Happy Thursday, Ball-Knowers!

Training camp continues and roster cuts are beginning. It’s always a tough time of year as we start to see faces from college that we believed had a shot at the next level see their first true barriers arise. The benefit this year is two more expansion rosters as well as new developmental spots that allow teams to carry a couple more players. So while the cuts will happen, we’re seeing a legitimate easing on what was once one of the hardest leagues in professional sports to make a roster.

While there are concerns about expansion happening so rapidly that it dilutes the talent pool, I would urge people to look abroad and take stock of how many international signings there have been since the WNBA began to bring on more franchises. There’s a big world out there and a lot of really talented women’s basketball players. When you really consider how diversified the talent pool is in this league, it starts to resemble a labor force that the NBA seems to be trending towards. A global league in a global game. As a women’s basketball fan, that’s a good place to be.

Tyler’s immediate reaction to Oliviyah Edwards’ commitment to South Carolina…

Tyler and Andrew talk Courtney Vandersloot’s influence in Chicago, WNBA training camp vibes and Kim Caldwell’s portal work and where that leaves Tennessee Lady Vol basketball.

Dawn Staley is really remarkable, even among her legendary peers.

Every coach manages to find doubters, skeptics or haters to fuel them. They read deeply into small slights (see: Auriemma, Geno) or find ways to make it personal (see: Jordan, Michael). However they interpret the criticism, they take it and find ways to dominate it.

The South Carolina head coach seems to do it a bit differently, and yet somehow better.

After 2023, the popular knock on Staley’s Gamecocks were that they didn’t have enough perimeter firepower. So when they ran up against Caitlin Clark’s high-flying Iowa Hawkeyes, they had no response when the threes started raining down.

One year later, South Carolina went 38-0 powered in large part by a backcourt that were some of the most efficient three point shooters in the SEC.

In 2025, the head coach came under scrutiny for how her system utilized guards and if singular players could shine in a system designed to beat you at multiple positions.

The next season, Joyce Edwards finished her year with the most points per game by a Gamecock since A’ja Wilson and SC made it to the national championship primarily on the back of high level guard play.

With the best programs now loading up on multi-tooled wings, Staley has a frontcourt that includes Ashlyn Watkins (returning from injury), Chloe Kitts (returning from injury), Alicia Tournebize (6’7 French dunker), Agot Makeer (6’1 but plays 6’4), Adhel Tac (a 6’5 big with potential).

Now she adds Oliviyah Edwards to the mix.

One of the top recruits in the 2026 class, Edwards’ much heralded commitment to Tennessee ended amidst a complete rebuild of the Lady Vols program. Every program in the country was going after Big Oh. Staley got her.

The moral of the story here is to not doubt the South Carolina head coach. Because if you say her teams can’t win a certain way, she’ll build the exact team you say she can’t create or win with, go to another Final Four and potentially hoist a national championship trophy. A true long-game master of petty competence. An example for us all.

Jokes aside, you can see how big of a deal this is. Edwards is a high flying dunker that still has a ton of ceiling left to explore in her game. And consider this: there are maybe five women’s basketball dunkers in the game right now worldwide.

Three of them will be playing for South Carolina this season.

The motion is coming.

Tyler and Chauny talked to Big Oh at Overtime Select last fall if you want to get to know the future Gamecock better…

It was pretty nice to see Caitlin Clark and Raven Johnson make positive headlines for a change. While I think there are limits to how much we should read into training camp body language and drills (but hey, what else are we gonna talk about on a random Thursday in the preseason? This is the kind of inane content that the NFL has feasted on for decades), I do think it was fair to wonder how that dynamic would play out.

Both of these players are professionals, but professional rivalries can still exist. If we look across to the WNBA’s partner league, San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder big men Victor Wenbanyama and Chet Holmgren very clearly do not mess with one another. If the two of them were to play on a team together in the future, there would certainly be the strange voyeurism and overanalyzing that we’re seeing in Indianapolis right now. But get past some of the takery that you’re reading online and actually listen to what the players are saying.

Johnson has already been asking Clark questions and displaying an eagerness to learn and fit into this offense. Clark herself has said she’s looking forward to having the ball out of her hands a bit and being able to sit for a spell if needed. That’s something that, before the injury that sidelined her for the year, the Fever superstar never really had the luxury of last season. With Ty Harris and Raven Johnson behind her, there can be more faith and trust from Clark to have a floor general when she’s on the bench. Whatever the fandoms are and whatever has occurred between the two ‘sides’ in the media over the years, I think the idea of these two coming together is substantially more interesting than it just devolving into mess.

James Boyd had a nice dispatch from Indianapolis in The Athletic about this if you want to read more…

So Kelsey Mitchell had a really interesting press conference comment that raised a really interesting question: Is Project B still a thing or not?

Since emerging as a potential offseason and overseas alternative to playing in the Euroleague or even participating in Unrivaled, Project B presented itself as something of a global basketball showcase. Former Duke and WNBA star Alana Beard is the public face of the project with a consortium of venture capitalists, primarily rooted in the South Asian FinTech sector, presenting themselves as the primary funders. The Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund of the Kingdom, was also involved with the league via their marketing arm, Sela Sports.

The league announced in January that their first tour date stop would be in Tokyo, Japan with a second set for Valencia, Spain. Both dates coincided with the signings of Japanese star Mai Yamamoto and Spanish WNBA rookie Awa Fam.

At the end of the day, this feels more like the Harlem Globetrotters than the glossy depiction of a potentially groundbreaking new frontier for women’s basketball it was presented as. As the PIF reconsiders their investment in LIV Golf and Gulf states, some of the biggest bankrollers of these new made-for-TV sports ventures, are embroiled in the looming economic crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, it does lead one to wonder if this league will even get off the ground. More than that, if you are to take Mitchell’s comments about the new WNBA contracts meaning she won’t have to go abroad again, does it mean that suddenly the players that signed on to this during the dog days of the CBA negotiation start having second thoughts?

There was a reason I, and others, went so hard at this league when it first got off the ground. In the midst of a landmark labor battle for women’s basketball, Project B looked opportunistic at best and parasitic at worst. While their status as a vanity league is generally fine now, the idea that that would be a potential solution to a WNBA work stoppage was a nightmare scenario. I’m curious if it makes it off the ground but I can promise this: it is certain to lack the juice to catch on stateside. That doesn’t mean, however, that it can’t be a perfectly viable global product.

The Dream gave their Twitter account to the players today…

In Chicago, Rickea Jackson is mic’d up…

Rachid Meziane embracing our country’s strange customs and traditions…

Cheryl Miller in the building to see Dallas…

Good, easy storytelling from Indiana’s social team here. This is the type of stuff a lot of WNBA fans say is lacking from an in-house media perspective…

Becky Hammon not thinking her team knows about line dancing…

Seattle, very wisely, leaning into Flau’jae and letting her be the future face of the franchise alongside Dom Malonga and Awa Fam…

The Mystics engaging in tomfoolery

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