June 20, 2025
Locked On Women’s Basketball: WNBA officiating
Also, conversation about the Liberty
On the latest Locked on Women’s Basketball, host Jackie Powell discusses officiating in the WNBA. First, she explains the reasons for the latest complaints in officiating after there was a scuffle that broke out between Caitlin Clark’s Indiana Fever and Jacy Sheldon’s Connecticut Sun earlier this week.
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She began by analyzing Liberty coach Sandy Brondello’s comments.
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Howard Megdal’s newest book is here! “Becoming Caitlin Clark: The Unknown Origin Story of a Modern Basketball Superstar” captures both the historic nature of Clark’s rise and the critical context over the previous century that helped make it possible, including interviews with Clark, Lisa Bluder (who also wrote the foreword), C. Vivian Stringer, Jan Jensen, Molly Kazmer and many others.
“So she was talking about the fact that officials that are in the WNBA often get promoted to the NBA, and these are also officials that are maybe not paid a full salary when working for the WNBA,” Powell said. “And as a result, like many others working in this space, you have to take on other jobs if that means officiating the college game. And as Brondello said, that can be apples and oranges at times, and that leads to some of these inconsistencies in calls.”
Later she is joined by Lucas Kaplan, a New York-based basketball reporter who covers both the Liberty in the WNBA and the Nets in the NBA at NetDaily. The two examine how there are different types of narratives that surround WNBA players and officiating compared to their counterparts in the NBA.
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“Things happen in both leagues, players go over the line. But in the NBA, I think you hear more of this reflected on the players themselves,” Kaplan said. “Whereas, even if there’s an officiating mistake or something people don’t agree with, whether a call or a punishment like a fine or flagrant or whatever, it’s not a referendum on what the league is doing to protect the players, whereas in the W I’ve often found that that is the case.”
Make sure to subscribe to the Locked On Women’s Basketball podcast to keep learning about women’s college basketball, the WNBA, basketball history and much more! Also, be sure to check out our latest podcast on the Indiana Fever.
