Ep. 35 | NWSL's Playoff Scramble, WNBA's FIBA Break, and the Angel Reese Rebound Record Math

Angel Reese just set the WNBA's single-game and single-season rebounding records, and the comment section already has its rebuttal loaded: they're all "me-bounds." So we ran the numbers.Alex pulled every rebound Reese has this season, stripped out the putbacks off her own miss, and the answer is not what the discourse wants it to be. We walk through the math, the league-average baseline, and what's actually left of the argument. From there it's the last week of WNBA basketball before the FIBA World Cup break, with all eight playoff teams locked in and the seeding still a real fight, plus an NWSL playoff race where five teams are scrapping over one spot.This week we dig into:- The Angel Reese "me-bounds" math: 26 rebounds in a game to break Chamique Holdsclaw's 23-year-old record, past A'ja Wilson's single-season mark, 29 double-doubles to pass Alyssa Thomas, and what her rebounding numbers look like with every putback off her own miss removed- WNBA playoff picture heading into the FIBA break: four games left for everybody, the odds each team holds the seed it's sitting in, and why the actual movement is all in the five-through-eight range- Kelsey Mitchell becoming the second player in WNBA history to score 1,000 points in a season, and Caitlin Clark's back-to-back 30-point, 10-assist games, a first in league history- Golden State's 10-2 August: a defense holding opponents under 45% from the floor, one of the deepest benches in the league, and why nobody wants to draw the Valkyries in a playoff series- NWSL playoff race with six match weeks left: Gotham's refusal to lose, the North Carolina Courage leading the league in goals from sixth place, and Seattle, Denver, LA, Houston, Orlando and Angel City fighting over the last spotWe also get to Unrivaled's $650 million valuation after an oversubscribed Series C raise, A'ja Wilson and Kelsey Plum out of the FIBA World Cup with Sonia Citron and Kiki Iriafen called in, the Williams sisters' US Open doubles wild card, the 2027 National Soccer Hall of Fame ballot, the Global Alliance for Female Athletes expanding from four countries to nine, Boston Legacy FC's 2028 move into White Stadium, Masai Russell's 12.09 world record in Zurich, and the first Upshot League championship.Follow Raising the Game for weekly women's sports coverage.Instagram/Threads/YouTube: @rtg_podWebsite: rtgpod.comEmail: [email protected]