del Fava of Utah, who actually was named to the U-23 roster and she got elevated to the senior team. Avery Patterson, Lilly Reale, Tara Rudd, Giselle Thompson and Kennedy Wesley. So basically exactly what we thought, minus Girma being hurt and Kate Del Fava being pulled in.

Midfield, we have Sam Coffey. She also was just a late scratch today. They’re bringing in Jaelin Howell in her stead. She got hurt over the weekend playing for Manchester City. Lindsey Heaps, Claire Hutton, Rose Lavelle, Evelyn Shores, who’s on Angel City FC. This is going to be her first senior side cap if she gets in the game. She is up there from an assists and goals perspective this year, not in the names that we’re usually talking about, but obviously somebody that Hayes wants to look at. Mallory Swanson, named as a midfielder, which I have a thought on. And then Lily Yohannes, of course.

I think big omissions here, potentially, depending on where you slot her, I guess you’d probably more slot her as a forward, but Jaedyn Shaw is not in this group. Her and Ally Sentnor are not on this roster, and they have been very common in the fold of the U.S. national team for the last couple years. They’re both on the U-23 team. They were both named to that roster. And Hayes was asked about this and she said, I need them, she’s like, this is part of the plan. Like, I need them to go get significant minutes, whereas they may not get significant minutes over here for this break. So I expect to see them back in the side when we go to qualifying.

It was funny that, just, I don’t think that there was anything in it, but maybe there was. Jaedyn Shaw, not named to the roster. Then Emma Hayes was at her Gotham game and she scored a goal in front of her. She’s like, yeah, you take that.

Okay, and then Mallory Swanson, I mentioned, named in the midfield. Mal has not been 100 percent this season for Chicago, it’s like on and off injuries. My thinking was maybe they want her in the side for her leadership, for her presence.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: But they don’t actually plan to play her that much. Like she’s kind of there to keep that chemistry flowing and do the training and get in with the triple espresso, but they’re not actually expecting that to be the case. So we’ll watch for that.

Okay, now here’s where we go wild. Trinity Byars, we’ve talked about her. This is at the forwards. She’s leading in goals. Michelle Cooper, we were expecting her to be in the fold. I also think she’s a flex player. We saw her play outside back against Brazil. Trinity Rodman, Emma Sears. I didn’t think that she’d get pulled in, but here we are. Ashley Sanchez, Pietra Tordin, Alyssa Thompson and Sophia Wilson.

The surprises, or maybe the not expecteds here, are Byars, but we can understand that performance has been good. Again, give her a look. Tordin, again, not expected, but potential. I think I said I thought she might get included. And then Sanchez, honestly, if she hadn’t pulled Sanchez, then I would have been like, what’s your problem?

Alex: How much of this is getting some of those players in just for the experience with the veterans that you have on the squad?

Caitlin: Yeah, I think that’s what I was saying before. I think that’s a huge part of it. And I think too, this is the last slate of games, in my mind, that doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. I think once you get past qualifiers, everything from there is honing. And the other thought I had was they have been bitten a little bit by the injury bug. And I wonder if Hayes wanted to test some combos, to your point, to understand, could this work if something happens?

Alex: And, let’s put you out here so that my other players don’t get it.

Caitlin: Yeah, that too, actually. That could be very real.

What to Watch For Against Spain

Caitlin: So I am really excited to see how this shakes out. Spain is obviously an excellent, excellent team. I think as we think about this matchup going forward, for the U.S., the thing that I’ll be watching for, just really briefly, is Spain definitely play a high possession kind of, you think of like a triangle offense. There’s always movement off the ball. They’re always looking to stay in these nice tight shapes where they can basically ping the ball around really quickly, wait for the opening, and then they’re behind you, or in front of you and just past you.

How organized can we stay defensively? I think the national team, since the retirement of Becky Sauerbrunn, of Crystal Dunn, who will get honored for her retirement in the October 10th game, Kelly O’Hara, kind of that old guard of that back line, as that group has all moved on, I do think we’ve seen, when Naomi Girma is not in, which she won’t be in here, we’ve seen some gaps back there. Some of that is, you also don’t have that consistent goalkeeper presence, and so maybe that’s a little bit of a test for them this time. Can they stay organized? Can they keep their shape? Can they keep their assignments set out there?

I am also very curious to see how we choose to attack Spain. We have a ton of speed.

Alex: Yep.

Caitlin: Is our play going to be to sit back, stay organized and counter? Or is Emma going to be pushing for us, which I think she would, but who knows, to build out of the back, play our style of possession, work the ball in, and then try to get balls in across? I don’t know.

Alex: It probably depends on who that starting lineup actually is. But I was wondering, I remember from earlier this year, it felt like it took them a while to get organized once they got on the field, those couple of games that we watched. Do you think that it doesn’t really matter as much if you’re playing some of the younger players, or are you still looking for them to get that quicker?

Caitlin: No, I’m still looking for them to get that quicker, because she’s not just going to play the younger players. My guess is what we’re going to see is one lineup, one of these matches’ lineups, is going to be the best 11 she can put on the field, I think, with this group. And then I think she’ll come back, or she’ll have done it in the first game, where it’s like, I’m going to play more of the inexperienced players, but you’re always going to have veteran leadership out there. And I think her challenge to that group is, you still have an obligation to keep your team organized on the pitch.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: Like, I don’t care how, if you haven’t been here before, somebody needs to be in your ear telling you what you need to be doing.

Alex: Yeah, for sure.

Caitlin: That’s what I’m going to be watching out for. I think it’ll be an interesting test. I love Hayes’ attitude of, you’ve got to go through fire to get sharper.

Alex: Yeah, for sure.

Caitlin: And so I look forward to these matches for sure. And I also think, we’ve talked about this before, but Hayes isn’t afraid to lose these. She doesn’t care about the result as much as she cares about some of the other things.

Alex: The data she’s collecting.

Caitlin: Happening on the pitch. Yeah. Well, and then things like effort and communication and learning from. If she can see you doing that, I think she takes that as a win.

What to Watch: Semifinal Game Two, USWNT vs. Spain and Wisconsin

Alex: All right, let’s close it out here. We’ve got what to watch. WNBA playoffs round two, semifinals. Game two is on Wednesday. Liberty at Dream, 6:30 p.m. on ESPN, and Aces at Valkyries, 8:30 p.m. on Peacock and NBC Sports. And we have game three, Dream at Liberty, on Friday, 6:30 p.m. on ESPN2. Game three for the Valkyries and Aces, also on Friday, 8:30 p.m., Peacock and NBC Sports. Game fours, if necessary, are on Sunday with times to be determined. That’ll be Dream and Liberty on ABC, Aces and Valkyries on NBC. And then if there are game fives, that’s Wednesday. Finals, game one is next Saturday.

Caitlin: It’s a lot of math.

Alex: Okay. And 10 days from when you hear this will be the finals, game one, at 2:30 p.m. on NBC.

All right, U.S. women’s national team, like we just discussed, versus Spain on Saturday, 1:30 p.m., and that’s on TNT Sports, like it’s TBS, TNT, Telemundo, HBO Max, all the good ones. And then again on Tuesday at 6 p.m. Same setup there.

Caitlin: Nice.

Alex: All right. And then we’ve got some NCAA stuff happening here. We’ve got your alma mater in both sections tonight. Number seven Wisconsin volleyball versus Nebraska, who is number one, Saturday at 6 p.m. on Fox.

Caitlin: All right.

Alex: And then this weekend, the number one ranked Wisconsin Badger hockey team versus the number two ranked Ohio State hockey team, Friday at 5 p.m. and Saturday at 2 p.m. on Big Ten Plus.

Caitlin: Oh boy.

Alex: Big game there.

Momentum and Setbacks: Why This Is All Connected

Alex: Huge momentum and setbacks. What you got?

Caitlin: Are you trying to buy yourself time, or…

Alex: A little bit. Okay. I remember mine. Where did I write mine? Somewhere else, not in here.

Caitlin: I have been thinking a lot lately about what happened at Cornell. And I realized that that particular incident has nothing to do with women’s sports, but it does bring up some of the same issues that we talk about in terms of women’s sports and the people who purport to be protecting women. It’s also heartbreaking as a mom of two girls to hear about those sorts of things happening, that there’s a risk of that in the world.

And to me, more that, for some, the knee jerk reaction to hearing a case like what happened, what we’re hearing about from Cornell, the knee jerk reaction being to blame and shame the woman, to say that she should have behaved in a different way and then this wouldn’t have happened to her. Why are we not saying that the men shouldn’t have behaved in the way that they did? Being drunk, being high, wearing a skirt, whatever, wearing pants, it doesn’t matter what, is not an invitation to violate somebody’s bodily autonomy.

Okay, so it’s been on my mind. And I think we talk a lot on this podcast about some of the behaviors that men, it’s always men, direct towards women in the sports space. And it is incredibly saddening to me that we live in a world where that entitlement to treat a group of people, whether it’s women, whether it’s people of color, it doesn’t matter, like they are less than you, is horrifying to me.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: I get it. It’s out there, it’s around. I also understand that I have a certain amount of privilege where I am not subjected to this personally, but when I see it happening to anyone, it just makes me very upset.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: And I’m actually going to use that to lead into my momentum, if that’s okay. And my momentum goes something like this. So it might be like, okay, you do a women’s sports podcast, you just talked about something completely unrelated to sports. And to that I say, it’s all related in my mind.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: Because as we just talked about with the Protect College Sports Act and Title IX, women have consistently had to fight to have a space at the table. And we also have this maelstrom around leagues like the WNBA, which are predominantly populated by black queer women, more so than I think you see in like the NWSL. Where, for those groups, for marginalized groups, things do end up being political, because policy is literally shaping how these people experience the world.

And so where I bring this all to is, one, I have a quote from, I’m going to call her a local legend. She doesn’t really know me. I’ve met her, but she doesn’t really know me. The women’s sports bar, A Bar of Their Own, here in Minnesota. She was interviewed recently for an article in our local newspaper where they are talking about, why are politics becoming part of the WNBA discourse, or whatever. Like, why is that a part of it? And she says, quote, this whole notion of, quote, keep politics out of sports, unquote, is laughable when it comes to women’s sports, because we literally needed legislation in order to participate. Women athletes and women’s sports fans don’t have the luxury of not caring about the world around them.

And so I end with this. It is election season. I encourage all of our listeners to go vote. Just participate. Make sure that you are registered to vote. Make sure that you know your options for voting. Share your plans with your friends and your family. Make sure they are going to vote. But for the growth that we see in women’s sports, for protection for women, from the things that we see in the news, and for the opportunities for our kids to be able to go out and just play a sport, or not play a sport, but have opportunities to pursue, that actually starts with who is making policy decisions in our communities.

So thank you for letting me soapbox for a minute. Heavy heart lately, thinking about all of this stuff, but I know that we all have an opportunity and, frankly in my mind, an obligation to go and make sure our voices are heard the way we know how.

Alex: I don’t think I need to have a momentum and setback. I think that was very well said. And I think that’s, I don’t need a response to that. I think we can leave it at that.

Caitlin: All right, so go vote.

Alex: Go vote.

Caitlin: Election day is November 4th, I think. Is it?

Alex: I’m in November.

Caitlin: Well, first Tuesday. Vote early. Vote early, yeah, if you can. All right, I know that was a lot.

Alex: Oh yeah, you got it.

Caitlin: Sorry. I didn’t mean to catch you off.

Alex: RTG underscore pod, Instagram, Threads and YouTube. Rtgpod.com and raisingthegamepod at gmail.com.

Caitlin: All right, thanks for sticking with us, gang. We’ve got a lot going on. I’m sure there’ll be much more to talk about.

Alex: There will be. Next week. All right, bye.

Caitlin: Bye.