Apologies for the delay in Five Out the last couple of weeks. Since we’re not yet in a place where we can do this thing full time, sometimes the day job calls. In the meantime, we’ve been working overtime to make sure some content is still hitting the airwaves and a big chunk of that is over on our YouTube page.

If you want to catch up on any of our weekend recap which included a ton of incredible Sunday basketball action it’s right below, just one click away.

Now, onto the column!

Since the formation of the Big Ten, there’s only been two teams that have gone undefeated in conference play. One was Carolyn Peck’s 1998-1999 Purdue Boilermakers who won the national championship that season. The other was the 2014-2015 Maryland Terrapins who made it to the Final Four before being run down by a UConn team in the midst of winning four titles in a row with Breanna Stewart. Ultimately, that’s not bad company to keep. Is it an indicator of future success for UCLA? Well, it means that you’re probably good enough to be a Final Four contender again at the bare minimum.

But what is it about the Bruins, the Huskies and even South Carolina that make us more interested in examining other storylines in the regular season? Is it the feeling of inevitability that all three of these programs have right now? UConn has barely broken a sweat in the Big East and will likely cruise right back into a top seed in the NCAA Tournament. South Carolina felt beatable at the start of the year and are now fully back to death machine status. And then there’s UCLA, who don’t command the same attention as USC in spite of being in the midst of the greatest run in the program’s history. While they don’t have the historical pedigree of their crosstown rivals, Cori Close has had a pretty stellar record. Nine NCAA Tournament runs in 10 years, five Sweet Sixteens, one Elite Eight and, most recently, a Final Four.

Maybe that’s on us as women’s basketball media. Maybe we’ve needed to do a better job of setting the stage for the Bruins. A team comprised of former All-Pac-12 players, aiming to get some revenge on UConn or topple South Carolina and claim their first NCAA title. That’s a legitimately good story. Did they need to lose in the Big Ten for us to take notice? I’m not sure. But with so few games left before Tournament season starts, you should probably get reacquainted with UCLA now so you’re not surprised if they’re playing for a championship in April.

Shout out to my man Papi (Poppie) Clipboard. Of all the games on this week, I think his ATO (after timeout) play to set up the game winner against Duke was one of the cleanest sets I’ve seen. It was also a massive proof of concept moment for Clemson, who has shown signs of resurgence under Shawn Poppie but was just short of a statement win. By knocking off previously undefeated-in-ACC-play Duke (and the coach that I was ready to crown in this column as recently as two weeks ago), the Tigers have proven that they not only belong in the NCAA Tournament conversation but that they’re a viable competitor in the conference in the long term. Couple that with a couple big wins on the recruiting trail and we might be looking at an early wagon being built in South Carolina.

A bit further up the road in Charlottesville, Virginia is finally living up to the lofty expectations we had for Coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton when she first arrived from Missouri State. The Ball-Knower in your life would have likely been telling you about Kymora Johnson for the last couple years but, like some other great college players, she hasn’t yet gotten the shine that March Madness typically brings. By upsetting Louisville, the Cavaliers are firmly in the bubble conversation and, barring a disaster, should be in the field of 68. With a ton of NIL money set to come in through benefactors like Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, to name one, this could be the turn that Virginia has needed.

I really am not sure where to go with Kim Caldwell. Andraya Carter, the extremely talented ESPN broadcaster and former Tennessee Lady Vols star, took a hacksaw to the current UT head coach heading into Sunday’s matchup between them and Oklahoma. None of her blistering critique was wrong. In fact, I think a lot of what Carter had to say about system buy-in, rigidity and where coaches need to meet their players where they are was cogent and well put. What’s hard is squaring the idea of how much this is a one year blip and if this is a sign of things to come in Knoxville.

Keep in mind that outside of the truly great coaches in women’s basketball, everyone tends to have one down year. UCLA, for instance, had a disastrous 2021-2022 in which they missed the NCAA Tournament. If your name isn’t Dawn, Geno or Kim Mulkey, you probably are due for one. Even with on court success, the vibes can still not be conducive to achieving greatness (see Schaefer, Vic). So are we looking at a really bad year in Knoxville? I’m leaning that way but I can understand how bad the energy is around the program that people can wonder if they want to cut bait early.

Outside of that one disastrous press conference that clearly lost the locker room, how egregious are the two other supposed transgressions of the season? While Ruby Whitehorn’s second arrest can be argued on the merits (I’ve long said that a marijuana charge is a bit of light fare considering how much it’s advertised on interstates in East Tennessee), I don’t think you can argue that, as a coach, you can’t let that stick and run a program with set disciplinary standards. Especially when the first set of charges she faced revolved around alleged aggravated battery and domestic violence. Janiah Barker, while talented, has also had some trouble sticking at collegiate programs in the past. She even made waves on social media earlier this year when stiffing ex-head coach Cori Close in the postgame handshake line with UCLA. Keep in mind, Close is sometimes viewed as a Mr. Rogers figure in the women’s college basketball world. So now there’s nuance required there too.

Are there aesthetic things that can cause you to bristle at Caldwell’s shtick? Of course. The entire attempt to channel Pat Summitt last year felt like, at best, a cynical play to ingratiate herself to a fan base that carries the great one in such high esteem. But, at the same time, I didn’t see issues of cohesion and energy on the floor last year. Hell, they beat UConn! Caldwell has to answer for the team she built and is absolutely on the hook for her role in fostering a culture in which players felt like they could act a certain way and felt betrayed when the hammer dropped. The issue is whether or not it’s enough to force the hand of the Tennessee administration. My only caution is that, if you do this, you’re right back in the same position you found yourself in after you fired Kellie Harper. And, at some point, the shine of the Lady Vols will wear off and the job will start to become one with less prestige, more headaches and higher expectations. I’m not saying that you need to stick it out with Caldwell. Maybe the right solution is to let her go to save a locker room or culture before it craters. But perhaps a Come-to-Jesus moment is required of this program in order to properly chart a path forward.

I will preface this part of the column with this: I really enjoy Coach Yo and think we could use more coaches like her in the game. Ultimately, college basketball (men’s or women’s) is sustained by personalities on the sideline. The more people you have like her, the better the game will be. I also think it’s extremely important to note that the relationship between Coach Yo and South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley is a vital one for the sport and the representation within it. For two Black women to be at headline makers in the SEC, it’s genuinely important that the two are copacetic and not trying to tear one another down. In order to combat the inequity in coaching and hiring practices, there’s a solidarity there that needs to be nurtured and should be applauded.

Here’s the one time every year it loses me…

There seems to be a bit of a “Tiger Woods wearing red on Sunday” effect happening right now between Coach Yo and Coach Staley. I don’t know if it’s being intimidated by the fan base or the moment, if there’s an idolatry happening with the sports top tactician or if there’s a long game play to one day take over for her, but it feels like that desire by Coach Yo to find fans in Columbia is getting in the way of the ability to actually beat the Gamecocks.

Think of it this way: Ole Miss has gotten within single digits of South Carolina once in her tenure in Oxford. Outside of that one overtime matchup, it’s been a series of beatdowns by SC over and over and over. While that isn’t exactly a surprise given how good the Gamecocks are, it does feel strange at times to see Coach Yo become so deferential with this one program in particular. As Chauny said on our live show on Sunday, if you want to be the best in the SEC, you have to go through Columbia. And while there’s a lot of connective tissue between the two programs, there’s no real upside in framing yourself as their little sister program. The best comparison is the dynamic between the Atlanta Dream and the Las Vegas Aces. Sure, there’s a lot of crossover in fans but, eventually, a player might get tired of feeling like they are just a feeder team for their own fanbase. Just ask Rhyne Howard.

It’s a small critique of an otherwise great coach who is moving into the Van Chancellor territory of being one of the best in program history. But at some point, if you want everyone to see you in the same tier as Staley (or even the half tier below like Kim Mulkey or Vic Schaefer), you have to at least give the impression that a trip to Columbia is more than just an opportunity to make some content that will play well on social media with one of the largest and most active fan bases in the sport. That’s not to say there can’t be a mutual respect between the teams. It just has to feel like there’s some desire to compete here. There’s smoke for everyone but the one standard bearer program. Eventually, if you want to be them, you’re going to have to beat them. And that may involve pissing off some of those fans that enjoy you being a non-threatening buddy program from Mississippi.

I’m never one to cry crocodile tears for billionaires. After all, a lot of the supposed slights towards people in that class seem rooted in hits to their ego more than anything else. But, in this one case, I genuinely feel bad for the WNBA owners because I can feel the pivot is coming.

On Monday morning, ESPN’s Katie Barnes and Alexa Phillipou put out a great piece of reporting that confirmed what a lot of us had long suspected: the league is in a different financial place than it was in 2021. According to their story, the WNBA, for the first time in their history, made enough money to surpass the financial benchmarks necessary to trigger the players revenue sharing agreement. Half of the money (around $8 million or so) will be disbursed to players and the other half is earmarked for the league’s marketing agreements which were originally utilized as a monetary carrot to keep top players from playing abroad in the offseason.

It’s a huge win for the PA to have a longtime talking point — “this league makes no money so why should the players be entitled to a revenue share?!” — basically die at long last. By putting it out on a Monday morning, they now get to control the news cycle for the week as proposals and counter proposals start to fly between the two sides with more regularity.

Here’s what I’m watching…

For a lot of observers, there’s an emerging precedent that the NBA/WNBA owners are the ones willing to put their money where their mouth is while those invested solely into WNBA franchises are the ones hindering progress. But if you look at revenue sharing as a line at the store, you realize that the latter group aren’t actually getting the first plates. Instead, the 42% of league ownership (the NBA) and the 16% third party ownership are taking money out of the pot first, leaving the remainder to WNBA owners. That’s why the W’s statement last week — a contention that the WNBPA’s proposal would result in nine figure losses to their teams — makes sense from a certain perspective. So when you look at it from the lens of the NBA’s desire to slowly own the global product of basketball through a foray into Europe and into women’s basketball, it feels like the next pivot coming is to blame the sole WNBA owners for stalling out these talks.

Ultimately, there’s something off putting about the continued insistence by those owners (particularly current and former Chicago Sky investors) that this initial investment was an ideological decision that never anticipated this type of success. But there is an understandable point to be made here that, now that the economic conditions are right, the NBA owners are suddenly interested in the game. So watch that space in the coming weeks. If there’s still an impasse and the messaging starts to show fracturing on the owners end, pay attention to how the WNBA only owners are positioned and if Adam Silver and his brigade see an opportunity to squeeze out other groups once and for all.

1 - The Chicago Sky and Michael Alter deserve some praise…

There was a good piece in Sports Business Journal this morning that, while puffy in nature, indicates that things are progressing along well for the Chicago Sky’s Bedford Park practice facility. We’ve reported deeply on the various factions and disagreements that have led to the perception of organizational dysfunction. But credit where it’s due: Michael Alter has been a good owner in dealing with t

2 - Dawn Thornton is building a SWAC power at Alabama A&M…

Whenever there’s a new power vying to be the standard in one of the main two HBCU conferences — the MEAC and SWAC — you usually have to wait a season to see it really play out. After a rigorous non-con, Dawn Thornton’s Alabama A&M has grown into the class of the league. Don’t let the fits fool you: Thornton has the goods and is a name to watch for future bigger jobs.

3 - Kenny Brooks called Clara Strack the best center in women’s college basketball. How legit is the claim?

Kenny Brooks said after the Wildcats loss to Vanderbilt that his junior center is the best five in the country. A bold claim especially when Lauren Betts still draws breath. But it’s an interesting claim when you think about how good she is at every aspect of the game. People will draw the obvious Liz Kitley comparison but she’s a bit more than that. Come next year, she may be a first-team All-American.