Saturday's WNBA Trends and Indexes - 7/28

[Udog]

Trends and Indexes

Saturday, July 28

Good Luck on day #209 of 2018!

NOTE: As information becomes available, we will attempt to post the trends and indexes as soon as possible.Information is posted from what we believe are reliable sources.Any opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the posting member or BettorsChat.


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[Udog]

Armadillo: Saturday's six-pack

Odds on first SEC football coach to be fired:

11-4— Ed Orgeron, LSU

5-2— Barry Odom, Missouri

5-1— Derek Mason, Vanderbilt

6-1— Matt Luke, Ole Miss

7-1— Mark Stoops, Kentucky

20-1— Gus Malzahn Auburn, Will Muschamp South Carolina

**********

Armadillo: Saturday's List of 13: Random stuff with weekend here……

13) Has to be brutal to be a manager/coach for a bad baseball team; you play 162 games in 182 days, and you lose the great majority of them. Not fun.

When you see the manager/pitching coach get tossed in the top of the first inning of a game, you know the frustration level has to be high. White Sox lost both last night, on a checked swing call.

Umpires who are respected don’t get barked at as much as other guys. The ump in this case, Fielden Culbreth gets barked at a lot.

12) When Mets’ TV analyst Keith Hernandez isn’t bored, he can be very good; Friday night he was complaining that in between at-bats, hitters go to clubhouse and look at their at-bats on video with the assistant hitting coach, before they bat again.

Hernandez is an old-school guy; he thinks players should watch the actual game, talk about the opposing pitcher with teammates, and leave film study for after the game.

11) Baseball stuff:
— Mets traded IF Asdrubel Cabrera to the Phillies for Franklyn Kilome, a pitcher who was 4-6, 4.24 in the AA Eastern League.
— Twins traded utility guy Eduardo Escobar to Arizona, for three Class A prospects. Escobar leads MLB with 37 doubles this season.
— Cardinals traded P Sam Tuivailala to the Mariners for P Seth Elledge.

10) Aaron Judge broke his wrist when he was hit by a pitch Thursday night; he is expected to be out at least three weeks.

9) Movie admissions: I’ve never seen Jaws or Star Wars; just saw The Godfather for the first time earlier this month.

On the bright side, I’ve seen Rounders and Moneyball at least 50 times each.

8) Mets’ OF Brandon Nimmo looks like he’ll be a good player, but it bugs me when he sprints to first base after a walk. False hustle stuff like that has always seemed like BS to me.

7) Lamar Odom says he is going to play pro ball in China next season; hopefully he has his life back in order after a tumultuous couple of years.

6) Tampa Bay (19-23) has played the most one-run games in the majors this season.

5) There are seven new head coaches in the NFL this year; Seattle/Carolina are only two teams who have the same head coach as last year, but changed both coordinators.

4) Chargers’ CB Jason Verrett tore his achilles, is out for the year.

3) New Mexico State basketball coach Chris Jans makes $429,000 a year; he also gets an extra $5,000 every time he beats New Mexico or UTEP. Aggies were 4-0 vs those teams LY, but last year the bonus was “only” $2,500, so he banked an extra $10,000 for those wins.

2) Nick Saban signed a new deal with Alabama that extends his contract by one year through 2025. His base salary in 2018 will increase to $7.5M plus a bonus of $800,000. The deal will increase $400,000 annually through 2025.

All he has to do to make people happy is win the national title every year.

1) Cole Hamels’ home/road splits this year:
Home: 1-7, 6.41 in 10 starts
Road: 4-2, 2.93 in 10 starts.

There is no DH in the National League; he threw a no-hitter at Wrigley Field in 2015, so the Cubs figure his numbers should improve.

[Udog]

Delle Donne and Parker choose AS teams


NEW YORK (AP) The draft is finished and the squads are set for Team Delle Donne and Team Parker in the WNBA All-Star Game.

The league switched its format this year with captains choosing the sides and getting rid of conference affiliations. Both Candace Parker and Elena Delle Donne kept their WNBA teammates close for the game that will be played in Minnesota on July 28.

Delle Donne said she took her Washington Mystics teammate Kristi Toliver first. Parker drafted Sparks teammates Chelsea Gray and Nneka Ogwumike. Ogwumike also will be able to play with sister Chiney for the first time in their pro careers as she's also on Team Parker.

''I'm thrilled to be able to play with my sister for the first time since Stanford,'' Chiney Ogwumike texted the AP.

The draft, which wasn't publicly revealed, was conducted earlier Thursday via a conference call between the two captains.

''It's been a lot of fun. I'm glad we only picked earlier this morning as I haven't had to keep the secret for too long,'' Delle Donne said. ''Candace and I were going back and forth on the phone. ... How can you go wrong when you have a group of All-Stars.''

Other members of Parker's team are guards Skylar Diggins-Smith, Jewell Loyd and Allie Quigley. In the frontcourt are Liz Cambage, Tina Charles, Angel McCoughtry and Maya Moore. Moore was supposed to be captain of this team as she was the top vote-getter, but declined.

Delle Donne's team includes Seimone Augustus, Sue Bird, Kayla McBride and Diana Taurasi. Bird is playing in her record 11th All-Star Game. In the frontcourt will be DeWanna Bonner, Sylvia Fowles, Brittney Griner, Breanna Stewart and A'ja Wilson.

Seven players who were on the 2016 Olympic team in Rio are on Delle Donne's team.

Here are a few other tidbits from the All-Star teams:

3-POINT SHOOTOUT: For the second consecutive year the WNBA, in partnership with the Women's National Basketball Players Association, will donate $10,000 to a charity of the winner of the 3-point contest. Allie Quigley won last year and she most likely will try and defend her title, although the league hasn't released the participants yet.

GOTTA BE THE SHOES: A few of the players have bonuses in their shoe contracts tied to starting the All-Star Game. In the past it would be decided by the fan vote, but this year with the new format, the team captains and coaches will decide who starts on July 27 - the day before the game. When the NBA changed its All-Star format this past season, the fans still chose the starting 10 players before they were drafted by the captains.

The WNBA didn't release who the top 10 vote-getters were.

LACK OF CONFERENCES: Team Delle Donne features nine players from the Western Conference and two from the Eastern Conference, with five guards and six frontcourt players. Team Parker features seven players from the West and three from the East, with four guards and seven frontcourt players.

[Udog]

Great talent, new format for WNBA ASG

There is no shortage of intrigue and excitement as the world's most talented women basketball players prepare to show off their wares under one roof on Saturday afternoon in Minneapolis.

There are All-Star games and then there are games with all stars. And this year's WNBA All-Star Game, which tips off at 3:30 p.m. EDT, offers both.

Last year in Seattle, the Western Conference defeated the Eastern Conference 130-121, with Maya Moore named the MVP.

But this year it's out with the old and in with the new. No more West vs. East. Twenty-two players were picked for two teams by two captains, just like when playing for playground supremacy.

Moore, a four-time WNBA champion who plays for Minnesota, and Washington's Elena Delle Donne were named team captains after receiving the highest vote totals from fans, media, other players and coaches.

Moore had to back out of her captaincy because of a previous commitment (she'll still be playing) and was replaced by another future Hall of Famer, Los Angeles' Candace Parker, who finished third in the voting.

So this year we have Team EDD vs. Team Parker, who shared their strategy when drafting their teams.

"I think it was kind of like a park atmosphere. For me, as with Elena, there's no bad pick. You're picking All-Stars here," Parker explained. "So forming a team was easy for me. Obviously, I wanted to make sure that I had my two teammates (Nneka Ogwumike and Chelsea Gray) on my side because I don't want to play against them."

Ogwumike won't play because of an illness/injury and was replaced by WNBA career rebound leader Rebekkah Brunson.

Team Parker features seven players from the West and four from the East, with four guards and seven frontcourt players.

"It's humbling that fans came out and voted and wanted me to be in that position (as captain)," Delle Donne said. "It was really fun. I had a good time with it. And now that we're all here hanging out, that's what this is all about."

Team EDD features nine players from the Western Conference and two from the Eastern Conference, with five guards and six frontcourt players.

Just sit back and enjoy watching Team EDD's backcourt of record-setting Sue Bird and nine-time All-Star Diana Taurasi.

"There's no fancy story about it," Bird said of being in her record 11th All-Star Game. "It's not some, in my mind, great accomplishment. ... I don't really necessarily think I'm doing anything special. In those moments of retrospect, I'm like OK -- I guess it is pretty unique and cool that I am the first to play in 11."

While the talent in the All-Star backcourts would rival almost any other game, the frontcourt poses problems for Team Parker coach Sandy Brondello and Team EDD coach Dan Hughes.

Watching Parker, Moore and New York's Tina Charles -- with 17 All-Star appearances among them -- work their magic together promises to be real treat.

Toss Dallas' Liz Cambage into the mix and Team Parker's frontcourt is pretty impressive, and that's without even mentioning Chiney Ogwumike and Angel McCoughtry.

"You look at our team and it is stacked," Cambage said. "I'm really excited to be able to play with Candace (Parker), Maya Moore, got my girl Skylar (Diggins-Smith) with me. So I am really excited for (Saturday)."

Talk about stacked. Joining Delle Donne in the frontcourt is Phoenix's Brittney Griner and Minnesota's Sylvia Fowles -- all are five-time All-Star selections. Add Breanna Stewart, the league's leading scorer, to the frontcourt and Hughes has a problem -- but not as big a problem as Team Parker perhaps.

Oh, and Team EDD also has the first rookie since 2014 to be selected for the game in Las Vegas' A'ja Wilson. She is sixth in the league in scoring (20.0), fourth in rebounding (8.6) and fifth in blocked shots (1.8).

"It really does feel great to be around all these great vets," Wilson said. "Just to hear them, pick their brains, laugh with them -- see the human side of them. Obviously, you see in a scouting report and you see it as a player, but just to be around and see them as humans. It's good."

The other first-time All-Star is the third member of the Seattle Storm chosen for the game -- Jewell Loyd, who is a member of Team Parker.

When it comes to All-Star experience, Team EDD holds a commanding edge with 52 combined appearances compared with 40 for Team Parker. In addition to Bird's 11 and Taurasi's nine appearances, Seimone Augustus of Team EDD will be making her eighth appearance.

So who has the advantage? Just ask ESPN analyst Lisa Leslie. That's what the Seattle Times did.

"It's going to be important for Team (Parker) to set tempo," Leslie said. "She has Liz Cambage inside and Tina Charles. These (centers) are very dominant."

But Leslie gives the final edge to Team EDD because of one player -- Bird

"She understands about the tempo. I played with Sue Bird and got a few (All-Star) MVPs. She knows how to play in that game. ... It's going to be a battle of the racetrack and controlling the tempo."

Team Elena Delle Donne

Seimone Augustus, Minnesota, guard

Sue Bird, Seattle, guard

DeWanna Bonner, Phoenix, frontcourt

Elena Delle Donne, Washington, frontcourt

Sylvia Fowles, Minnesota, frontcourt

Brittney Griner, Phoenix, frontcourt

Kayla McBride, Las Vegas, guard

Breanna Stewart, Seattle, frontcourt

Diana Taurasi, Phoenix, guard,

Kristi Tolliver, Washington, guard

A'ja Wilson, Las Vegas, frontcourt

Team Candace Parker

Rebekkah Brunson, Minnesota, frontcourt

Liz Cambage, Dallas, frontcourt

Tina Charles, New York, frontcourt

Skyler Diggins-Smith, Dallas, guard

Chelsea Gray, Los Angeles, guard

Jewell Loyd, Seattle, guard

Angel McCoughtry, Atlanta, frontcourt

Maya Moore, Minnesota, frontcourt

Chiney Ogwumike, Connecticut, frontcourt

Nneka Ogwumike, Los Angeles, frontcourt

Candace Parker, Los Angeles, frontcourt

Allie Quigley, Chicago, guard

(Brunson replaces Nneka Ogwumike)