Locked On Women’s Basketball: Sonia Raman talks about her winding road to the WNBA

Having previously played at Tufts University, before coaching at MIT and with the Memphis Grizzlies, Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello added Raman to her staff for the 2025 season. Raman and Megdal discuss the ways basketball and analytics have evolved together, while allowing Raman’s unconventional background — law degree included — to foster her growth and influence in the sport.

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First, Raman explained how a broken leg her junior year of college helped put her on the path to coaching.

“I was actually out for midway through my junior year, through midway through my senior year,” she said. “I was a walk on. I wasn’t playing a lot. My role was much more off the bench. But once you’re injured, there’s no chance that you’re playing so that just changes someone’s entire focus. And for me, it really started to shift my focus to my teammates, to my coaches, observing what they were doing, finding any way could to just help the team. And I think that’s what led me to become a better leader. Became a captain of the team my senior year, even while I was sidelined.”

Later, Raman talked about working for the Memphis Grizzlies and having access to tons of analytics about the game.

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“It was just full on, like basketball paradise for a nerd like me,” Raman said. “[Former Grizzlies head coach] Taylor Jenkins gave me a lot of opportunities to just come up with a question or a hypothesis and then run with it, and do a project on it, or work with our analytics department to learn more about it. So that was a dream. I loved having that type of access. I for sure wish I had more of that when I was at MIT. But we did have a little bit by the end, we had synergy, and I think that was a part of helping us to keep improving.”

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