The duo discussed what makes this rivalry important and hyped up, how much has changed in the last year since last season’s finals matchup, and then they finished with a preview of the rematch series itself and some rapid-fire predictions.
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Matthew Walter putting the rivalry and its hype in context this season as opposed to previous years:
The two teams, every time they played, it seemed like the whole world was at the game. It was on national television, and they had all the reporters … from every outlet that you could name, including ours. And it was so hyped, and everyone was there. And then this year, right? The narrative changes a little bit: Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese come into the league. Everyone’s talking about these rookies that everybody loves, and they have been great. And this narrative sort of takes a sidestep.
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Matthew Walter on what makes this Aces team different than last season:
I would say this year the biggest change is the aces are deeper than they’ve ever been. So the “core four” [Wilson, Gray, Plum and Young] is well known. Those four all stars, phenomenal players. They can put the ball in the basket at any point in a game. Last year, you had Alysha Clark and Kiah Stokes still there. But then after that, the drop off to the rest of the Aces players was not high level. It was Cayla George, who obviously hasn’t stuck around … Kierstan Bell’s still on the roster, but doesn’t play a huge factor. There just wasn’t as much depth.
So this year, replace Cayla George with Megan Gustafson, who has not played a ton, but when she’s played, has been impactful, and her ability to space the four from the five spot really helps the aces, because they don’t get that from someone like Kiah Stokes.
Then the Aces went and pulled the rabbit out of the hat, and they got Tiffany Hayes to come out of retirement. Tiffany Hayes has showed up in an Aces uniform and looks like she’s like 28 and not 34 or 35. She looks as good as she did last year in Connecticut.
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