Locked On Women’s Basketball: WNBA bets and Maria Marino

First, they talked about the Liberty’s 71-68 win over the Connecticut Sun on Wednesday. After losing to the Indiana Fever on Saturday, New York came into Wednesday’s contest eager for a win.

“They tend to be very good after a loss, and that’s a stat that I think people should pay attention to,” Marino explained. “… for a team like the Liberty that is at the top of the standings to lose to a team like the Indiana Fever, that was a big upset … and so I know for competitors on that team, especially like Sabrina Ionescu, I feel like she has become sort of the epitome of like just that ruthless competitor, and you’re sitting on that [loss], and you want to erase that as quickly as possible. So you go into Connecticut and they’re one of the other top teams. And so no surprise, another close game.”

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“But I think what was surprising to me was, how different the Liberty can look from quarter to quarter,” Marino continued. “… I was noticing that more recently, particularly against the Fever, against the Dream, even against the Lynx, the Liberty I thought came out a little bit slower than we’ve become accustomed to. But that said, they still, for the most part, were able to take care of business. … It’s clear that they understand the scout, and they go in and they execute; they tend to execute in the first quarter. But once the other team starts to make adjustments, that’s the big question with them. Okay, how do they respond?”

Then, Marino and Speer talked about getting into the women’s basketball media space, and Marino’s journey to sports broadcasting in particular.

“I remember my first sports job at a major media company was at Sirius XM, that was almost 10 years ago now,” Marino said. “I used to do sports updates live on the radio and I remember the very first day that I worked, where I was on the air, like it’s official, and my heart was pounding and I remember my supervisor at the time texted me after my first update like, ‘Relax, you have it under control.’ … and then, the more experience you get, the more confidence you get.”

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“I remember when I got first got the call from SNY to go on TV for the first time in [an] analytical sports reporting type of role, and I was super nervous leading up because you get to a point where you care so much about your career growth that you’re like, ‘Okay, really have to execute here, I don’t want to mess this up.’ And I knew I’d be fine, but I definitely remember a day or two before just being like, ‘Okay, like this is happening.’ But then again, once you do it once, you do it twice, three times, you’re like, ‘Okay, I got this’ and you kind of keep moving forward,” she continued.

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