Five Out: Seimone Augustus gets her flowers, a college season that's around the corner and the best WNBA Finals since...?
We break down what we've seen so far in the WNBA Finals, run through the Hall of Fame inductions this week and break down the AP Top 25 poll. Thoughts for the week of October 14, 2024.
I appreciate you all waiting an extra day for the column to make its way online. We wanted to make sure that we adequately honored Indigenous People’s Day by providing you with a special Legendarium installment that you can find here. It concerns the women of the Blackfeet Nation in Montana and their role in becoming some of the first tribal members to play Division I women’s basketball.
We got a big week ahead in the world of the WNBA and are starting to gear up for the college season as well. Here’s a little primer of what’s to come on NCS this week…
Wednesday: Rashard unveils his first WNBA Mock Draft for 2025 now that the order is set. We have a preview of Game 3 from Chauny: ‘Questions Answered, Questions Raised’. After the game, pop over to Youtube for our live postgame show.
Thursday: We’ll have the postgame show in audio form for those that can’t join us in the evening. Tyler also has a recruiting check in with Keeley Parks, one of the top 2025 prep recruits for an inside look on what being courted by top programs looks like in the modern era of college sports.
Friday: We continue our No Cap Space WBB NCAA Previews with the ACC as we enter the high-major and power conferences. If you missed our other previews, here are the Mid-Major and Big East previews. ‘Questions Answered, Questions Raised’ returns for Game 4 as does our Youtube show.
Saturday: Much like Thursday, you’ll be able to find our postgame show in podcast form on all your platforms.
Now, to the five things you’ve come to know and love…
Seimone Augustus gets her flowers (and an induction into the Hall-of-Fame) at last.
Before we get to the WNBA Finals, here’s a bit of league discourse history. When we have discussions about an ‘inequity of coverage’ with regard to certain athletes in this league, legends like Seimone Augustus are a basis for the argument. For the uninitiated, Seimone is one of the greats. A four-time WNBA champion, 2011 Finals MVP, 8-time All-Star, 2006 Rookie of the Year, two EuroCups, two Naismith, Wooden, Wade and AP Player of the Year awards. The resume is legitimately unimpeachable. But when it came time for her to be honored, many in league circles believed that she deserved more from the W in her final season. In 2022, her jersey retirement coincided with Sylvia Fowles final season in Minnesota. Juxtaposed against the coverage for Sue Bird, who retired that same year, it felt like another situation in which the league was picking and choosing who to elevate and predictably leaning a certain way.
Augustus, for her part, believes that it might have been different had she capped off her career in Minnesota instead of Los Angeles. But she also believes in the blessings she’s received in her post playing career as validation for the time she put in.
“That’s why I don’t need celebration,” she told Andscape’s Sean Hurd. “I’m getting my celebration. My work spoke for itself that all of this is happening for me.”
I’d like to think that those feelings truly sunk in for her as she sang her version of “Calling Baton Rouge” at the Naismith Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony this weekend. Over the last few years, Augustus has gotten her moments of shine. Her jersey was retired in Minnesota, a statue of her was erected at LSU and now this. Although she’s been on the record saying that she didn’t need a year of celebration centered on her, there was something fulfilling about watching her dap up Lindsay Whalen as she was enshrined forever in Springfield.
It’s a nice reminder that the real ones will always recognize. Augustus deserved more flowers as her playing career wrapped up but it’s never too late to honor the greats while they’re here. So one time for ‘Money Mone’. One of the best to ever do it.
Can the Liberty take their show on the road?
Before I get to Sabrina Ionescu, we have to mention an incredible get-right game from Breanna Stewart. The Liberty, it should be noted, haven’t lost back-to-back games once this entire year. Stewie followed up a brutal set of misses in Game 1 with a 21 point, 8 rebound, 5 assist and 7 steal (WNBA Finals record) performance to help take Game 2 and even up the series. If they get that kind of production out of her the rest of the way, the Liberty will be in great shape. That said, I expect Napheesa Collier to not turn the ball over seven times and get into heavy foul trouble early. So that battle will likely continue apace.
The person I’m most curious about is Sabrina Ionescu, whose shot totals dropped from 26 field goals to just 9 from Game 1 to Game 2. I’ve been on record this season with how impressed I’ve been with Sab’s continued development and her work to expand her game offensively. But there are still spots where she runs into trouble and tries to shoot her way out of it. In Game 2 it was pretty wild to watch her almost completely disappear in the second half but if that’s what helps the team win, then it is what it is. Does it mean there might be some narrative questions about her if stepping back makes the team better? Probably. But that’s kind of the nature of the beast. It doesn’t help that Minnesota has been a nightmare matchup for her this entire season. Some of her worst offensive shooting nights of the year have been against the Lynx.
Overall, the season series favors Minnesota 4-2. New York has shown they are capable of regularly bouncing back from losses. But that’s what makes losing that first game so problematic. If you start trading games, the Lynx drew first blood meaning that a theoretical Game 5 would favor them as well. It’s also worth noting that Minnesota hasn’t lost back to back games since the July stretch where Napheesa Collier was out with a foot injury. It’ll be a tall task for either team to take two straight at all and for our sake, I hope this goes to a Game 5. The hoop heads who have had to talk about everything *but* hoops all year deserve it.
Napheesa Collier is asserting herself into the ‘Face of the League’ conversation…
I want to preface this point with one clear message: there is no intent here to downplay the accomplishments of A’ja Wilson and her status as one-of-if-not-the top players in the game. Instead, this is about the idea that multiple faces of the league are, in fact, a good thing. Over the course of this season, WNBA fans have adhered (a little too much, in my opinion) to an axiom that currently exists on the men’s basketball side of coverage: that only one person can be the face of a league. The reality is, top leagues all over the world have multiple faces.
La Liga had Messi AND Ronaldo.
Major League Baseball has Shohei Ohtani AND Aaron Judge.
The NFL has *name any top 5 quarterback or top 2 skill position players*.
The WNBA doesn’t have to exist so parallel to the NBA in this regard. There is room at the top for a Wilson, a Clark and now, a Collier. And, if coverage of the NBA is the subject of so much contention and concern, is that a model we want to create for ourselves here?
During a season in which the MVP felt (understandably) pre-ordained, Phee has quietly dominated on both ends of the floor and is now asserting herself in the Finals. And sometimes, that’s just how it goes. The particulars are somewhat different but during the 2016 NBA season, Steph Curry was the unanimous MVP only for Lebron James to pop out in the Finals and prove why he is that guy. What’s been incredible to watch with Phee is the utterly complete performances she’s putting together. So far this postseason, she’s averaging 25.2 points, 9.2 rebounds, 3.6 rebounds, 1.7 steals and 2.2. blocks per game on 56% shooting. She came up big in the clutch alongside Courtney Williams in an comically insane Game 1 and has put together some of the best defensive performances we’ve ever seen in the WNBA Playoffs. She ran into foul trouble and had seven turnovers in Game 2 but I expect an uptick in production heading back to Minnesota.
The most enjoyable thing is watching people, some new to the WNBA or just tuning in for the first time this week, discover her and her game. As the league, according to Front Office Sports, is on pace to set a record viewership for the Finals, Phee could conceivably end this season as one of the W’s biggest stars. And wasn’t that the goal of the growth in the first place?
Courtney Williams is having a Chelsea Gray 2022-level Playoff run and it’s time we talk about it.
Is there anyone having more fun out there than Courtney Williams? Whatever it was that changed following the Game 1 semifinals loss to the Connecticut Sun, Williams seems to have unlocked a different level of her play. She’s been here before, having played in the WNBA Finals with the Connecticut Sun in 2019. But what makes her story so good is the fact that there was a time where she was facing the reputation of being something of a malcontent in the league. In 2021, she was released from the Atlanta Dream after a video circulated of her and teammate Crystal Bradford getting into a fight outside of a food truck (Now known within W Twitter circles as the ‘Tenders-N-Bites’ incident). After two single season stops with the Sun and Sky, she ended up on the Lynx.
When she signed with Minnesota, along with former Chicago Sky teammate Alanna Smith, it was viewed as a solid indication that Cheryl Reeve and the team was serious about maximizing a title window with Napheesa Collier. But no one really seemed to take them seriously. In an early ESPN preseason ranking, the Lynx were picked to finish 9th out of the 12 teams in the league. And now? You’ve got Courtney Williams hitting batshit insane three pointers while her Dad steals the show from the stands, brightening up the game with his infectious support of his daughter.
Longtime W fans will remember Chelsea Gray’s 2022 championship run that cemented ‘Point Gawd’ status. It’s a run that may never be replicated again as the Aces lead guard averaged 21.7 points per game on 61% field goal and 54.4% three point shooting to go along with 7.0 assists per game. Williams isn’t on that statistical level but since Game 2 of the Semis she’s managed to make a similar positive mark, averaging 17.6 points, 4.0 rebounds and 5.8 assists per game on 52.5% shooting. Her midrange game, frenetic style and general joyful play has been one of the highlights of the playoffs so far. While there are plenty of legitimate and reasonable frustrations that the attention wasn’t coming before, it’s been cool to check into social media and watch general sports fans attach themselves to Williams. I really hope it means a little bit more shine for her and her return as one of the good ones of the league.
Some thoughts on the first AP Poll of the women’s college basketball season…
There is still some WNBA ball to be played but I want to start bridging into some college basketball coverage since it’ll be here before we know it (roughly three weeks or so, in fact).
So let’s take a look at the first Preseason AP Top 25 which dropped just this morning.
South Carolina
UConn
USC
Texas
UCLA
Notre Dame
LSU
Iowa State
NC State
Oklahoma
Duke
Baylor
Kansas State
Ohio State
North Carolina
West Virginia
Louisville
Maryland
Florida State
Ole Miss
Creighton
Kentucky
Nebraska
Alabama
Indiana
A couple of quick thoughts here before you go…
I saw a couple polls that had Southern Cal ranked No. 1 and while I can understand the desire to do so, it feels a little engagement bait-y. South Carolina returns essentially everyone from an undefeated national championship team that completely vaporized the SEC en route to one of the most dominant March runs we’ve had in the sport. Yes, there’s questions about Ashlyn Watkins and what the frontcourt looks like with no more Kamilla Cardoso. But they added an elite rim protector and rebounder in Maryam Dauda and top freshman Joyce Edwards. It’s not as though they remained stagnant while USC loaded up. They are easily the top two teams in the country on paper but the Gamecocks are the undisputed best until proven otherwise as we head into the year.
Heavy, heavy SEC love in the first iteration of the poll. There’s no doubt that Alabama and Ole Miss got better but I’m not sure I see them as a surefire Top 25 choice over the likes of an Illinois or Utah. Kentucky gets a Georgia Amoore bounce but that’s another one where I’d rather wait and see than have them in the Top 25 so early.
WHERE IS THE LOVE FOR MID-MAJORS?! I know a lot of teams give the impression they need to play their way into the dance but I think it’s a little absurd that Fairfield, South Dakota State and Mid Tenn St had a combined 13 total Top 25 votes. The Stags and Blue Raiders return basically everyone from NCAA Tournament teams so it’s a little absurd that they aren’t even in consideration when we’re looking at Kentucky, Bama and Indiana filling out some of those final slots. It’s why they play the games, sure. But this is sometimes the issue with preseason polls: it creates preconceived notions that are hard to shake over the course of a season. JUSTICE FOR MY MID MAJORS!