Scenes from BIG EAST Media Day — Terri Jackson talks WNBA CBA negotiations
The IX: Basketball Wednesday with Howard Megdal, Oct. 23, 2024
NEW YORK — Welcome to Basketball Wednesday, powered by The BIG EAST Conference. As those of you who have been with us for a long time know, there is no women’s basketball offseason. So on Wednesday at Madison Square Garden, those of us who cover it all, tired souls dragging beaten up suitcases, headed into conversations with the programs across a conference featuring plenty of stories to come, just a short subway ride from where the WNBA championship had been settled less than 72 hours earlier, and blocks from the headquarters of the WNBPA, which opted out of its collective bargaining agreement with the WNBA on Monday.
Continue reading with a subscription to The IX
Get unlimited access to our exclusive coverage of a varitety of women’s sports, including our premium newsletter by subscribing today!
Already a member?
Login
Basketball Wednesday
“What a year it has been for women’s basketball,” Val Ackerman, BIG EAST Conference commissioner and first WNBA president, said in remarks to the assembled group at The Garden. (The BIG EAST is a presenting sponsor of Basketball Wednesday, but my admiration of Val’s work predates this business relationship by several decades.) “I think anybody paying attention will tell you the sport has turned a corner, thanks to some recent ignition, but also, let’s be sure, and give credit where credit is due, by those who laid the groundwork, players and coaches, executives, networks, sponsors, the NBA, WNBA, USA Basketball and so many other people and organizations, including people in the audience at MSG today.”
It was hard not to think of this as another in a series of valedictory moments for Ackerman, whose vision helped create the WNBA, who has led the BIG EAST as a place of true equity, and has continued to make sure that as she grows the conference, a basketball-led space, women’s basketball is every bit a focus of that growth as the men’s side.
As usual, the crowd was largest around the UConn table — Geno Auriemma has more healthy bodies than the past few seasons, the preseason freshman of the year in Sarah Strong, Azzi Fudd gaining strength by the day and the 2025 WNBA number one pick unless the earth crashes into the sun in Paige Bueckers — but also as usual, there is talent for days across this conference and wonderful conversations to be had. Go to South Orange and you can see Tony Bozzella, already 500+ wins into his coaching career, meld the coach-on-the-floor presence of Faith Masonius (back in New Jersey) with young talent like sophomore transfer Nicole Melious and freshman point guard Jada Eads, who Bozzella says will be “the next in the line of great Seton Hall point guards”.
Hearing from Erin Batth, whose Providence Friars outperformed anyone’s expectations in Year 1 of her tenure and are picked third in Year 2, always makes anyone listening want to run through a wall for her. And in typical fashion, she was real on everything from the ways she needs her team to improve. Turnovers are a critical part of the equation, with Batth saying “we turned the ball over so much last year, it would be enough for three years” — along with second-chance points and fewer fouls while defending —to the pressure that comes with those increased expectations.
“We need to beat the teams we’re supposed to beat,” Batth said. “…I think we should beat everybody, but I’m also a real person.”
The IX Newsletter: Six different women’s sports in your inbox every week!
Subscribe now and join us, just $6 a month or $60 a year. It’s the women’s sports media network we all wished for, and now it’s here!
There are simply so many great stories in the BIG EAST, along with conferences across America, and this is why there’s no particular danger of women’s basketball’s growth slowing, let alone stopping. That there is no offseason may be draining on the bodies and minds of people like me, but it ensures that the progress never stops, either.
This is so frequently illustrated in dollars and cents, and rightly so — we’ll continue to do that here, too. But why does it matter so much? Because 18,000+ people I saw in Minneapolis are already plotting how to return to Target Center next year and support their Lynx. Because the 18,000+ people I saw, arms around one another, singing “New York, New York” and crying tears of joy, get to attend a parade tomorrow that teaches everyone present how to properly elevate and celebrate women of accomplishment.
Because people like Darnell Haney, the Georgetown coach hired full-time after a breakthrough season in 2023-24 under the most trying psychological consequences, gets to keep on working with young women to make them better players, and happier people, through the game of basketball.
The BIG EAST’s reigning Defensive Player of the Year, Kelsey Ransom, has returned to the Hoyas. She has big plans — WNBA dreams — and knows more work is required of her to get there. She knows Haney will be straight with her about all of it. And he’s already thinking about how to best position her to do it all. She trusts him because he believed in them all last year, and led them to a BIG EAST title game and postseason berth.
“The look on our young women’s faces, when what I told them at the beginning of the season, came to fruition,” Haney remembered, growing emotional as he recalled it. “That they were enough. Right? They were… it’s almost like, I told you so. Now I showed you so. For them to get through the adversity they had been through… it was tremendous for them.”
They were enough. That’s why this all matters. In ways that will never be fully illustrated by the tremendous economic growth of women’s basketball, that’s why we all care so much. And that perpetual motion cannot and will not stop.
Stathead Stat of the Week
Breanna Stewart had 54 rebounds in the five games of the WNBA Finals. Only two players have had more in a WNBA Finals.
Stathead is your all-access pass to the Basketball and College Basketball Reference databases. Our discovery tools are built for women’s basketball fans like you. Answer your questions in a matter of seconds.
This week in women’s basketball
Noa Dalzell goes where the less-obvious story is, and speaks to Alissa Pili.
There’s always a Philly angle.
Jackie Powell on why this title mattered so much to the Liberty is worth your time.
So is Terry Horstman on this incredible Lynx team, which came so close to winning it all.
Order “Rare Gems” and save 30%
Howard Megdal, founder and editor of The Next and The IX, has written a new book! This deeply reported story follows four connected generations of women’s basketball pioneers, from Elvera “Peps” Neuman to Cheryl Reeve and from Lindsay Whalen to Sylvia Fowles and Paige Bueckers.
If you enjoy his coverage of women’s basketball every Wednesday, you will love “Rare Gems: How Four Generations of Women Paved the Way for the WNBA.” Click the link below and enter MEGDAL30 at checkout.
Five at The IX: Terri Jackson, WNBPA Executive Director
| Mondays: Soccer |
| By: Annie Peterson, @AnnieMPeterson, AP Women’s Soccer |
| Tuesdays: Tennis |
| By: Joey Dillon, @JoeyDillon, Freelance Tennis Writer |
| Wednesdays: Basketball |
| By: Howard Megdal, @HowardMegdal, The Next |
| Thursdays: Golf |
| By: Marin Dremock, @MDremock, The IX |
| Fridays: Hockey |
| By: @TheIceGarden, The Ice Garden |
| Saturdays: Gymnastics |
| By: Lela Moore, @runlelarun, Freelance Writer |
Written by Howard Megdal
Howard is the founder of The Next and editor-in-chief.
