Layup Lines: Bozo sighting

Happy Tuesday and welcome back to Layup Lines, your quick recap of what’s going on in the WNBA. I missed all of you yesterday and will do so again tomorrow, as the league has decided it makes sense to have a week with two days entirely off.

•  We went 1-2 on Sunday and did it the tough way, hitting on Golden State covering by a half point while missing the Phoenix / Los Angeles under by only one point. We also missed on the New York / Connecticut over, which turned out to be the second-largest margin of victory in WNBA history.

• To not just take the Liberty outright on Ellie the Elephant’s birthday is a huge oversight. I will learn from this.

This 494 word newsletter should take about 2 minutes to read.

Bets of the day

• We are 17-20 this season and have $831 remaining of our initial $1,000 to wager.

• There are three games today — Washington @ Indiana (7pm ET, NBA TV), Phoenix @ Minnesota (8pm, ESPN3) and Dallas @ Seattle (9:30pm, ESPN). Let’s hit ‘em all!

  • We’re going to keep riding Fever unders while Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham are out.

    • Bet: Indiana / Washington under 161.5 total points scored, $50 to win $44.

  • These two teams are both top 4 in defensive rating.

    • Bet: Phoenix / Minnesota under 159 total points scored, $50 to win $44.

  • Paige Bueckers is out and I’m out on the Wings.

    • Bet: Seattle -10.5, $50 to win $44.

Take of the day

• In the May 19 newsletter, I wrote that there’s no way all eight of the new head coaches in the league will be competent — and “once we sniff out the bozos, taking their opponents to win by more than 10 should be lucrative.” Apologies for the self quote, being rude and using the word lucrative, but after a few weeks, our first bozo is Dallas Wings coach Chris Koclanes.

• The career assistant and first-time head coach is not managing the strong personalities on the Wings and seems to be another poor decision by one of the worst-run franchises in professional sports. If the locker room has already quit on him, it’s going to be another long season in Dallas.

Card of the day

It was fun to watch Kate Martin have her best game of the season on Sunday, especially in front of a Valkyries crowd that became the first in WNBA history to have 18,000+ fans at each of their first three home games.

Thanks for reading Layup Lines. I’ve been at this for a few weeks now and would love your unvarnished, raw feedback on how to improve the newsletter. Just reply to this email!

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If you bet, please do so responsibly, and we will see you back here Thursday.

— Everett Cook, Founder & Editor