😳 Layup Lines: Early ref issues

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Happy Tuesday and welcome back to Layup Lines, your quick recap of what’s going on in the WNBA. Here’s hoping you had a truly excellent long weekend!

• I’ll see you back in your inbox on Friday morning.

This 498 word newsletter should take less than 2 minutes to read.

😬 Brutal Monday night basketball

• One of my preseason predictions was that we were going to see some bad basketball in the month of May. It was a short offseason and a significant percentage of veteran players changed teams. But I still might have underestimated the impact that the league’s tighter new officiating was going to have.

  • Last night was a good window into how hard it is to consume games right now. The Fire pulled off an impressive road win over the Liberty, 81-74, and yet long stretches of the game were unwatchable. There were 44 fouls called and Breanna Stewart scored 25 points on just four made field goals because she shot 17 free throws. Seventeen free throws!

  • In the later game, the Valkyries ripped through the Sun, 97-70, in a game with 51 fouls called.

• According to Stat Muse, Connecticut led the league in fouls called last year with 19.6 per game. This year? Just two total teams are averaging under 19 foul called on them per game so far.

  • This is completely intentional, as the league is trying to make future games less physical by calling more fouls at the start of the season. The strategy could pay off down the line, but it is not working well right now.

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Graphic of the day

• We’re in the third week of the season so these stats will change dramatically by the fall, but it still gives a nice view at where teams are at so far.

📆 What’s on this week

• The league is off tonight, but we bounce back with 11 games between Wednesday and Friday. It’s shaping up to be a nice little end of the week.

  • New York has to play again tomorow night for the third time in four days, but Phoenix should be the perfect opponent to break a 3-game losing streak (7pm ET, USA Network). The later game on the same network (Atlanta @ Minnesota, 9pm) could also be fun.

  • Thursday night’s doubleheader on Prime Video should be awesome, as we start with Las Vegas @ Dallas (8pm) and finish with Indiana @ Golden State (10pm). Four fun teams and I’m excited to see if Azzi Fudd keeps up the momentum after scoring a career-high 24 points on Sunday.

    • *In terms of bets, I like the Aces (-1.5) and the Valks (+1.5) on Thursday night.

*I am 4-1 on bets I like this season.

🧙‍♀️ Insane pass to go

Layup Lines is written 100% by a human being. I very much appreciate you reading!

— Everett Cook, Founder & Editor