Is it just us, or has the bulk of the WNBA discourse lately decided to shine a light on the negative rather than the positive?
We know what the negative is as well – Alyssa Thomas’ fist making contact with the neck of Caitlin Clark that prompted Indiana Fever coach Stephanie White to once again lambast WNBA officiating.
It is a fair question as to if Thomas deserved a Flagrant 2 plus a suspension she received. What is unwarranted is the avalanche of racist hate she and her Phoenix Mercury teammates (such as Kahleah Copper) have received in response.
The sad reality is whenever something negative happens to Clark, it is as if nothing else matters. The Isabelle Harrison-Angel Reese incident from a recent game in Toronto between the Tempo and Atlanta Dream did not get this much coverage.
Instead of focusing on the negative, we at Beyond The W would rather focus on the positive (even though, we can get negative too when the time is right). Here are five positive stories from women’s basketball recently.
Marina Mabrey
When the Tempo hosted the Los Angeles Sparks recently at the Coca-Cola Coliseum, who would have guessed it would be a history-making occasion for one of Toronto’s marquee players.
That player was Marina Mabrey. The Tempo scored the 125-97 blowout victory to dispatch the Sparks, but it was Mabrey who was the story following Thursday night’s contest.
Mabrey tallied 53 points to tie the WNBA’s single-game scoring record with two other all-time greats of the game. Those two are A’ja Wilson and Liz Cambage. She also connected on nine of her attempts from distance. She was 17-28 from the field.
Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame
A great deal of the women’s basketball universe descended upon Knoxville for the annual induction of new members into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame (which we at Beyond The W had the privilege of covering on site).
This year’s class was headlined by Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve as well as Delaware and Washington Mystics legend Elena Delle Donne in addition to a favorite daughter of Tennessee in Candace Parker who won three WNBA championships with three different teams.
This year’s Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame Class also included Kirkwood Community College coach Kim Muhl, France’s Isabelle Fijalkowski, Spain’s Amaya Valdemoro, longtime ESPN broadcaster Doris Burke and the late, great Barbara Kennedy-Dixon.
Kamilla Cardoso
It appears to have been another one of those seasons for the Chicago Sky.
As of this writing, the host franchise of this year’s All-Star weekend is 6-13 but coach Tyler Marsh’s team has won its last pair of games.
One of those took place at Wintrust Arena when the Sky earned a 124-94 victory over the Portland Fire. The signature player spearheading Chicago’s victory was Kamilla Cardoso. She not only scored 30 points but did so by going 13 out of 13 from the field.
What Cardoso did for the Sky in that contest was exactly what Chicago envisioned when she was drafted out of South Carolina as a lottery pick in that 2024 draft.
Roneeka Hodges
To say that the WNBA has a problem with Black women head coaches is an understatement. There are 15 teams in today’s W and that will remain the case for this year and next before Cleveland re-joins the W’s ranks in 2028.
Rachid Meziane, head coach of the Connecticut Sun, missed a recent contest against the Washington Mystics with an illness. That enabled assistant coach Roneeka Hodges to serve in Meziane’s place.
The result would see one of Connecticut’s few positive moments of its Sunset Season prior to moving to Houston and becoming the Comets. The Sun defeated a tough Mystics team with the final score being 68-57.
Perhaps Hodges, who also coaches Phantom BC at Unrivaled, could be in line for that Houston job considering she previously played for the Comets before the original team folded.
Flau’jae Johnson
When thinking about this year’s rookie class, Olivia Miles, Azzi Fudd and Sydney Taylor appear to have garnered the lion’s share of headlines.
But we sometimes forget about Flau’jae Johnson. It was a momentous week for Category 4 as it was recently announced that she will be part of Unrivaled’s 2027 season.
Johnson’s Seattle Storm assembling appears to be playing with more confidence. The Storm played the Dallas Wings tough, earned a 99-88 victory over a tough out in the New York Liberty and recently scored a 105-90 victory over another tough out in the Atlanta Dream that saw Johnson tally 24 points.
Sixth Woman – Aces vs. Liberty Commissioner’s Cup
Speaking of that Liberty team.
Remember during the 2023 season when we would talk about the Liberty and Las Vegas Aces “superteams?”
That word may have mostly disappeared from the W’s discourse but both Aces and Liberty are still among the premier assemblings in the W. This Tuesday, the A’ja Wilson-led Aces will take on the Breanna Stewart-led Liberty for this year’s Commissioner’s Cup championship.
And unlike the last time the Liberty hosted a Commissioner’s Cup final, this version actually will take place at Barclays Center. The final between the Liberty and the Lynx was at UBS Arena in Nassau County last time.
