The Las Vegas Aces had a lot to say during their 2023 WNBA championship parade, with much of it directed at the New York Liberty.

There was a lot of talking about going for a three-peat, with WNBA Finals MVP A’ja Wilson noting that the Aces are “going to do this s–t again.” The Aces were the first team in 21 years to win back-to-back titles, beating the Liberty in four games.

“We’re going to keep coming back, and everybody hates it,” Kelsey Plum told the crowd at Monday’s parade.

Yet the Aces’ Game 3 loss to the Liberty — their only loss throughout the 2023 playoffs — still sticks out as a source of frustration. In particular, Sabrina Ionescu’s “night night” celebration after hitting a key 3-pointer remains a point of contention. Sydney Colson mimicked the gesture after the Aces’ series-clinching win over the Liberty, and it came up again during the parade.

“They messed up when they went ‘night night,’” Chelsea Gray said. “And Sydney said I’m sitting on that Sabrina!”

Meanwhile, head coach Becky Hammon called out Liberty star Breanna Stewart’s Game 4 stat line, which included her going 3-for-17 from the field while being guarded by Alysha Clark.

“Alysha Clark was my rookie in San Antonio,” Hammon said, to which Clark replied: “Talk about it.”

“3-for-17 is you need to talk about it,” Hammon responded.

Wilson, meanwhile, was focused on her MVP snub, opting to wear a shirt that had the voting numbers on the back. She finished third for the regular-season award behind Stewart and Connecticut Sun star Alyssa Thomas. Wilson also called out the person that voted for her in fourth place, noting that she was going to use it as fuel for next season.

And at the end of the night, the Aces couldn’t resist getting in one more “night night.”

U.S. women’s national team stars Christen Press and Tobin Heath discussed teammate Megan Rapinoe’s announcement of her impending retirement at the 2023 ESPYs red carpet.

Press and Heath both played for the USWNT at the 2019 World Cup but are dealing with injuries that kept them off the roster for the upcoming tournament in Australia and New Zealand. The pair attended the ESPYs alongside other USWNT players, past and present, to accept the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage, which the team received in recognition of its fight for pay equity.

“To my teammates about to kick off the 2023 World Cup: LFG,” Press said at the conclusion of her acceptance speech.

Press and Heath walked the red carpet together for the second year in a row. Press wore a dress by Alexandre Vauthier, while Heath paired her Oofos slides with white socks.

Before the awards ceremony, they stopped to talk with Entertainment Tonight about Rapinoe, who announced earlier this month that she will retire from soccer at the end of the 2023 NWSL season. The 38-year-old forward played alongside Press and Heath at the 2019 World Cup, and she is preparing to play in her fourth and final World Cup tournament.

“She has led us on and off the field for decades,” Press said. “She is someone that we have both played really closely with, that we both looked up to, that we’ve both learned from, and we will continue to do so, because the beauty of Megan Rapinoe is what she does on the field is only a fraction of who she is and what she stood for, and what she stood against.

“I’m very confident that she will continue to lead us into the next chapters of her life.”

Heath agreed with Press, adding: “Amen. I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

Alyssa Thompson’s face contorted in disgust during Angel City FC’s 0-0 draw Sunday with the Houston Dash. The culprit? HotShot, the spicy cramp prevention concoction wreaking havoc on NWSL taste buds.

The 18-year-old rookie was stretching out her right leg with help from an Angel City trainer late in the match. The trainer handed her a HotShot, which Thompson drank and then immediately regretted.

Billed as “muscle cramp supplement,” HotShot’s ingredients includes sugar and lime juice concentrate but also ginger extract, pepper abstract, sea salt and cassia oil. How does it work? The spicy shot of liquid stimulates the nerves in the athlete’s mouth, which then tricks the nerves in the rest of the body (including those causing the cramps) into stopping their signals.

Kansas City Current rookie Michelle Cooper, who tweeted the video of Thompson’s reaction, received her own unpleasant introduction to HotShot in her team’s 2-1 win Saturday against the Orlando Pride.

“I was just texting Alyssa before the game telling her how shocking that HotShot was. NOW SHE KNOWS!!” Cooper tweeted Sunday.

Thompson confirmed the text exchange between the rookies, though it did not prepare her.

“I texted her and I was like, ‘Oh, I’ve never had one of those, thank god. I won’t have one,’” Thompson told Equalizer’s Taylor Vincent after the match. “And then I just cramped up and my trainer was like, ‘You want it?’ And I was like, ‘No.’ And (then they told me), ‘You need to have it.’ So then I had it and it was really gross and I did not like it at all.”

Cooper agreed with Thompson’s assessment, tweeting of her own HotShot: “I don’t know if you guys have ever had one of those….but NEVER again.”

Sophia Smith has a U.S. women’s national team legend cheering her on as she heads to her first World Cup.

The present and future of the squad, Smith is just 22 years old. But you wouldn’t know it by the way she plays. And she will enter the tournament, which kicks off on July 20 in Australia and New Zealand, with high expectations.

The reigning NWSL MVP is the first woman born in the 2000s to earn a cap for the national team — and the first born after the USWNT’s historic 1999 World Cup win.

On Wednesday, the Portland Thorns posted a photo of a younger Smith posing with USWNT all-time leading scorer Abby Wambach alongside Smith’s official USWNT roster photo.

“Did we make it? Yes we did,” the Thorns wrote in the caption.

Smith and her family no longer recall the exact circumstances behind the childhood photo, they told Just Women’s Sports reporter Eden Laase. They think it may have been at a Colorado Rapids game where members of the USWNT made an appearance. But what matters is that Smith saw Wambach and insisted on waiting in line for a photo, no matter how long it took.

“She was going to stay there until she met her,” her mother Mollie Smith said.

The photo has circulated on social media several times in the last few years. Smith posted it after her first appearance for the USWNT in 2020, acknowledging Wambach as “a big reason this moment happened for me.”

“You inspired me to follow my dreams,” Smith told Wambach at the time.

Three years later, those dreams have led Smith to the World Cup. And as one of the team’s leading scorers, they could one day see her join Wambach among the USWNT’s all-time leaders.

Wambach responded to the Thorns’ tweet Thursday, encouraging Smith: “Go on and bring that World Cup home!!!”

Before Wambach retired in 2015, she played in four World Cups with the USWNT. She secured her first title in her final tournament in 2015.

U.S. women’s national team stars foil various countries’ attempts to stop them from winning in Fox’s first commercial for the 2023 World Cup, released Friday.

Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan, Crystal Dunn, Rose Lavelle and Naomi Girma feature in the ad, titled “USA vs. The World,” which asks: What will it take to stop the USWNT from winning a third consecutive World Cup title?

English fans ponder which of the USWNT’s stars the Lionesses should mark: Morgan? Lavelle? Rapinoe? Trinity Rodman?

Brazilian fans wonder if an infusion of young talent could be the key, before noting that the USWNT has its own youth movement (see: Girma, Sophia Smith, Alyssa Thompson). France takes the opposite tack in the ad, touting its veteran experience, earning a retort from USWNT great (and Fox analyst) Carli Lloyd: “Listen to what you’re saying!”

And on the commercial goes, from Australian flight attendants trying to stop the USWNT from even reaching the tournament to opposing fans traveling back in time to prevent Rapinoe from ever playing soccer. The bottom line: The entire world is doing whatever it takes to stop the U.S. from taking the title.

Alex Morgan’s response? “Good luck with that.”

The commercial will make its broadcast debut Saturday during Fox’s coverage of the Belmont Stakes, but you can check out the video below. Fox’s World Cup coverage kicks off with the tournament openers on July 20.

Brittney Griner basked in the moment at the 2023 Met Gala in New York City just months after her release from her imprisonment in Russia.

The Phoenix Mercury center attended the annual fashion event with her wife Cherelle. She returned to the United States last December after spending almost 300 days detained in Russia.

“This time last year, I was missing my wife, so to have her right here, to be in this moment — breathtaking,” Cherelle Griner told La La Anthony on the red carpet live stream.

Brittney Griner added that it’s “everything” to be able to attend the Met Gala.

“It’s everything just to be here with my wife and just able to be here,” she said. “It means so much. Get to see this event a lot and actually live it. It’s amazing.”

The WNBA star dressed in a beige suit, while Cherelle wore a white strapless gown. Both ensembles were custom Calvin Klein.

“It is dripping off of us right now,” Brittney said.

Serena Williams stole the show Monday night at the Met Gala, as the tennis star announced that she is pregnant with her second child.

She and husband Alexis Ohanian are already parents to 5-year-old daughter Olympia.

Williams announced the news on Instagram ahead of the red carpet for the annual fashion event. She shared a photo carousel in which she is featured in one picture holding her baby bump. The post was captioned: “Was so excited when Anna Wintour invited the 3 of us to the Met Gala.”

The news comes after Williams announced her “evolution” away from tennis in Vogue last August. In that first-person essay, she also shared hopes of expanding their family with another baby.

She “never thought about having kids” early on in her career, she wrote in Vogue. And while she says she figured that she would “have people taking care of it 24/7” if she ever did have a baby, she’s been “an incredibly hands-on mother” with Olympia.

“In five years, Olympia has only spent one 24-hour period away from me,” she wrote. “This past year, while I was recovering from a hamstring injury, I got to pick her up from school four or five days a week, and I always looked forward to seeing her face light up when she walked out of the building and saw me waiting there for her. The fact is that nothing is a sacrifice for me when it comes to Olympia.”

Williams has also been vocal about her experience of giving birth to Olympia in 2017, as she dealt with life-threatening blood clots following an emergency cesarean section.

“It gives me a lot of reason beyond what I do, and so, it’s really important,” she told People in January 2021 of her husband and daughter. “I’ve been so focused on my career my whole life, but when I had a family and got married, I realized that there’s so much more to life. And that was great.”

Also in attendance were Eileen Gu and Brittney Griner. It was Griner’s first Met Gala, while Gu was making her second-straight appearance.

The NWSL made one glaring omission from its Player of the Week poll, if you ask Portland Thorns forward Sophia Smith.

For the fifth matchweek, the league’s official Twitter account highlighted Orlando Pride forward Adriana, Kansas City Current forward Debinha, Chicago Red Stars defender Tatumn Milazzo and OL Reign goalkeeper Phallon Tullis-Joyce in its poll on Monday.

Not included? Thorns goalkeeper Bella Bixby, despite her backheel equalizer in stoppage time to steal a standings point for her team. With her goal, Saturday’s match against Angel City FC ended in a 3-3 tie.

“So a goalkeeper scores a back heel and we are just gonna act like that’s a normal occurrence?” Smith tweeted in response to the poll, calling out Bixby’s absence from Player of the Week consideration.

Portland defender Kelli Hubly also joined in, replying to Smith: “You don’t see Bella do this weekly??”

 

Bixby became just the second goalkeeper in NWSL history to get on the scoreboard. She’s still soaking in her accomplishment, as she noted in several tweets of her own on Sunday — one humorous, one poignant.

“I still can’t believe it, but it’s like a once-in-a-lifetime thing. I gotta really absorb it,” Bixby said during her celebratory postgame lap at Portland’s Providence Park.

The wins keep coming for LSU women’s basketball.

With the Tigers’ national championship win over Iowa, they also secured a win for Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, who had made a good-natured bet with Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds before the game.

Because LSU came out on top, Reynolds is making good on the bet, sending a dozen pork chops to Edwards and 1,250 pounds of pork to Louisiana food banks.

If the Tigers had lost, Edwards had put Louisiana boudin on the line. A state speciality, boudin is made from a blend of pork, onions, peppers, seasoning and cooked rice.

After LSU claimed its first national title in program history, with star Angel Reese leading the charge for the Tigers against Caitlin Clark and the Hawkeyes, Edwards tweeted: “Can’t wait for Louisiana red beans and rice with fried Iowa pork chops! Geaux Lady Tigers!”

Flau’jae Johnson is rocking on the court and off.

The freshman LSU guard helped the Tigers to their first national title earlier this month. She also is a talented rapper who has appeared twice on “America’s Got Talent.” And after LSU’s national championship run, she’s getting attention for all of her talents.

Lil Wayne wants to work with the rapper on an upcoming track, he said on “The Bird and Taurasi Show” during the Final Four.

And he’s not the only one. On Monday, three-time Grammy winner Wyclef Jean tweeted a video of Johnson rapping and indicated that he wants to work with Johnson as well.

“Ready or not here she comes from the national championship to the big stage,” he wrote. “Big up Flau’jae let me know when you ready to lock in! Lets go!”

DJ Khaled also wants to work with the rising star. Johnson posted a photo of herself on Instagram with Khaled last week, saying in the caption that a collaboration is “coming soon.”

She expressed her excitement at the opportunities to work with these artists again Monday, writing: “Lil Wayne, Dj Khaled, Wyclef Jean wanna work w me ??!! Like these are LEGENDS this is not light !!!”