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✊🏽 HAPPY BLACK HISTORY MONTH
Hi Hoops Fans!
Although February may be the WNBA offseason, women’s hoops are serving plenty of excitement!
This includes the most Diana Taurasi way to retire– on a random Tuesday.
Here’s what we have on deck for today’s newsletter:
🥊 NC State Wolfpack takes a bite out of the Fighting Irish
‼️ Skylar Diggins-Smith said to put some respect on the Lunar Owls
🤔 Will the WNBA benefit from ESPN’s breakup with MLB?
🎙️ How are the Seattle Storm retooling after offseason exits?
📚 WBB stories & content worth your time
BLACK HISTORY FACT
Teresa Weatherspoon wants you to know about her father, Chuck, the 1961 MiLB Most Valuable Player (MVP). That year, Spoony, as he was known, hit seven grand slams in 1961 for the Wilson Tobacconists.
“He never made it to the Major Leagues, but for us, he was a major man,” Teresa Weatherspoon told MiLB.Com in a February 2020 interview.
If you really know me, then you know I love baseball. I cannot wait to ask Teresa Weatherspoon more about her father!
With love,
Erica L. Ayala, Head Black Rosie in Charge (HBIC)
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🦉 THE G.O.A.T SAYS FAREWELL
Diana Taurasi. Image via the Phoenix Mercury Twitter account.
After 20 incredible seasons with the Phoenix Mercury, Diana Taurasi has called it a career.
DT announced her retirement in an exclusive for Time Magazine. Our very own Erica L. Ayala joined CBS Sports HQ to discuss the breaking news.
Hate her or love her, Diana Taurasi is a central force in the growth of women’s basketball over the years.
Although Taurasi hasn’t committed to her next moves, it’s hard to imagine she’ll be away from the game for too long.
📈 AP TOP 25 - WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
It was another big weekend of college hoops, and all eyes were on Raleigh, North Carolina.
With the eyes of the basketball world on them, the NC State Wolfpack took on #1 Notre Dame and gave them all they could handle.
It took two overtime, but NC State got some revenge from last year’s ACC Tournament final and came away with a victory.
The Notre Dame loss placed Texas at the top of the standing for the first time in over 20 years. The win was NC State’s first win against the number one ranked team since 1978.
AP Rankings (as of February 25):
1 Texas (↑1)
2 UCLA (↑1)
3 Notre Dame (↓2)
4 Southern California
5 UConn
6 South Carolina
7 LSU
8 North Carolina(↑1)
9 North Carolina State (↑4)
10 TCU
11 Tennessee (↑4)
12 Ohio State (↓4)
13 Oklahoma (↑3)
14 Kansas State (↓2)
15 Kentucky (↓1)
16 Duke (↓5)
17 Baylor (↑2)
18 West Virginia (↓1)
19 Maryland (↑2)
20 Alabama (↓2)
21 Oklahoma State (↑3)
22 Creighton (↑1)
23 Michigan State (↓1)
24 Florida State
25 Louisville
🦉 LUNAR OWLS STILL RUN UNRIVALED
Skylar Diggins-Smith. Photo via Unrivaled.
The Lunar Owls have been that team in the inaugural season of Unrivaled. Led by Napheesa Collier and Skylar Diggins-Smith, they have dominated everyone in their path.
It took over a month to slow down the Lunar Owls.
On Friday night, Rose BC pulled off the upset as Angel Reese’s 22 points and 21 rebounds led the way in a 72-63 victory.
The Lunar Owls weren’t down for long and returned to the win column in a dominant win over the injury-laden Laces BC.
After the game, Skylar Diggins-Smith reminded everyone who runs this
HOOTIE HOO!!!!!!!!!
Unrivaled is off until February 28, when Vinyl BC faces Laces BC and Mist BC takes on the Phantom BC.
Here are the current standings:
💰 MONEY MOVES
Major League Baseball is leaving ESPN at the end of the 2025 season. Sunday Night Baseball, Home Run Derby, etc.? All gone.
How will ESPN fill their schedule?
Enter the WNBA.
As Professor David Berri noted, when the WNBA moved to ESPN in the early 2000s, the network buried them on ESPN2 and had executives openly pushing to take them off the air.
The coverage disparity has had generational consequences, and we are just now seeing the market correct several decades of coverage disparity.
It’s hard to view anyone as a bigger winner of MLB’s split with ESPN than the WNBA, which could help fill programming from mid-May until late October.
How the network chooses to leverage that partnership will ultimately determine how it fills out the rest of its schedule.
As Candace Parker noted, viewership increased when ESPN put the games on channels everyone could reach.
Now that the W’s biggest television partner has a greater need for games on their network, they can put the league in prime broadcast position and reach as many people as possible.
To borrow a phrase from Juanita Anderson, “The game is best when the game is free.”
📰 WHAT WE’RE READING!
At Black Rosie Media, we love to give flowers to other writers and creators in women’s basketball.
Here’s what we’re reading:
Diana Taurasi, perhaps the WNBA's greatest player, always strived for more — on and off the court by Cassandra Negley for Yahoo Sports
New York Liberty shore things up during WNBA free agency by Brian Fleurantin for NetsDaily
Skylar Diggins-Smith Is Shooting for Change With Unrivaled Basketball by Amber Chow for Hypebae
How a knee injury made Olivia Miles a better 3-point shooter and turned Notre Dame into a contender by Mitchell Northam for Breakaway
Watching sports is harder and more expensive than ever by James Dator, Mark Schofield, Jared Mueller, Ricky O'Donnell, Jeanna Kelley, and Bernd Buchmasser for SB Nation
Where denying Marina Mabrey’s trade request leaves the Connecticut Sun by Gabby Alfveby for The Next
Q&A: Stephanie White on handling Caitlin Clark mania, broadcasting and the Fever by Richard Deitsch for The Athletic
The Next Step with Sydney Colson by Shlomo Sprung for Boardroom
Cleveland Rockers' potential return to WNBA stirs memories for franchise's original stars by Annie Costiable for the Chicago Sun Times
Remembering Roberta Flack: The Virtuoso by Ann Powers for NPR
Questlove Wants To Save You. One Black Genius At A Time by Naima Cochrane for Vibe Magazine
📻 BRM PODCAST NETWORK
This Wednesday in the Black Rosie Media Podcast Network will be a deep dive into Mercedes Russell!
Join Erica L. Ayala and Roberta F. Rodrigues on the latest edition of Tempestade Talk.
Join us on the Black Rosie Media YouTube channel at 7:00 p.m. PST for the live stream.
You can’t join us live, but do you still need your fix on the WNBA talk?
We got you!
You can catch up with the first three quarters of every BRM podcast on Transistor, our audio provider. The show will also be found on your favorite audio platforms.
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