In the latest episode of Locked On Women’s Basketball, Hunter Cruse, Emily Adler and Lincoln Shafer discuss Lynne Roberts leaving Utah to coach the Los Angeles Sparks and lots of other news across women’s basketball.
Roberts had been the head coach at Utah since 2015 and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament in each of the past three seasons. She was named Pac-12 Coach of the Year in 2022-23. Adler talks about what the Sparks are getting in Roberts:
“By all intents and purposes, she appears to be a good head coach. … They were the two most famous missed free throws since the, I think, 2007 national championship away from probably, possibly winning a [national title in 2023]. … They would have beaten the eventual champs [LSU] and would have needed just [three] more wins. … She seems to be quite good with getting buy-in. She seems to be good with player development.”
Other topics that Cruse, Adler and Shafer cover in this episode include:
- The challenges of playing road games in college basketball
- The play of first-year guards Liv McGill at Florida and Kiyomi McMiller at Rutgers
- What happened in Utah-Northwestern
- How much Roberts and new Atlanta Dream head coach Karl Smesko will have to change the offensive systems that worked for their college programs at the WNBA level
- The efficiency of Kansas State star Ayoka Lee
- Games to watch this weekend
- Why the radio calls for college basketball games are underrated
Make sure to subscribe to the Locked On Women’s Basketball podcast to keep learning about the WNBA, women’s college basketball, basketball history and much more!