Breanna Stewart expects to re-sign with the Seattle Storm and help the franchise pursue its fifth WNBA title.

Sidelined with a left foot/leg injury since being injured in a game against Washington on Sept. 7, she is one of three stars on the Storm who is an unrestricted free agent.

“Seattle has always been my [WNBA] home,” said Stewart, who was drafted No. 1 by the Storm in 2016. “It’s where I’ve grown up, it’s where my career has continued to blossom. So I plan on being back unless something crazy happens. We have more things to do here.”

Stewart averaged 20.3 points, 9.5 rebounds and 2.7 assists this season before being injured.

Jewell Loyd is also an unrestricted free agent, averaging 17.8 points, 4 rebounds and 3.8 assists this season. While she said she and Stewart have discussed wanting to continue to play together, Loyd plans to take some time making a decision.

“Seattle has been home for me for the last seven years,” said Loyd, who doesn’t plan to play overseas this winter. “When you understand free agency, you understand you have the choice to stay or go. I’m going to take this time to have a break, talk with my family, talk with Stewie and everyone else. Reevaluate where I’m at in my life and my career and go forward from there.”

Sue Bird is the third Seattle star who is a free agent this offseason. After the Storm were knocked out of the playoffs by the Phoenix Mercury, Bird said she would wait to make a decision on whether or not to retire.

Y. Michele Kang has called for Washington Spirit majority owner and CEO Steve Baldwin to step down and sell her his shares in the team.

In a letter to Spirit fans and investors on Monday, Kang wrote that she has “held back out of respect for the players, staff and League investigations” but that her statement has “been a long time coming.”

The letter comes after an article in The Washington Post last Wednesday, which detailed the toxic working environment for females within the Spirit. Kang called The Post’s reporting “accurate,” as she detailed how players and staff had approached her in April to share stories “that reflected how toxic our workplace culture had become.”

“I was told that a climate of fear and intimidation has persisted for years,” she wrote. “An archaic and hierarchical command-and-control mindset, built on bullying and cronyism, left no room for the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

A league investigation into the Spirit was recently completed, according to the Post. It was opened in August after allegations of verbal abuse against the team’s former coach, Richie Burke, surfaced. Reportedly, the probe widened to include allegations of a toxic “old boys club” culture, as The Post reported this month.

An announcement of the investigation’s results is expected this week.

“It is time for the Spirit to turn the page on this sad chapter in its history and bring in new leadership to chart a new path,” Kang continued. “That change must start at the top. I call on Steve Baldwin to put the Club first and honor the commitment he made to Commissioner [Lisa] Baird and me on August 13.”

Kang’s sentiment echoes that of the Spirit Squadron, who last week called on Baldwin to sell the team. The fan club made headlines on ESPN, including being featured on the chyron multiple times on Friday. During Sunday’s game, as promised, they stayed mostly silent in protest of Baldwin. Banners were unfurled at the game, including one that read, “Can You Hear Us Now?”

The Spirit, who currently sit on the verge of the NWSL Playoffs, play the North Carolina Courage on Friday, Oct. 1 at 7 p.m. ET.

The latest episode of Tea with A & Phee is a crossover event, with Just Women’s Sports host Kelley O’Hara stopped by to chat Tokyo Olympics, living in D.C., and what it was like to pose ESPN’s body issue.

While reflecting on her latest bronze-medal run in Tokyo with the USWNT, O’Hara reveals to Napheesa Collier that she still has plenty of gas in the tank for another Olympic run.

When asked if she was going to try to make it to the 2024 Paris Olympics, O’Hara responds with an emphatic, “Definitely.”

“For me, I’ve always thought of 2023 World Cup, 2024 Olympics, and then anything after that’s a bonus, so I am very much all in on playing through that,” says O’Hara, “especially considering it was a COVID Olympics, and we won bronze.”

Speculation around USWNT turnover has heated up since Carli Lloyd announced her retirement in August. The 39-year-old will play her last match with the national team during the U.S.’ October series against South Korea, sparking questions about other veteran players’ future with the team.

O’Hara will turn 36 during the Paris Olympics. Both Becky Sauerbrunn and Megan Rapinoe will be 39, Tobin Heath will be 36, while Alex Morgan and Christen Press will both be 35.

O’Hara made it clear that she is not considering hanging up the cleats anytime soon, citing her current fitness.

“I feel really good, I feel the best I’ve ever felt playing.”

Listen to the full conversation with O’Hara and Collier on Tea with A & Phee.

Alyssa Naeher may be a star soccer player now, but the USWNT keeper’s first love was basketball.

Naeher tells host and USWNT teammate Kelley O’Hara in the season premiere of the Just Women’s Sports Podcast that she split time between soccer and basketball growing up, with the latter often winning out.

“That’s what I thought I would do with my life. I prayed every morning when I was a kid, my parents can attest to it, of wanting to make the WNBA. I wanted to be a professional basketball player. I wanted to go to UConn,” says Naeher, a Connecticut native.

A proud member of the UConn Huskies Club as a kid, Naeher says it was her dream to “play basketball for Geno (Auriemma).”

Deep into her burgeoning soccer career, Naeher continued to play basketball in high school and even joined an intramural team in college.  Ali Krieger, a fellow USWNT legend, happened to be on the same Penn State intramural team, which — no surprise — won the league.

Naeher’s passion for basketball still ended up impacting her soccer career, pushing her to move from a field player to goalie.

“Because I always liked basketball, I always liked being in goal, because I could play with my hands and I liked diving around in the mud and getting dirty.”

A soccer camp at age 13 solidified Naeher’s passion for goalkeeping, with an enthusiastic coach sealing the deal.

“It was just the way that he was talking about it,” says Naeher, adding, “Then we had that first session and I was like, ‘That was awesome. That was fun. I want to do this.’ And I was like, “You can take me out [of the field player drills],’ and I started training more specifically in goal.”

The rest, as they say, is history.

Listen to Kelley O’Hara’s full conversation with USWNT teammate Alyssa Naeher on the Just Women’s Sports Podcast.

Tobin Heath hopes to join Arsenal “as soon as possible.”

The USWNT star spoke Monday in her first major news conference since signing with Arsenal earlier this month, revealing how excited she is to play for the club.

“It was my first childhood club team that I really followed and I fell in love with at a young age,” Heath said. “I was attracted to the style of play through certain players that were playing there. And you know, your first love of a club is something that is kind of unchanging and unwavering through it all.”

She will make her way to north London after the USWNT’s game against Paraguay on Tuesday in Cincinnati, which kicks off at 7:30 p.m. ET on FS1.

Arsenal next plays on Sunday at home against Manchester City (1:45 p.m. ET, NBCSports.com and atafootball.com). The window might be too tight for Heath to suit up for the game, which would push her debut back to Sept. 29 against Tottenham or Oct. 3 at Aston Villa.

Heath spoke about the team’s talent Monday, notably citing Nikita Parris and Vivianne Miedema. She also will reunite with former Portland Thorns teammates Steph Catley and Caitlin Foord on Arsenal.

“It’s a club that it’s easy to be passionate about, and one that is really deep in my heart and in my history of football,” she said. “It’s actually ridiculous, the talent [the team] has.”

While there was some speculation Heath would return to the NWSL and sign with one of two 2022 expansion teams, the forward is excited about this next chapter in her career.

“I feel like in our minds, we all think our club career is going to go a certain way, and in the last couple of years, a change in my plans has given me opportunities that I never thought I’d be able to get,” Heath said. “And this is one of them.”

Breanna Stewart’s status for the playoffs remains in doubt.

The Seattle Storm star has continued to rehab her left foot after suffering the injury on Sept. 7 against the Washington Mystics. After being evaluated by the Storm medical staff, the team announced that Stewart would miss the final two regular-season games.

Without Stewart, the Los Angeles Sparks dealt the Storm one of their worst losses of the season in their second-to-last game.

Stewart has yet to practice with the team, which plays Sunday in the second round of the WNBA playoffs. It’s likely that she will need to practice at least once before the single-elimination game.

Stewart’s situation is eerily reminiscent of the 2020 season, when she missed the Storm’s final two regular season games with a foot injury. She returned in the semifinals to lead to Seattle to a WNBA championship and win the Finals MVP award.

Andi Sullivan looks to be on the verge of becoming a mainstay on the U.S. women’s national soccer team.

In a 9-0 victory over Paraguay on Thursday, the midfielder scored her first two international goals for the USWNT, had an assist and was third in votes for the Woman of the Match.

The USWNT plays Paraguay again on Tuesday — an opportunity for Sullivan to put a period on the statement she made in Thursday’s game.

“I think this a great opportunity for me to try to weasel my way in here, and it’s tough, but I wouldn’t want it any other way,” Sullivan said. “I wouldn’t want it to be easy.”

The 25-year-old made the starting 11 in the first game as the lone central midfielder. U.S. head coach Vlatko Andonovski was satisfied with her performance and said she’ll have a similar role on Tuesday.

“The only difference is we’re going to ask her to be just a little bit more aggressive with her passing and look for more penetrating passes,” he said.

On Thursday, Sullivan was the USWNT’s second-best passer, connecting on 92 percent of her 54 passes. She was also the second-best shooter, hitting three of her four shots on target.

Sullivan is no rookie to international play. Getting her first cap with the senior team in 2016, she’s been on and off the rosters since. Injuries have been a problem, including a torn ACL in 2016, a torn meniscus in 2020 on the same knee and a quad injury in January 2021.

“It’s been quite a journey, but if you look around at every player here, every player has had injury struggles and good timing and bad timing and I think my story is no different, and it’s not over,” said Sullivan.

Andonovski made it clear, even before the first match against Paraguay, that Sullivan would get lots of playing time during the fall series, with both Julie Ertz and Lindsey Horan being sidelined by injuries. The USWNT coach says the level of skill and success he’s seen from his younger players in the NWSL this season is what inspired him call them into camp. Sullivan has three assists and a passing success rate of 82.9 per cent with the Washington Spirit.

The Spirit have had issues recently with the league’s COVID-19 protocols, that including four positive cases on the team. Washington was forced to forfeit their two latest games against Portland Thorns FC and OL Reign, and after Thursday’s game. Meanwhile, a power struggle between co-owners threatens to throw the club into further chaos.

“It’s rare that this environment is less stressful than my club environment, but that’s the case for me right now,” said Sullivan of the Spirit situation. “Just super excited to get into camp, great to have some great training, and get to play a game.”

Andonovski said he was “very well aware” of how the Washington situation might be affecting his players mentally, and said that coming to camp might have been the escape Sullivan and her Spirit teammates needed.

“We find that all three of them – Kelley [O’Hara], Andi and [Emily] Sonnett – to be in very good spirits,” he said. “They’re excited to be in camp.”

The USWNT’s second match against Paraguay is Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. ET in Cincinnati, Ohio. Sullivan says the game is important for herself and the team in establishing good habits as they begin preparations for the 2023 FIFA World Cup, with qualifiers beginning later this year.

The WNBA playoffs are right around the corner, which means the spotlight on the league is growing. It also means it’s a great time to enter the growing betting landscape.

After all, what better way to — in the words of Nneka Ogwumike — “bet on women” than to literally bet on women?

The first step is to learn to read the odds and lines (or what odds and lines even are!). All the numbers, pluses and minuses can make your head spin, and for a rookie bettor, staring at them can feel like a rookie player staring at their new team’s playbook.

That’s where this primer comes in. If you’re new to the party and looking for the 101 course, we’ve got you covered. And if you’re not sure whether WNBA betting is for you, we’ve got you covered there, too.

Making sense of the numbers

There are three common types of bets you can place on a WNBA game. These aren’t the only available options, but if you’re new to betting, then they’re probably the only ones you need to care about.

When you click on a game on an online sportsbook’s website, the first thing you’ll see are the lines and odds for each of these three options — spread, total and moneyline. We’ll get to what those mean in a minute, but here’s an example from PointsBet Sportsbook for the game between Phoenix and Atlanta on Sept. 8.

img

Moneyline

In basketball, moneylines are the least common of the three — they are much more common in lower-scoring sports such as soccer or hockey — but they are also the most important to understand first. That’s because the way the odds work for moneylines also applies to almost all other types of bets.

The odds are just those pluses and minus you see in a sportsbook. In our example game, the Mercury had odds of -221 while the Dream’s odds were +175. While the numbers themselves may seem complicated at first, the concept of moneyline bets is simple: Who will win the game?

A minus number means that you have to bet that amount to win $100. A $221 bet on Phoenix to win the game would earn you $100 if the Mercury win. (Some books will tell you that the bet “returns” $321, which just means you get your original $221 back plus the $100 you won.)

Plus odds work the opposite way — you have to bet $100 to win that amount. If the Dream were to win, a $100 bet on them would win $175 (or return $275 including the original bet).

These odds work proportionally, so you don’t need to bet that exact amount. Instead of betting $100 on Atlanta to win $175, for example, you can bet $1 to win $1.75 or $1,000 to win $1,750.

Spread

Against the spread (ATS) bets are the most common form of basketball betting. These are bets on a certain team to win after a handicap is applied to their point total.

Sportsbooks will determine the amount by which the better team is favored, and you can then bet on that team to win either by more than that many points or fewer than that many (including to lose).

PointsBet favored the Mercury by 4.5 points in the Sept. 8 game, meaning Phoenix would have to win by five or more for that bet to win. An ATS bet on the Dream would win if Atlanta wins or if Atlanta loses by four or fewer points.

Put another way, if you subtract 4.5 points from Phoenix’s score (or add it to Atlanta’s) at the end of the game, then who won? That’s why that number — known as the spread or the line — is given a minus sign for the favorite and a plus sign for the underdog.

Sportsbooks generally try to set these lines at a mark where they believe each side has a 50 percent chance of winning, so unlike with moneylines, the odds are typically the same for both sides. Some sportsbooks deviate slightly from this norm, but the standard is -110. That number works the same way as the moneyline odds: Bet $110 to win $100.

Total

The third common type of basketball bet is a totals (or over/under) bet. This is a bet on the total number of points scored between the two teams, so if you want to bet on buckets or bricks, this is where you’ll make your hay.

In our game, if the teams combine for 155 or more points, the over wins. If not, the under cashes out. The odds work the same way as before and, like with spreads, they are usually around -110 on each side.

The other important thing to know when it comes to totals and spread bets is what a “push” is. You’ll notice that in the Mercury versus Fever game, the spread and the over/under are each set at a half-point mark, so it would be impossible to hit the exact line. But that’s not always the case.

Sometimes those lines are set at whole numbers. Let’s say the spread was instead Phoenix -5. If the Mercury won by exactly five, that would be a push, which means you would get your money back but wouldn’t win anything extra. Whole number totals work the same way.

img
Phoenix Mercury center Brittney Griner (Rich von Biberstein/Getty Images)

Why bet on the WNBA?

Betting isn’t for everyone. It’s a personal financial decision that you should never feel pressured into trying.

If you approach it responsibly, however, there are pros to betting on the WNBA that can outweigh the cons (even beyond the obvious opportunity to grow your bank account).

Growing the game

Pretty much everything you do to get involved with the WNBA will help the league grow, from attending games or buying gear to interacting with WNBA-related social media posts.

Betting is just another one on that long list. Sports betting in general is already a booming industry, and it continues to grow rapidly as more and more states legalize it. The higher the share of the money and the wagers that get placed on women’s sports, the more they’ll become part of that equation.

Even if you don’t want to risk your own money, which is certainly understandable, engaging in discussions about the betting markets can still have an impact. Plenty of people make their “against their spread” picks online but don’t actually put money on the pick.

However you wish to participate in the league, participate in the league. It will only move things forward.

Taking advantage of the sportsbooks

Sportsbooks make money when they are smarter than you (read: when they pay more attention than you do). Sports like the NFL or the NBA see such unfathomable sums of money wagered that the books have to devote as many resources as possible to making sure their lines are as accurate as possible. If they aren’t, the books stand to lose millions, if not billions.

That isn’t true to nearly the same extent in the WNBA. As a result, sportsbooks often neglect the league to the point where their lines and odds are inefficient and exploitable.

For instance, the Lynx entered the season on most books with the eighth-best odds to win the championship. For a top-four team a year ago that returned nearly everyone and added multiple key free agents, it didn’t make a whole lot of sense.

A more relevant example for those who are planning on betting on single games using the three options listed above is injury updates. In the NBA or the NFL, if a key player’s status changes, the lines and odds on their game change almost instantaneously. A team who is favored by 13 and then has its star player ruled out will be favored by 10 or 11 before you have time to bet on the spread of 13.

In the WNBA, it can take hours for sportsbooks to account for injury updates. Players as impactful as Sylvia Fowles, Brittney Griner, and Candace Parker have all had updates to their status at some point this year without the spread of their game changing for a good chunk of the day. This leaves you with a window to bet on their team if they are declared healthy or to bet on their opponent if they are ruled out.

This opportunity, while profitable, ideally isn’t around for too many more years. If sportsbooks pay more attention to the WNBA and we lose out on chances to make money, that’s a substantial net positive. But as long as those advantages linger, we might as well cash in on them.

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

After a wild final Sunday of the regular season, the WNBA playoffs are officially set.

The New York Liberty are the last team in, courtesy of the Dallas Wings defeating the Los Angeles Sparks. The Wings secured the seventh seed with their win, the Chicago Sky finished in sixth and the Phoenix Mercury held onto the fifth seed. The Minnesota Lynx overtook the Seattle Storm over the weekend, leaving the Storm with the fourth seed, the Lynx with the third and the Aces second.

At the top of the standings, the Connecticut Sun are riding their 14-game win streak into the playoffs with the No. 1 overall seed and a double-round bye along with Las Vegas.

The first round, one of two single-elimination series, will tip off this Thursday on ESPN2.

  • No. 7 Dallas Wings at No. 6 Chicago Sky, 8 p.m. 
  • No. 8 New York Liberty at No. 5 Phoenix Mercury, 10 p.m. 

Meanwhile, Minnesota and Seattle await their opponents in the second round, taking place Sunday with time and network to be announced at a later date. The Lynx, as the No. 3 seed, will play the lower remaining seed.

  • No. 3 Minnesota Lynx vs. TBD
  • No. 4 Seattle Storm vs. TBD

The Sun and Aces await the final two teams to survive the knockout rounds in the semifinals. Games 1 and 2 of the best-of-five series will be broadcast on ESPN2.

Game 1, Tuesday, Sept. 28

  • No. 1 Connecticut Sun vs. TBD, 8 p.m. 
  • No. 2 Las Vegas Aces vs. TBD, 10 p.m. 

Game 2, Thursday, Sept. 30

  • No. 1 Connecticut Sun vs. TBD, 8 p.m. 
  • No. 2 Las Vegas Aces vs. TBD, 10 p.m. 

Game 3, Sunday Oct. 3

  • No. 1 Connecticut Sun at TBD, TBD
  • No. 2 Las Vegas Aces at TBD, TBD

Game 4*, Wednesday, Oct. 6

  • No. 1 Connecticut Sun at TBD, TBD
  • No. 2 Las Vegas Aces at TBD, TBD

Game 5*, Friday, Oct. 8

  • No. 1 Connecticut Sun at TBD, TBD
  • No. 2 Las Vegas Aces at TBD, TBD

The WNBA Finals will take place the week of Oct. 10, with the first game broadcast on ABC at 3 p.m. ET. 

  • Game 1, Sunday, Oct. 10 @ 3 p.m. on ABC
  • Game 2, Wednesday, Oct. 13 @ 9 p.m. on ESPN
  • Game 3, Friday, Oct. 15 @ 9 p.m. on ESPN2
  • Game 4*, Sunday, Oct. 17 @ 3 p.m. on ESPN
  • Game 5*, Tuesday, Oct. 19 @ 9 p.m. on ESPN2

*Games 4 and 5, if needed

**All game times ET

The New York Liberty sneaked into the playoffs on the final day of the WNBA regular season thanks to two results going their way.

After the Liberty snapped their eight-game skid and beat the Washington Mystics on Friday night, they needed both the Mystics and Sparks to lose on Sunday to earn the eighth seed in the playoffs based on the head-to-head advantage. The Lynx took care of business against the Mystics and the Wings downed the Sparks, sending the Liberty to the playoffs for the first time since 2017.

Many of the Liberty players were watching the action closely, according to their social media accounts, and celebrated accordingly.

Jazmine Jones was quick to thank Wings guards Marina Mabrey and Arike Ogunbowale on Twitter. Ogunbowale led Dallas with 20 points, while Mabrey had 16 points and five assists in the win.

New York’s Jones, Reshanda Gray, Michaela Onyenwere and DiDi Richards celebrated over Instagram Live.

The entire Liberty team appeared to be locked in to see what their fate would be on Sunday.

Sabrina Ionescu posted in celebration, with the caption: “Playoffs bound, locked in…”

Onyenwere then summed it all up in two words.