Happy Wednesday, Ball-Knowers!

Some small cosmetic changes are coming to the newsletter starting next week. You’ll still get the free daily dose of women’s basketball from us that you know and love. We want this to still be a central hub for you to easily find us wherever we’re publishing. But we also took some lessons from July and realized that the need for daily takes pulled us more into the WNBA discourse death spiral than we would’ve liked.

So here’s what you can expect the rest of the season here on our side!

Monday: Five Out with Andrew Haubner

Tuesday: Under Surveillance with Chauny Powell

Wednesday: Newsletter (+ Special content for the Ball-Knowers!)

Thursday: Newsletter (+ Special content for the Ball-Knowers! Again!!)

Friday: Weekly Hotline & Mailbag with Tyler DeLuca.

Happy reading!

Tyler shares his thoughts on last night’s slate of games…

And, we are proud to unveil episode one of our new limited series, Summer School. Andrew is hitting the road all over the southeast to grind tape with NCAA coaches to help you be a better ball-knower. Our pilot run takes us to Lexington, Kentucky where Kenny Brooks breaks down why he thinks Clara Strack is the best center in women’s college basketball.

Most K-Cups sit in a warehouse for months before they reach your brewer — and you can taste it. Angelino's, a third-generation roaster in Los Angeles, does it differently: every pod is roasted, ground, and sealed fresh in-house, then shipped to your door within days of roasting.

Choose from 50+ specialty coffees — single origins, dark roasts, flavored favorites like Jamaican Me Crazy, plus decafs and teas — all compatible with your Keurig® brewer. Mix and match any coffees you like, and watch the savings climb: bulk discounts start at 5+ boxes and reach up to 34% off at 12+.

And here's the best part: new customers get an extra 15% off their first order, on top of bulk savings. It's applied automatically at checkout — no code, no subscription required. Free shipping on orders over $49 or 4+ boxes.

Fresh coffee shouldn't require a coffee shop.

Get 15% Off Today

Stephanie White brought some fire and brimstone to the press conference podium on Tuesday night, ostensibly taking aim at fans that booed her before the Fever’s game against New York. More on that in a minute…

Between the lines, it appears that Indiana has figured out the Caitlin Clark and Kelsey Mitchell equation. Occasionally inconsistent production by the duo has raised questions over the last two seasons about their ceiling together. Since the All-Star break, it seems that White has opted to loosen up on the reins and allowed some compromises to be made on the defensive side of the ball. The Fever play at a blistering pace while Clark and Mitchell have, for the most part, found their shooting strokes.

It may not be the lockdown unit that White would ideally like, and they still have some late game execution hiccups to work through ahead of the postseason, but if this is the trade-off then it’s pretty clear why the head coach took it.

As the league remains an election season battleground, Indiana might as well be The Somme. The Fever’s fanbase has splintered, the crows gnawing on the carcasses of bad takes and subscriptions to the Epoch Times. One side is out on White due to her lack of immediate criticism for DiJonai Carrington after the Sky guard’s flagrant foul on Sophie Cunningham. Another side believes White didn’t answer non-basketball questions in a way that conformed to their worldview. A third side thinks White, and the rest of the Fever organization, are trying to intentionally sabotage Caitlin Clark and her superstar prospects. Then there’s a whole lot of fans somewhere in no man’s land, wondering what the hell happened and why it’s seemingly impossible to be normal about this team.

Now, imagine your Steph White and trying to manage your team at the same time. If the Fever are able to maintain their current form into the playoffs, breaking WNBA offensive records in the process, then why shouldn’t she get some Coach of the Year consideration? It’s arguably the most thankless job in the WNBA right now. So thankless that even Caitlin Clark took a very rare public shot at her own fanbase for booing White in the pregame. Impressively, this whole mess hasn’t affected the Fever on the floor but it’s clear that the whole thing is weighing on the franchise off of it.

by Chauny Powell

As school bells start to ring across the country, most high schoolers return with typical tales of part-time jobs, summer camps and family vacations. For Overtime Select captains Jezelle “GG” Banks, Tatianna Griffin and Morghan Reckley, they get to tell how they represented the future of women’s basketball while connecting with legends of the past and today. 

The trio were part of the four high school hoopers selected to participate in the WNBA All-Star Shooting Stars Challenge. In this exhibition showdown, they were put on teams with a current WNBA star and a WNBA legend and received passes from either the legendary Cynthia Cooper, or Teresa Weatherspoon. 

All three players were in Chicago already for EYBL play when they got the call that they received an opportunity of a lifetime and all three were so deep in grind mode that it took a minute for everything to sink in. 

“I was locked into Nike National, so it was really just like oh for real? Like you know like I didn't really know how big it was,” Banks said. “But once I got through the experience and you know finished my last game, heading into the skill challenge, we left right from the gym, so it was like, dang! Like you still didn't really know what's going on, but once you walked up to the arena, the orange carpet, you got a feeling like you never really had before.”

Griffin had to double check to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.