Pablo Torre Finds Out - How to Give a Sh*t About Women's Basketball, with Comedian and Super-Fan Morgan Murphy

Episode Date: April 12, 2024

It's one of the greatest TV shows in America right now: The Caitlin Clark effect of being David and Goliath at the same time. Angel Reese's ability to provoke and emote. The wisdom and 4D chess of Dawn Staley. And yet, for a TV writer and stand-up comic who's been evangelizing the women's game for decades, this season has been like showing a friend The Sopranos for the first time. Having witnessed March Madness and in anticipation of next week's WNBA Draft, Morgan Murphy and Pablo determine that the ensuing hot takes from sports media's "empire of garbage" may signal that normalization is here to stay. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is. Reality is coming. Okay. You know, there's levels to this thing. Right after this ad. You're listening to Giraff Kings Network. How many bits do you have comedy-wise about sports?

I thought you were just going to, like, in general, like, how many bits you? I have a, I have like a little chunk. Is that a, is that a, that's a comedy math number? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a bushel. Somewhere we do a bushel at a peck. I have a bushel that sort of, you know, it also extends into like being a lady. And it extends into why I like sports.

Like even like kind of trying to get to the root of like philosophically why I like sports, but in a amusing way that doesn't bore people. That's what this is for. That's right. We're trying to tell everybody. that we're going to talk about women's sports and not bore you. Yeah. Which is the thing that feels more and more plausible to lots of people who never thought that

was plausible before. Yeah. For people who were very loud about how not plausible it was, very aggressive in their decision that this was not a world they were into, yeah. Yes. I do some sports, like, references and now things like, you know, just in my comedy, right? Like, I do a lot of stupid sex material, you know? And then I'm like, and I sort of explain, like, that I don't even really have.

sex that much. I just like talking about it. Like I talk about it a lot. I said I'm like the sports casters who never played. Like I'm like the I'm like the Joe Buck of anal. Like I'm like, so I go into that. And then you get a few people in the audience who are who are sports fans. You can tell the like some people are just like, I don't know what she's talking. Like you get the sort of specifics out for like the real fans. And then I explain why I like sports. Another reason I think more women should like sports is that we share a profound bond. with professional athletes. Profound bond, right?

Like only women and professional athletes truly know what it's like to be considered irrelevant by 40. I'm not saying that's my perspective. From society's perspective, we age at exactly the same rate, right? Last year, if you saw a headline that said still doing it after 40,

it was about a lady or Tom Brady and that's it, right? That's it. It doesn't look the way they eat. Like, it's all the same. If you're still against it, think about this. What about this, right? Who else is home tonight, right?

Besides women and professional athletes. Who else is home tonight? Two in the morning. Right? Crying, praying. Oh, Lord, please don't let me get traded for a 19-year-old. Okay, so you should know that Morgan Murphy has seen some things in the world of entertainment.

She's based in L.A., she's written for Abbott Elementary and Modern Family and two broke girls and Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon and Crank Yankers, and she is a lot more than just a stand-up comic, by the way, with a self-admitted, anal-stolen valor. But the whole reason I've been thinking about Morgan this week is because she is also the biggest and most informed

women's basketball fan, both college and pro, that I have ever met in my life. Morgan was actually there in person as a record 18.7 million Americans tuned in from home to watch South Carolina destroy Iowa and Caitlin Clark in the women's national title game. The biggest basketball audience in the history of ESPN, bigger than any NBA game. And on Monday, Caitlin Clark is going to get drafted number one overall by the Indiana fever, which means that this metrically transcendent, industry-shifting, record-shattering superstar

is going to enter a WNBA that also just had its most. watched season in 21 years. That was just last season, that record breaking two. And there are some fans out there, like Morgan Murphy, who we should hear from on this because they have been watching women's hoops for even longer than 21 years, for longer actually than 22-year-old Caitlin Clark has even been alive. But first, what Morgan needed to do was tell me about her greatest regret as a basketball player herself.

I saw this picture of Azee Fudd, who's on Yukon, is injured. And it was her dad had like saran wrapped her right arm or her dominant arm to her body, like three. Oh, it's a force her to dribble with her offhand. And I'm like, my mom, I grew up with my mom. She's like, I grew up with like dresses and makeup and stuff. And my mom going like, you know, stop dress. like a boy like I didn't have any there was nobody at a young age

uh tape my arm to my body you know what I mean like I was like what would I have been if somebody had but it's a psychopathic desire by the way I wish I had a dad who saraned around my arm to my body I would I don't care if you were like that's that's not you're not supposed to do that no no that's that might be my biggest regret in life

is that nobody taped my hand to my body like that's gone but I have players that I, like, wanted to be. But a lot of those actually were guys, like Jason Kidd at Cal was like, I remember seeing Jason Kidd at Cal going like, that's what I want, that's what I want to be passing, dribbling, like, I want to do something kind of fluid and showy. And I'm going to practice those moves over and over in my driveway, right? Is my mom inside going, I don't know what, I don't know what is going on, who that is. And that was me, but I was not.

physical. I had like very little endurance and I was one of those kids who I think in middle school people were like oh she could be she could be great. I was the only freshman on varsity of two sports freshman me in a basketball and softball peaked peaked around then and you know frankly I think also just emotionally was like drifting into wanting to do creative things and by the time I guess peaking at basketball for me was like the same time I realized I like I like I like of jokes. So look, the question that I demanded you answer with me today is simple. Basketball.

Which is... Well, it's more than that. It's what's it like when people finally start giving a shit about the thing that you have been evangelizing about and loving for decades? Yeah. And not just giving a shit about it, but like, what's it like when the thing that you loved and it felt lonely to love it suddenly becomes one of the biggest TV. shows in America. I think that when you tell somebody something is good, it's like, it's like,

everyone knows what it's like, try this food. It's really great. And your friends like, no, I just, I know I wouldn't like. Like, it's like, no, please try it. But please try it. I beg you to try it. And then five years later, they're like, I tried this greatest sandwich I've ever had. Like, the one I told you for 10 years to try. Like, it's, there is that frustration that's always going to happen. And I also know that I've been the person who came late to something. And I think that sort of begs the question of what's like the proper behavior of a newcomer, right? And so the people frustrating me are not the people who are loving something. That's incredible.

It's the people who are sort of stepping in and sort of like there's no bigger tell on yourself than saying, I've never seen that before. I never tried to find what was great. Like if I love Caitlin Clark, but if you don't know, who Maya Moore is and you know Caitlin Clark is, that's a tell on yourself, right? I'm not getting in those fights. I see people getting in those fights. You don't want to be that person. You want to be welcoming to anyone who loves anything. But you're just not going to avoid the negativity and you're not going to avoid the toxicity because it gets clicks, it gets views, it gets people who want

attention first and foremost. It gives them that attention. And that isn't, that is not unique to women's basketball. It's just women's basketball is right now, I think, the most singularly interesting area to study of what social media does when something reaches over into the mainstream. There are a couple of ways we can talk about women's basketball. One is, of course, on the level of it is a sport, and we should. And the other level is as a TV show. And right now, I think it's fair to say that you have an unusual vantage point on what it's like when people not only give their first shit about the thing you've loved for decades. But they turn it into one of the most popular TV shows in this country.

The thing about women's basketball in this moment is, to me, it's not a surprise. It would have been a surprise to see it come out of the blue maybe 10 years ago. I think that I was a little more naive about where it could go. The last five years, I'd say, if not a bit more, this felt inevitable. to the point where I was telling friends who did not care. And going into, you know, I'm a writer for the most part and try to sell TV shows and things and going into studios and producers and saying, what I kept saying was the ceiling isn't visible. I don't think you understand what it's about to happen.

And I think anyone who kind of pays attention from the inside and follows us from the inside, if you've been following something for 20 years and you start to see a peak that hasn't, you start to see an ascent at a slope that you haven't seen before, like, by the way, when the game was big in the 90s, let's go through like, you know, Yukon, dynasties and stuff,

it felt like the biggest thing in the world to me. It was on my TV. I knew I loved it. I was like, this is great. I think I had a very skewed perspective of how many people around me actually loved it because that was, when I was in high school, these were the women who did the thing I thought was the coolest thing in the world, right?

Like the 96 Olympic team, and then the league starts in 97. And then in the last, you know, you look at five, six years, you look at like women taken over, you know, you have Sabrina, you have Page, you have, you know, the aces and Asia. It started to happen faster and faster and faster. And that was like a, that was a level of coverage and a level of fandom that to me was like, okay, this is still happening from the inside. This is still for fans. but the bleed over was more and more. And you could see it, and you could see more people kind of catching on

and a lot more casual discourse online. So I didn't appreciate the degree to which this story was also a story about the internet for you. Because for me, what I came into this thinking was like, oh, Morgan's like a TV writer, Morgan knows television. I want to talk about this from the perspective of ratings, of the idea that, like, Caitlin Clark's Q rating beyond like the Nielsen stuff,

apparently she is at least four times more recognizable than Zach Eadie, who has produced, you know, best player according to the Seedon Hall poll. Yes. And it's the idea that for the first time ever, the president of the NCAA, Charlie Baker, spent his weekend at the women's final four where you were in Cleveland, as opposed to on the men's side in Arizona. Yeah. The idea that all of this stuff is happening and your temptation to celebrate, but also to be like on guard against what you're, you know, on guard against what. what's happening here. To what extent is it cynicism as well as enthusiasm as you watch all of this happening? I'm personally enthused all the time about it. Like that is, I will say that. That is, it's not always obvious on the outside. I, I'm not like a, you know, I'm not a,

a person who shows all of my feelings all the time. But I was watching you in Cleveland, watch the final four with our friends Sudecas and Ezra. Yeah. And your expressions, whenever they cut to you, it was almost like a renaissance painting of like just Morgan Murphy reacting dramatically. A little in awe. Yes, and in awe.

I think I'm in awe of the whole moment. Shout out to Jason Sudeikas. Like, who knew that a 15-year... I've known Jason, gosh, since S&L and I was living in New York, a run-in in New York at a WMBA game that I took myself to. That's right.

Yeah, I see an old friend. he happens to at this moment be wildly famous and and knows I love this knows I've always loved this and with that access goes Morgan do you want to also enjoy all of this I can't say thank you enough there's I am immensely grateful forever for that right no and by the way same and when I describe the gentrification of your favorite thing I feel like a gentrifier in and I say this of course like Yeah. As somebody who's like long, like, covered the game, but just truly like, why am I starstruck meeting Caitlin Clark?

Yeah. Why am I like nervous after they win the Elite Eight game in Albany? Yeah. And Sudecis takes us down to go meet Caitlin Clark and her family. And I sent you that video. So I want to disentangle. Before I dive into the Caitlin Clark of it, I want to get your sense of like, okay, as an observer,

you're at these games. What's your takeaway? Like, what is the thing that you leave Cleveland, this most watched tournament ever, these record-setting games that you were there for? What do you leave thinking?

Perfect. To me, like, in person, when you actually get out of the, and who knows if it'll stay this way, but when you get out of sort of, like, all of the different channels of media, and you go in person, it is still

the most passionate, dedicated fan base. You see everyone, you see people who've been going to every final four, every woman's final four for decades. I sat next to a woman on the plane who's 83 years old, who's got taken herself almost to all of them. But she's gone to 20 final fours, most of them alone. This is the joy of her life. And in person, and I've said this about even WMBA games in past, like women's sports in person is, imagine going to a football game. And everyone you wouldn't want to sit next to. isn't there. And it's only the people who care.

It's only the people who are positive. It's, it is, the energy is perfect. I don't think there's anything like it. I say this is somebody who loves men's sports. I love, I mean, it's different. It's materially different. And it is, I think, obviously you see celebrities popping up at games, but like there is not, now. Now, but it, you know, the, and the people.

People who know, no, and that's the other thing, too, is everything around the old school fans is a little bit of a show. They're just like, oh, this is okay. Like, I'll take it. If you care, you care. You're going to keep doing it. I think the hardest kind of cross-section of humanity to be in is I really care and I'm really on social media. You know, Helen, next to me on the plane, 83, you know. Lysfully unaware.

Doesn't under, I mean, like, it doesn't under, yeah, she's absolutely. asking me like why does my why do my, if the internet doesn't work, how come I can still find my phone numbers on my phone, like on the plane? Like Helen's not on social media, right? She just, all the attention is just nothing but joyful to her. So, like, think of it that way. Like, there's so many different ways you could be seeing this, but the games, unbelievable. And the people being celebrated at the games, like consistently, regularly. And the women being sort of elevated to more TV time on ESPN, right? You got Chenet and you got, you know,

L. Duncan and Andreke Carter and Diana Tarasi and Subur during their show like another tier. Rebecca Lobo calling the game. People popping in, Holly Rowling. Yes, absolutely. And you go, those, suddenly, those are the people who've been putting in the work, right?

They've been putting in the work. This is their time. So you get to see, like, you know, I remember Rebecca Lobo starting in, starting on air and like what she's built for her zoh and then you go oh my god like these are now

these are the elvices of yes the fun of watching everybody simultaneously hit the big time yes that's the best part about that's why something's like it's rare no Morgan it's rare like I cover sports you don't see a new favorite TV show break

I mean truly outright NFL games like Thursday night football was outrated by these final four game by the elite eight game And that coming out of scene, and it's not nowhere because, again, you've been on Twitter building these villages, but to most of America, it's like overnight, suddenly everyone started giving a massive, a massive shit about this. And a big part of that, in my opinion, and it takes nothing away from our game because, gosh, is Caitlin Clark unbelievable?

But novelty is a huge, you know, it's a huge factor in getting people to pay attention. and those deep threes, like what Steph was to the NBA, those deep threes, a lot of people had not seen that before. No, they had not seen that before. They didn't know women could do that. No, they didn't. In a very literal sense. Yeah, and they came in and then they announced what else they didn't think women can do and all those other things have been done for quite a while. But like that's, I mean, I think, you know, once we have a player and it will happen who sort of dunks,

casually, that will be another thing that people will tune in and go, I've never seen that before, I'm going to tune it. Like, it requires doing something that most people haven't seen, and that, and she brings eyes by doing that. Yes. And you can have all the, who's better is the attention worth. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She brought people to this game.

So I want to do two things. I want to get your sense of just, of course, because sports is funny like this, right? If sports was a true reality. reality show. Yeah. Right. And you couldn't see this, but Chris and I, my producer, we were watching the game from Barney's Beinerie here in LA. Great place to watch. Great place to watch. And we were like, are they going to do the, is ESPN going to do the thing where they essentially do the Mori Povich camera follow of Caitlin Clark going backstage in shame? Are we going to get full unadulterated like reality TV show picture and picture? Because that's, yeah, this is the character

now that everybody's invested in it. Right. You're going to get Caleb Woolham's crying in his mom's arms, right? And we got some of it, but not as much as sports would have were at a true reality show. So I say this to say, I want to do the thing that I think we have to do, which is acknowledge that South Carolina kick the shit out of Iowa. Unreal. And like what that team is. South Carolina also won me my whole bracket.

I got to give it to them. By the way, thank you, Iowa families for having me in your section is wonderful. You were sitting in the Iowa section. I got, you know, I was. of their pain. Okay, yeah, go ahead. No, but explain. But I want to start with, before we get into like the Caitlin Clark effect and what happens

from here, the idea that, oh, by the way, simultaneous to this is maybe like the best coaching job at Don Staley, who is one of the great coaches of all time, maybe the Nick Sabin of, to begin to mix metaphors here, the Nick Sabin of like women's college basketball. I feel obligated to start there, even though my brain is already onto the Caitlin Clark, like, yo, TV show part of it. Well, I mean, speaking of brains being on to something, the whole season in the back of my brain is, South Carolina is going to win it all, and there will be a rebound, a boomerings, something going back to, oh, wait, also there's the best team from the media, right? Because you, but that's a very difficult thing to follow. It's a very difficult thing to get people like, you know, what if everyone is, yes.

We've seen it before. Right. You can't. We're numb. to the undefeated all-time great teams, as unfair as that is to the team doing it. Although I will say even a lot of those Yukon teams had sort of notable stars doing some special. What I think is so unique about South Carolina

is that you can't leave anybody open. The team itself is so good because the destination was created. Like what Don Staley did is South Carolina, you can absolutely see, you know, quote-unquote bigger schools, schools that are used to having more accolades in all of sports, trying now to build what has been built there.

But it was never lost on me that that was a narrative that was being underrepresented. I know why it's not necessarily the easiest thing to lead with. No, I want to confess that when Don Staley took time in her post-game valedictory address to say, thank you to Caitlin Clark for elevating our whole game. I want to personally thank Caitlin Clark for lifting up our sport. She carried a heavy load for our sport. And it just is not going to stop here on the collegiate tour. But when she is the number one pick in the WMBA draft,

she's going to lift that league up as well. So Caitlin Clark, if you're out there, you are one of the good. goats of our games that we appreciate you. It felt like permission for me to go back to the MoriCam and be like, right, because what I am truly invested in beyond like the sports story of South Carolina being great, even more than that, admittedly, is what the fuck was the Caitlin Clark experience? Because it's over in college. And college was inextricable from the magic of the story.

and why it affected America in the way that it did. What is your post-mortem of it? Why did this happen? So many factors aligned at the right time, right? You had, of course, NIL, which, you know, has been phenomenal for the women's game. You go back to Title IX. You go back to this is not a result of the last year, right? This is a result of decades.

This is a result of everyone who came before. So this moment was going to happen, who it was going to happen around who knew. Caitlin Clark, you know, again, I think the novelty factor of her doing something we hadn't seen before was like, okay, well, that's a star that even people who don't truly know the game of basketball can understand that's a star, right? Yes. You go to Joker in the NBA, like three MVP's it kind of took for him to even be a media. hyped star because people can't. Yeah, fundamentals and, you know, oh my God, this per, look how this person can score. People go, yeah, I know dribbling and shooting. I don't know shooting from there, right? So the novelty factor. The three, it's interesting, right?

The three pointer as this thing that, and Steph, she is more than Steph and different from Steph in various ways, but she is most similar to him in, in making me feel like I'm watching, I'm watching something that feels miraculous, even though we all know. she's the best at doing this specific thing. Right. There's something psychologically about a 35 foot three that you pull up to take when no one is like otherwise courageous enough to do it

that makes me feel like David is also Goliath here. Right, let alone to do it regularly, consistently. Unapologetically. Unapologetically, you know, and then you have, so everyone can enjoy that. And then you have a little deeper fan knowledge and go, oh, she's getting herself in a place to take these shots. Like you start to, it gets deeper and deeper and deeper.

But the novelty of where is she's shooting from, to me is a huge factor in her sort of being the star of this moment, right? Like, I love Paige. I think Juju is the future of the game. Juju Waukeen's pagebackers. Yeah, like I, I, but have we seen what Caitlin's done before? We have not. So I think, you know, it's, and there are been cultural shifts.

But again, the foundation, the infrastructure for this sport to thrive in the media was that's the, I told you so from a lot of, you know, a lot of people who dedicated their lives to the sport going, if you give it the attention it deserves, if you shine a light on it, this is a great sport. And Caitlin, as you were saying, you know, Don saying thank you to Caitlin, which is so beautiful, Caitlin bringing eyes on the sport. If you love the sport, like even right now you have people going,

oh, what's she going to do in the WMBA? That's another just telling your stuff. Announce to me that you know so much about Caitlin Clark and know nothing about the next level of basketball, right? Like, I get it. But what I also know, before I'm like going to react to that, is I know that every set of eyeballs that follows Caitlin Clark to the WMBA is a lot of those people are going to, on that team, discover Alia Boston, who was phenomenal the four years prior, right? She's only going to bring eyeballs to the greatness that is already there. And so I'm thrilled for them to discover this.

That's a fun thing to watch. It's like someone getting to watch, you know, Sopranos or the Wire for the first time. like, oh my God, you get to discover this. And by the way, when they discover it, half those people will go, well, this is good now too. They will believe that it became good the minute they started watching.

That's all just part of this, like, very kind of twisted web that you've got to navigate when you're a real fan without screaming at everyone. Right. When the auditorium fills up with everybody, with 15 million people, you're also going to get people who are, like, really into this

because she's white. Mm-hmm. Who are like, that story is a story. I mean, that's great white hope kid, right? Yeah. It's going back to boxing. Yes. It's going back to what does it feel like

when finally a majority that feels like a minority gets their hero in this sport. And can I still like something that a lot of shoddy people have decided they like for reasons that are not in any way, you know, sort of sound, authentic, decent? Well, it's also that she's awesome to the degree that even people who want to be like, oh, she's like the right wings, the favorite player are like,

but she's also fucking awesome. Like it's just, there's an undeniable to the aesthetic of her game, let alone her as a human. And you can't decide who hijacks anything. You can't, like tomorrow, you know, the proud boys could say, Morgan Murphy's my favorite comedian.

I don't know why they would. They could, you know. But I wouldn't want other people to then go, oh, now I don't like Morgan Murphy. Like, Kaelin is not responsible for the noise. Nobody is very few people who are responsible for the noise that's made about them. It's not like the noises in reaction to like an earnest statement that she's made about like the state of the world. Like, no, it's never that. No.

It's never that. Caitlin Clark, yeah, okay, put her over here on this side. Like, that's the character that I just met, a Steph Curry type, maybe a call. Hobie Bryant type in terms of just being like this sort of cutthroat super competitive killer, but put that over there for a second. Angel Reese is somebody who enjoys trolling people. She put a crown on the bench before they played that game in Albany. So which is to say that many things about Angel Reese are simultaneously true.

Right. Which is that she is somebody who is daring you to have a reaction. She wants to be provocative when it comes to matters of eagerness. and greatness and her regard for herself. But I think at the end of the day, when she is pushed to answer the questions about other people, she has nothing but respect for Caitlin Clark. Friends or anything. If my teammate right here went to play for another team, I'm going to be competitive.

I'm going to talk trash sure just because I'm super competitive and that's what we do. But off the court, we're going to kick in and have fun. So I think that's the part of the game and just trying to normalize. Like trash talking is okay, but not taking it personal off the court. And obviously that has become a thing. and people are just trying to make it seem like it's something. But I love Caitlin and I love her game and I admire everything that she's done.

That generation understands how valuable attention is and how valuable engagement is online. And, you know, I think my generation actually is a lot more, how do I say this, confused and uncertain and I think it affects them more mentally to try to dive into that space, but also be who they are. I think there's a certain segment of the younger generation. The incentives are so obvious

that it's not even a thing. better now at compartmentalizing. This is what you do for media. This is who I am as a person, right? And then you just hope that when somebody gets a lot of attention very fast, that there are good people in their lives to, you know, to make sure they navigate that C's sort of and don't let it get to them. Like, I love Angel Reese for this game.

I love Caitlin Clark for this game. It's so much better that she's around. Right. But I also can't imagine, I can, I guess, imagine a little bit, what it must be like to be a woman. I can imagine, no, I can imagine, like that must be hard. Whether or not all the people in the world

saying hateful things being what they say, to be a black woman in the spotlight, to be unapologetically yourself at this moment, and to be somebody who also reads the comments. That's the key part. I cannot, I could not personally handle the vitriol that would come. I'm still, and like all this has happened since I won the national championship.

And I said the other day, I haven't had peace since then. And it sucks, but I still wouldn't change. I wouldn't change anything. And I would still sit here and say, like, I'm unapologetically me. I can't imagine that level of hate and still having to show up and be a badass. And I can imagine that the easiest way to do that is to say, you right back. And there's two paths.

There's sort of silence. To me, the sage in all of this is Don Staley, who, in my opinion, knows why every single moment of media has happened, you know, has sort of the grace and wisdom of having seen it all, having seen the transition into what media is now, having seen the game evolve. What I love is when it gets to Don Staley, everything she says is like, yeah, I get it. What Don Staley does is the like 4D chess of, I'm just like, she's getting thrown questions at pressers during this final four weekend about like, do you support trans female athletes? One of the major issues facing women's sports right now is the debate, discussion topic, about the inclusion of transgender athletes, biological males in women's sports.

I was wondering if you would tell me your position on that issue. And she sort of answers it in a way that is skilled. and threading of a needle and is acknowledging, like, I know the game that you're playing here. I mean, I'm under the opinion of, of if you're a woman, you should play. If you consider yourself a woman

and you want to play sports or vice versa, you should be able to play. So now the barnstorm of people are going to flood my timeline and be a distraction to me on one of the biggest days of our game. And I'm okay with that. I really am.

That to me is a perfect reading of the time. But it also makes you go, like for me it makes me so grateful as like a, I guess not older woman. As an elder States woman. That she is the person that those girls on her team, those young women on our team get to go to for advice on anything

and I think that's what you you know I think in certain ways Kim Mulkey at LSU has been a villain in the game you know is is a part of the story but the human part of me

is like I listen to Don Staley speak and I go like oh if I had a kid and they were now an adult young adult if everything's really I would trust that person to usher my child into adulthood.

The whole question of how we talk in public about Caitlin Clark and Angel Rees and all of these players, it's funny because there are lots of people who are now invested seemingly in what women's basketball is up to, and they're collapsing onto fainting couches at the idea of the women are attacking each other. there is criticism that Diana Tarasi and our pal Sue Bird go on their simulcast of the games and they're doing something that is again unapologetic

doing a thing that has happened in men's sports forever which is getting into a hypothetical about who you'd rather have with the first pick in the draft Paige Becker's or Caitlin Clark notably Paige is not going to be in the draft on Monday but nonetheless a hypothetical

Yeah. And Sue and Diana say this. I'm going to answer. I'm going to go. You go. I think you have to take Caitlin for one reason. Because I think they're so... You can't go wrong with choosing either one.

Right. The fan energy behind Caitlin is going to be a game changer for a WMBA franchise. I think for that reason, right now this year, you have to take her. From a basketball standpoint, I can make an argument for Paige. I'm taking Paige. Next question. So if you had the number one pick this year, you would take Paige. over Caitlin. Absolutely.

I like that interview. Sam Decker says this. He says, quote, great look for uplifting each other as women's hoopers and growing your sport in a positive direction. Yeah. The idea that you're undercutting the cash cow. Why are you undercutting Caitlin Clark?

Respect what Caitlin Clark's doing for you guys. If that is your first reaction to what you just saw and you're saying, oh, you think you're supporting women's basketball or, you know, the sort of match is what he's saying. He is announcing, I haven't paid attention to two of the greatest players in women's basketball history for the last two decades. Their dynamic, who they are, I know nothing about this. And I'm coming into this with a sort of like, I'm just a casual

consumer of the clickbait that's thrown at me. Let me explain what you guys need to do here. Yeah. By the way, it's these narratives. Like, who started the women are attacking each other? Well, that's also like somebody who goes, I see what's happening. I understand that there's nuance around how Diana Tarasi was addressing this. Like she also said she's great, and this is part of being great and being great. And you go into a league and being part of great means is about getting better. They'll play against each other.

So you have the within the athlete community kind of talk, which has always happened, right? Like the vet talking about the rookie, that's always happened. It's not until somebody outside of that frames it as women attacking women, that it becomes that to people who also probably didn't watch the whole interview, read the whole article, whatever you want to say. That's kind of, again, part of the obstacle course of like, for me, a fan, keep liking the thing you like, keep liking the thing you like, try not to pay attention to these narratives that are going to go away

because they don't hold water. But I think that people getting furious about a completely hypothetical scenario, is actually a sign that like, yes. This is, this is, now it's, now we're,

now we're talking sports. It's half of sports media. That is the basis of sports media, right? It is hyperbole. It is hypotheticals, right? We are, you know,

it will be a bumpy road until we get to a place where women can be addressed with the same language as men. We're not there yet without people overreacting or underreacting,

because just people don't know enough to kind of go, okay, we all know the same amount. Now we can kind of again, we can be sloppy in the way we talk. And so I want to play this sound from Lynette Woodard, who is, again, like, a legend that was not at all given the publicity that she was due. She was playing at Kansas in the late 70s.

And women's basketball at that point was not an NCAA enterprise. It was the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women. Right. And she was the person who held the record that Caitlin Clark broke and Lynette Woodard got a microphone and said this at this banquet. I am the hidden figure, but no longer now. My record was hidden from everyone for 43 years, 43 years. I don't think, I'll just go ahead and get me off there out of the room.

I don't think my record has been broken because you can't duplicate, but you're not duplicating. So unless you come up with a men's basketball and a two-point show, And I'm like, yeah, that's inside the NBA every night. Every night. That is, that's the kind of language that people in sports love, right? It's a love language. And by the way, she's 100% right and said nothing that Pistol Pete's, you know, it airs.

Oh, this is not the same record, right? It's a valid take. It's a 100% valid take. And it's only an attack when somebody says it's, it's an attack to get clicks on their dumb site. Sports media is an empire of garbage. Like we should not. Fun garbage.

Truly. How fun. Why are we on a fainting couch? Because an older player said a younger player does not deserve to break the record that they, like that is, I've seen JJ Renick and Rick Berry argue about like whether Bob Coosie could have beaten a mailman. Yes. Which is why when Diana Tarasi, who has takes about things, says something, I'm like,

Oh, I want to know what she thinks about how Caitlin's going to do in the WMBA. Yes. Right? When she says, and this is another clip, you know, when she says they got aggregated, reality is coming. Camilla's coming. Caitlin's coming. There's more than just that that are coming.

What will the league have in store for them when they get there? Look, SVP, reality is coming. Okay. You know, there's levels to this thing. And that's just life. We all went through it. Of course. And you see it on the NBA side.

And you're going to see it on this side where you know, you look superhuman playing against 18-year-olds. But you're going to come with some grown women that have been playing professional basketball for a long time. Not saying that it's not going to translate because when you're great at what you do, you're just going to get better. But there is going to be a transition period where you're going to have to give yourself some grace as a rookie. And, you know, it might take a little bit longer for some people. And again, larger context theory, she's very complimentary. But the idea that there will be a reckoning at the professional level because there are, women who've been doing this a while.

Yes. Who know how to defend a player. When it gets harder, it will be harder. That's not a crazy thing to like, you know, to say. That's not in any way controversial. Caitlin Clark will be drafted, number one overall. She'll go to the Indiana Fever, which is a team that, again, people will learn about for the first time. And what do you expect to see as the next chapter of the Caitlin Clark show proceeds to the WMBA?

I think it is, for many reasons, it is a perfect, perfect place for her. And I will say this, I think her and Aaliyah Boston, in my opinion, if you're a fan and you've been following the whole story, if you go, okay, well, South Carolina loses last year, right, to Iowa in this incredible performance. Yeah, Kailen has 41. Elya Boston is her last game. This is a player who I love. I love her game. You know, I could say for a number of factors, doesn't get the attention in the media.

She's deserved. She goes to the WMBA. And she's just awesome, right? Still, not the attention I think she deserves because there's not too many eyeballs on it, right? She's on this team. Now a year later, right? South Carolina, her team,

or she spent her last day, beats Caitlin Clark, right? now I feel bad for another senior. I felt bad for Alia last year. Now I feel bad for Caitlin because she's lost. And now they're joining up at the next level. And every single eyeball, some of whom already knew who Lee Boston was,

on Caitlin Clark, following her to Indiana and going, wow, is this the, and they'll need to paint it as, is this the shack and cope? Is this the new thing we knew before? I hope so. To me, that would be incredible. and to elevate these programs that even aren't in big cities, you know. I mean, I remember the WMBA starting.

I remember years of it's not going to last. That was a narrative of years of teams dropping out, right? The comets, which were they power. Like, who would have thought the greatest team when it started would disappear? I just, I am so thrilled to see what's done. I'm so thrilled to see what's done from a marketing perspective. I'm so thrilled to see the games evolve. And yeah, it will be fun to watch them play.

play against, you know, Phoenix and Seattle and New York. And, I mean, I love that. I love, I love every team so I could list all the teams. But, but then people will go, oh, my goodness, I didn't know who Jackie Young was. I didn't know who Nefuselholy was, right? I didn't know who Nefisa Collier was. I didn't know, or I didn't know any of these people, new eyeballs. Oh, my God, it's great. And we'll, again, well, half of those people will be like, oh, it suddenly got great when I started paying attention. Of course they will be. Let them in. Let's go. Come on. Right? More people at the barbecue to watch the game. not just me on my couch with the game on,

having to text people, there will be sports on, but it's okay, there will be other people there who don't watch either. Like, I, this is my whole life. Like, yeah, come on over. Pick a person to like. So at the end of every show, we talk about what it is we found out today on Pablo Torre finds out.

What have you found out, not just from this show, but from your week of being at the thing that has captivated the country in a way that you had never dreamed. dreamed it would. I think it's actually kind of difficult to just stay the course and remember, like, I care about this and I love this and not get involved in the noise. And that's kind of what I've tried to do.

And I actually think that at times it's taken effort in the last decade, especially, of like... To divorce reality from the Internet. Right. I found out in my voyage through the women's tournament that a thing that I have, was that I thought I would be above, but just when an athlete like Tom Brady will introduce himself and say hi, I'm Tom. And be like, you

you fucking know that we know who you are Tom Brady. After the game, after Iowa wins in Albany, Jason takes us down to the court and we, sorry, Caitlin Clark summons Jason down to the court for the like the net cutting celebration and he introduces

us to Caitlin Clark as like this arena is like screaming. And he goes, this is Pablo. And he has a sad video of this because I'm like holding my phone like I'm like a kid with like an autograph book at Disneyland and I'm a journalist by the way I want to always trust this and Caitlin Clark goes over and goes oh hi I'm Caitlin and I'm like yeah this is the coolest athlete I just I'm like I feel like I'm eight years old it's the best Morgan Murphy thank you for letting me inhabit your village from time to time

thank you for letting me you know yammer on as I do to friends for five minutes until they go yeah I got to go walk my dog or something relatedly I I got to go walk this dog probably. Please do. But as for the villagers, inside of Pablo Torre finds out, we are produced by Michael Antonucci, Ryan Cortez, Sam Daywig, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Loman, Rachel Miller-Howard, Ethan Schreier,

Carl Scott, Matt Sullivan, Chris Tuminello, and Juliet Warren. Studio Engineering by RG Systems, post-production by NGW Post, our theme song, as always, by John Bravo. And I'll talk to you next time.