Another week of WNBA action is in the books, and the betting world continues to give us plenty to talk about.

This past week had both the lowest and the highest over/under for a game this season — 150 in last Tuesday’s Atlanta-Seattle game and 177 in Saturday’s contest between Las Vegas and Los Angeles — and it also gave us the Liberty’s first win against the spread as road favorites in over four years.

With those highlights in mind, let’s dive into the week in WNBA betting.

Team trends

Liberty rolling

In May, the Liberty were arguably the best fade in the league. Now, they may be the best bet. The addition of Crystal Dangerfield has allowed Sabrina Ionescu to spend some of her minutes off the ball, and it’s done wonders both for Ionescu and the team.

Statistically, the newly-minted Eastern Conference Player of the Week has done a complete 180 since the calendar flipped to June. Ionescu has essentially doubled her May averages in scoring, 3-pointers per game and free throws per game, while sinking over 44 percent of her triples and all 29 of her free throws so far this month.

As you might expect, this individual breakthrough has directly coincided with a team turnaround. Since inserting Dangerfield into the starting lineup to begin the month, New York has gone from the league’s worst net rating to its best. They even pulled the biggest upset of the season when they took down Washington as 12-point underdogs on June 3.

Fever getting on the board first

In our last betting piece, we talked about BetMGM’s “first to score” prop bets. These generally only take into account the strength of each team overall, not the strength of each team’s center at winning jump balls.

Because of this, we can use jump ball data to our advantage. The Fever in particular present an interesting case. Despite owning one of the worst win-loss records in the league, Indiana is scoring first at a remarkable rate. The Fever are the only team in the WNBA to score first 11 times already this season.

While it helps that the Fever have played more games than some teams, they are even in the top three in percentage, having scored first in 68.8 percent of their games. Only the Sun and the Storm have done it more frequently.

Mystics’ second quarters

We’ve devoted plenty of words to the Mystics and their propensity for unders this season — their slow pace and elite defense have made it tough for sportsbooks to adjust their totals low enough.

Washington’s 11-4 record on unders in full games is the best in the league, but it’s nothing compared to their record on second-quarter unders. In 15 Mystics games this season, the second-quarter under has hit an incredible 14 times. If you bet on the under in every Mystics second quarter so far, you’d be nearly undefeated.

Even when they combined for 180 against the Wings, or 173 against the Sky, or 189 on Sunday against the Mercury, the second quarter still went under. There’s bound to be regression at some point, but ride this trend for as long as you can.

League trends

Checking on trends we’ve been monitoring

So far, we’ve been keeping an eye on back-to-back unders, fourth-quarter unders and live second-quarter unders.

Back-to-back unders and fourth-quarter unders continue to sit around 50-50, so it may be that books are finally making adjustments after last season. They haven’t quite figured out those second quarters though — after a first quarter goes over, the second quarter is still going under over 60 percent of the time.

Combined with the Mystics’ extreme low-scoring second quarters, any high-scoring Mystics first quarter should be an automatic trigger to open your sportsbook app and bet the under on the next quarter.

Late player availability updates

Usually, the earlier you can get your bets in, the better. With lines now being posted the night before, if you can place your wagers before you go to bed you can often get a better line before the lines move the day of the game.

However, there have been some exceptions to that this season. Because of the lingering effects of the pandemic, there have been occasions where a player is ruled out seemingly out of nowhere mere hours before tip. Most notably, it happened to Breanna Stewart earlier this season, but other players such as Sophie Cunningham, Natasha Cloud and Marina Mabrey have been affected.

Even aside from COVID-19, this type of thing happens in rare instances, such as Elena Delle Donne being ruled out on Sunday after carrying a probable tag into the game (she was the first probable player this season who didn’t end up playing). But the health and safety protocols have increased the frequency of last-minute scratches, so there has been some value in waiting on your bets.

Sportsbooks are doing a much better job this season of updating lines shortly after news breaks. Last season, there were times when odds didn’t change for hours even after a player as important as Candace Parker or Brittney Griner was ruled out. Sportsbooks are now moving their lines within minutes, not hours, of availability news. (That books are putting this effort in is also a great sign of progress in the game.)

Nonetheless, there’s still a small window to bet on a game after player news comes out before the lines move. As long as we’re still dealing with COVID-19 in any form, it may make more sense for those who are really on top of things throughout the day to wait on putting any money down until closer to tip.

Futures update

Here are FanDuel’s biggest movers of the last two weeks.

Stock up: Aces (+200 previous to +115 current)

It says a lot about the Aces that their stock increased the most despite already being the favorites. Even without Jackie Young for the last several days, Las Vegas has raised its value.

It’s also noteworthy to see a number as low as +115 before the halfway point of the season. If that number hits +100, the Aces will have a 50 percent implied probability of winning the championship, a mark we don’t typically see any team hit until after the playoffs have started.

From their three legitimate MVP candidates, to their league-best 9-4 record against the spread, to their ever-rising title chances, there are all sorts of ways to use betting odds to tell the same story: The Aces are flat-out awesome.

Stock down: Mercury (+1000 previous to +4100 current)

As the season has gone on, it’s become more and more apparent that Phoenix just doesn’t have a championship-level defense without Brittney Griner. The superstar backcourt of Diana Taurasi and Skylar Diggins-Smith, alongside Tina Charles in the middle, can win the Mercury games on the right night, but this team doesn’t have the interior resistance to consistently compete with the league’s top tier right now.

Even Phoenix’s opponents would welcome an improvement in that department if it meant getting Griner back home safely before season’s end. For now, it’s tough to consider Phoenix as a contender for anything more than a backend playoff spot.

Best bets tonight

Washington -6.5 vs. Phoenix

Let’s run this one back. It looked like Washington had a good shot at clearing this line on Sunday, then Delle Donne was unexpectedly ruled out just a couple of hours before tip. She’s probable again for this one, but it would be extremely surprising if she didn’t play. As long as she’s on the floor, look for Mike Thibault to make adjustments from Sunday’s loss and the Mystics to win comfortably in a revenge game.

Phoenix vs. Washington under 165.5

The total for the first leg of this back-to-back closed at 160, so we’re getting an extra 5.5 points just based on how high-scoring Sunday’s contest was. That’s an overreaction to a single game. Whether the back-to-back under effect is still around or not, this line is far too high for any Mystics game. And, of course, if you have access to a book with quarter unders, take the second-quarter under here as long as it’s at least 40.

Calvin Wetzel is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports, covering basketball and betting. He also contributes to Her Hoop Stats, CBS SportsLine and FiveThirtyEight. Follow him on Twitter at @cwetzel31.

Seven-time Olympic gold medalist Katie Ledecky will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, at a White House ceremony this afternoon. 

The Team USA standout is the most decorated women’s swimmer in the sport’s history. In addition to her seven Olympic golds, she’s also won a total of 21 gold medals at the World Championships, the most of any swimmer regardless of gender. 

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The esteemed award recognizes those who have "made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors," according to a White House press briefing. 

Ledecky is one of 19 medal recipients chosen by the Biden administration this year. She joins a class that spans the worlds of politics, sports, film, human rights, religion, and science. Her fellow 2024 awardees include Everything Everywhere All at Once actress Michelle Yeoh, pioneering Hispanic astronaut Dr. Ellen Ochoa, and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, plus posthumous winners Jim Thorpe, the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal for the US, and assassinated civil rights leader Medgar Evers. 

Olympic gymnast Simone Biles and USWNT legend Megan Rapinoe were among 2022’s class of Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients. Biles and Rapinoe were the fifth and sixth women athletes to be given the honor, making Ledecky the seventh.

After an illustrious career for both club and country, Gotham FC and U.S. Women’s National Team defender Kelley O’Hara announced today via Kelley on the Street that she will be retiring from professional soccer at the end of this year, making the 2024 NWSL season her last.

"I have always said I would play under two conditions: that I still love playing soccer, and if my body would let me do it the way I wanted to," O’Hara told Just Women’s Sports in the lead-up to her retirement announcement. "I realized a while back that I was always going to love it, so it was the physical piece that was going to be the deciding factor."

The 35-year-old will retire as a two-time World Cup champion, an Olympic gold medalist, and at least a two-time NWSL champion, depending on where Gotham finishes this season. Her legacy as a player is hard to fully encapsulate, and will forever run through some of the biggest snapshots in USWNT and NWSL history. 

In 2012, O’Hara played every minute of the USWNT’s Olympic gold medal run, after having recently converted into a defender. Her soaring goal off the bench in the 2015 World Cup semifinal is the stuff of legend. And her return from lingering injury to play in every knockout match of the national team’s 2019 World Cup win cemented a storybook international career. 

It was O’Hara who scored the overtime goal in 2021 to earn the Washington Spirit their first-ever NWSL championship, and O’Hara who returned to help see Gotham earn a title in 2023 after years spent in the trenches with the club’s previous iteration, Sky Blue. Her 15-year career spanned two professional women’s soccer leagues in the U.S. (she earned her first professional title in 2010 with WPS’s FC Gold Pride), as well as sweeping changes to the sport both on and off the pitch.

On the field, O’Hara has always been known for a motor that never quits, making the right flank her domain in attacking possession and defensive transition. In recent years, she’s also been celebrated for a competitive fire that raises the level of her teammates, whether she’s in the starting XI or supporting from the bench.

But injuries take a toll, a reality not always seen by the fans watching from home. "I've never taken anything for granted, and I feel like I've never coasted either," O’Hara said of her late-career success in the NWSL despite battling injuries. "I've always been like, 'I gotta put my best foot forward every single day I step on this field' — which is honestly probably half the reason why I'm having to retire now as opposed to getting a couple more years out of it. I've just grinded hard."

Recently, O’Hara has been sidelined at Gotham with ankle and knee injuries, and the situation motivated her to really prioritize listening to her body. "To get injured and come back, and get injured and come back, and just keep doing it, it really takes a toll on you.

"People don't see the doubt that's associated with injury,” she continued. "As athletes we feel a certain way, we perform a certain way, our body feels a certain way, we're very in tune with our bodies. And there's always so much doubt surrounding injury. It’s like, 'Can I feel the way I felt before?' The reality is sometimes you don't."

O’Hara didn’t arrive at the decision to move on from her playing career lightly. But once she began seriously considering making 2024 her final year during the last NWSL offseason, it felt right. "Once I was like, 'Alright, you know what, this will be my last year,' I have had a lot of peace with it," she said. "Truly the only thing I felt was gratitude for everything that my career has been, all the things I've been able to do and the people I've been able to do it with."

She said she’ll miss daily interactions with her teammates and all the amazing memories they’ve created, though she feels lucky to have formed relationships that go beyond sharing a locker room. "You're basically getting to hang out and just shoot the shit with your best friends every day," she reflected. "Which is so unheard of, and I just feel very lucky to do it for so long."

The Stanford graduate also mentioned that the NWSL’s suspension of regular season play in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic made her realize how much playing allowed her the space to simply be creative every day. The tactical elements of soccer provided O’Hara an outlet for problem solving and made use of her naturally competitive edge.

She’s now gearing up to channel her on-field intensity into her post-playing career full time, which is a new chapter she’s excited to begin. "I don't know if the world's ready for it, like the fact that I'm not going to be putting all of my energy into football all the time," she said with a laugh. 

O’Hara said she would like to stay connected to the game in some fashion, whether it be as an owner, coach, or member of a front office. She’s also interested in the growing media space surrounding women’s sports, having provided on-camera analysis for broadcasters like CBS Sports in addition to starting a production company with her fiancée.

"I just feel like I have a lot of passions, and things that excite me," she says. "And I do want to stay as close as I can to the game, because I feel a responsibility — and I'm not sure in what capacity — to continue to grow it."

A sense of responsibility to grow the game has been a consistent refrain for the USWNT and NWSL players of O’Hara’s era, who ushered in a new age of equal pay for the national team and collectively bargained protections for those in the league. The landscape for new players looks different than it did 14 years ago, in large part due to this pivotal generation.

"I feel an immense sense of pride around that, because I don't know if any of us knew that was gonna happen," she said. "We kind of, as things unfolded, took the next step towards changing what women's football looks like in this country and around the world.

"I'm really grateful to have been part of this era with the players that I was [with], not backing down and pushing and knowing that was the right thing to do."

Whatever the future holds, O’Hara is going ahead full throttle. It’s a piece of advice she’d also give to the next generation of professionals looking to make their own impact.

"Whatever you do in life, do it because you love it, and the chips will fall in place," she said. "If you love something, you're willing to do what it takes. You're willing to make the sacrifices, you're willing to handle the roller coaster.

"To me, it's simple. Don't do it for any other reason but that, and I think you'll be alright."

The Phoenix Mercury center spoke with Robin Roberts about her 10-month incarceration, reflecting on her poor living conditions and shaky mental state ahead of her May 7th memoir.

"The mattress had a huge blood stain on it. I had no soap, no toilet paper," Griner told the ABC News anchor in last night’s 20/20 special. "That was the moment where I just felt less than a human." 

She also detailed some of her lowest moments during that time, saying with tears in her eyes that she went so far as to consider taking her own life on more than one occasion. However, the thought of Russian officials not releasing her body back to her family made her reconsider.

"I just didn't think I could get through what I needed to get through," said Griner.

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In February 2022, Griner was arrested and charged with drug possession and smuggling by a Russian court after Sheremetyevo International Airport police found vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage. The cartridges were prescribed by Griner’s doctor for chronic pain back in Arizona, where medical marijuana is legal. In the interview, the two-time Olympic gold medalist said she had a "mental lapse" while packing, and never intended to bring the cannabis products with her when she returned to play for UMMC Ekaterinburg.

"It's just so easy to have a mental lapse," Griner said. "Granted, my mental lapse was on a more grand scale. But it doesn't take away from how that can happen." 

She was later sentenced to nine years behind bars after her Russian attorneys advised her to plead guilty the following July. Griner was then sent to a remote penal colony where she was forced to spend her days cutting cloth to make military uniforms. From there, it only got worse.

"Honestly, it just had to happen," she said when asked about her decision to cut off her signature long locks. "We had spiders above my bed making nests.

"My dreads started to freeze," she added. "They would just stay wet and cold and I was getting sick. You've gotta do what you've gotta do to survive."

Shortly after Griner’s initial arrest, the U.S. State Department classified her case as wrongfully detained, escalating its urgency within the government and calling even more attention to the situation. On December 8th, she was freed in a prisoner exchange negotiated by the Biden administration.

While she told Roberts she was "thrilled" when she got the news, she was also very upset about having to leave fellow wrongful detainee Paul Whelan behind. She also continues to carry guilt about her arrest, saying "At the end of the day, it's my fault. And I let everybody down."

Griner’s memoir, Coming Home, hits shelves on May 7th.

"Coming Home begins in a land where my roots developed and is the diary of my heartaches and regrets," Griner told ABC News in an exclusive statement. "But, ultimately, the book is also a story of how my family, my faith, and the support of millions who rallied for my rescue helped me endure a nightmare."

Longtime USWNT fixture Carli Lloyd took to Instagram Wednesday morning to announce that she’s pregnant with her first child. 

"Baby Hollins coming in October 2024!" she wrote. The caption framed a collaged image of baby clothes, an ultrasound photo, and syringes indicating what she described as a "rollercoaster" fertility journey.

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In a Women’s Health story published in tandem with Lloyd’s post, the Fox Sports analyst and correspondent opened up about her struggles with infertility and the lengthy IVF treatments she kept hidden from the public eye.

"Soccer taught me how to work hard, persevere, be resilient, and never give up. I would do whatever it took to prepare, and usually when I prepared, I got results," Lloyd told Women’s Health’s Amanda Lucci. "But I found out that I didn’t know much about this world. I was very naive to think that we wouldn’t have any issues getting pregnant. And so it began."

Lloyd went on to discuss her road to pregnancy in great detail, sharing the highs and lows of the process and expressing gratitude for the care and support her family and medical team provided along the way. She rounded out the piece with a nod toward others navigating the same challenges, encouraging people to share their own pregnancy journeys, painful as they may be.

"My story is currently a happy one, but I know there are other women who are facing challenges in their pregnancy journey. I see you and I understand your pain," she said. "My hope is that more and more women will speak up about this topic, because their stories helped me. I also wish for more resources, funding, and education around fertility treatments. There is much to be done, and I hope I can play a role in helping."

The 41-year-old New Jersey native retired from professional soccer in 2021, closing out her decorated career with 316 international appearances, the second-most in USWNT history, in addition to 134 international goals. A legend on the field, Lloyd walked away from the game with two World Cups, two Olympic gold medals, and two FIFA Player of the Year awards.