Those are the only new player announcements that would make me really excited. I have some ideas for DP players too. I will share those later!
“… But in a league with a more heteronormative past than its current reputation might suggest, Williams and Hiedeman represent a new era of inclusion and authenticity — one they have helped build, one livestream at a time.
…
Once they got to Minneapolis, Hiedeman and Williams became best friends. It was there that the idea for the StudBudz was born — a way to feed a growing WNBA audience who was hungry for an uproarious, behind-the-scenes look at life in the league. While Williams came up with the idea to livestream, Hiedeman gets the credit for the StudBudz nickname, which centers the word “stud,” a term used to refer to Black masculine-of-center lesbians and sapphics of all genders.
They started streaming virtually “every day but game day,” Hiedeman tells me. They did live commentary for other teams’ games, they sang karaoke, they talked shit. Often. They streamed “everything and anything.” A subscriber goal led them to dye their hair pink — a decision that would come to define their aesthetic. “Courtney was like, if we get so many subscribers, I’ll dye my hair whatever color T’s hair is, and then it was pink and then that kind of just became our thing,” Hiedeman says.
But the lore goes deeper than that. Hiedeman’s hair had only been shaved and dyed pink because of the sort of chaos they routinely get into together, even offstream. “It was such a hard day at practice,” Hiedeman tells me of the day she went pink. “[Head coach] Cheryl [Reeve] was on our asses. It was like the point guards couldn’t do no right. I was gone. I didn’t even take no extra shot, nothing. I just left.” There was only one person to turn to. “I called [Courtney]. I had the clippers to my head.” And like any good friend, Williams was nothing but supportive.
Hiedeman ran the clippers. “It felt great. I felt like a new individual with a breath of fresh air. But then it was just dark and short, it just wasn’t giving, I don’t know,” she recounts. One thing led to another and the iconic pink hair came to be. Once Williams also dyed her hair pink, the look became synonymous with the StudBudz. Last year, the Minnesota Lynx gave away pink wigs to fans at their final regular season home game as an homage to the iconic duo.
“It flooded the whole arena,” Hiedeman remembers. “Yeah, that was cold.”
The moment felt like a kind of coronation. “We definitely cried. We just couldn’t believe it. We was like, bro, we really popping it,” Williams says. “We really finna do something.””
Full profile: https://www.them.us/story/studbudz-courtney-williams-natisha-hiedeman
Reserve your spot: https://www.unrivaled.basketball/coffee-club
Thoughts?!
h/t: unrivaledbasketball
Money Mabrey just did it again.
For the second time this season, she tied the WNBA single-game record with 9 threes. The first came June 19 at Connecticut, when she dropped a then-career-high 37 on 9-of-12 from deep. Tonight, she poured in 53 to bury the Los Angeles Sparks.
That 53 ties the all-time WNBA single-game scoring record, matching Liz Cambage (2018) and A’ja Wilson (2023). She got there on 17-of-28 shooting, 9-of-18 from three, and 10-of-12 at the line. Roughly 80% true shooting for the night.
Before this season, only Rhyne Howard had tied the nine-three record more than once. Mabrey is now the second player to do it.
The WNBA sub is insane today after the Fever/Mercury game, such dramatic and insufferable takes 🙄😂
Cant wait for Unrivaled’s next season already!
h/t: deadria101
Unrivaled is heading to Portland for Pride. They’re partnering with The Sports Bra, the first-ever sports bar dedicated to women’s sports, for its fifth-annual Pride Block Party.