On the latest episode of The IX Sports Podcast, Jackie Powell and Howard Megdal recap conversations with Minnesota natives Paige Bueckers and Rachel Banham about ICE’s presence in the state. They also talk with Lexie Brown about the upcoming Athletics Unlimited season and make predictions for Unrivaled’s Friday night games.
To start, Powell and Medgal feature a conversation with Bueckers about current affairs in Minnesota. “It hits a little bit home for me, because I’m from there,” Bueckers said. “Innocent lives are being taken. Innocent families are being broken apart. People are afraid to send their children to school. … It’s unfortunate, [I] pray a lot over the situation.”
Later on, Powell and Megdal focus in on Brown, who discusses what’s changed after the first season of AU basketball. “Right now we have our first ever mini camp,” Brown says. “We played a little bit of pickup one of the nights … that was a huge thing that we had from last season, that people did not think that they were ready to just immediately get into games.”
Brown also nodded to the branding changes at AU that have excited participants. “Another really big thing that we changed this season was our uniforms, and now we have team names, which we are all very excited about,” she said.
Powell and Megdal close the show by discussing their predictions for Friday night’s Unrivaled games in Philadelphia. “I’m going to be incredibly curious to see if there is any sort of continuation of what Breanna Stewart started on Sunday when she held her very big and bold ‘Abolish ICE’ sign.
“Who is going to be taking this mantle of advocacy and organizing when it comes to this league?” Powell asks. “That’s what I’m looking forward to seeing.”
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