Locked On Women’s Basketball: The Athletic’s Sabreena Merchant talks No Offseason, JuJu Watkins injury and more

First, Merchant explained why they were revamping The Athletic’s ongoing women’s basketball podcast, what its new focus will be, and where the new name came from:

“We’ve had The Athletic Women’s Basketball Show, essentially since September of 2023 and we’re really happy with how that show did,” Merchant said. “We launched basically during the WNBA playoffs that year, got to cover a very fun finals between Vegas and New York, and ended up going through the next college regular season … it just sort of became clear that while we were really proud of the work we were doing, it made sense for the company to invest more effort into what we were doing, because women’s basketball is such an important space. And, you know, we [Merchant and co-hosts Zena Keita, Chantel Jennings and Ben Pickman] have jobs as writers too, so we needed a little bit more support all around in terms of production … the name No Offseason comes from a project that we had at The Athletic actually, back in 2022, 2023 that WNBA off season, when [Pickman] actually got to go to Europe and embed himself with a lot of WNBA players during their off-seasons, but not really their off-seasons, because they were still playing. And I got to spend time in the U.S. talking about Athletes Unlimited and players who were going back to their alma maters, and, you know, playing three-on-three … part of the DNA of what we do at The Athletic is covering the game all year round, and when it came time to sort of rebranding the show and giving it a big boost, coming into this year’s March Madness, seemed like the perfect name to just go with what we’ve already accomplished at The Athletic and encapsulate the ‘never stopping-ness’ of women’s basketball.”

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“One of the fun things about the podcast is we get to spend time sort of sharing the details that don’t make the stories that we write,” Merchant continued. “You know, like, you’ve been here, you report a story, and you find all of these fun anecdotes, and then it’s just hard to put them all into the process of writing something out … . And I’m very grateful to The Athletic who lets us be on site for so many of the things that we cover, there are just experiences and little behind the scenes notes that you pick up when you’re at something and again, those are things that we get to share on the podcast. So I’m just excited to have another space that … all I have to do is just come and talk. … I think media companies around the country are realizing that there’s a great [return on investment] on women’s basketball content. Like people want it, they’re seeking it out, and if it’s good, they will keep coming back to it. And you know, I think our company has realized that, and that’s why they’ve put all this effort into making us a bigger name on The Athletic podcast space. I’m sure people everywhere in the media space have realized … fans, viewers, listeners [of] women’s basketball is [a space where] they’re dying to seek out content, and they’re dying to listen and read and just engage in any way possible.”

Then, they turned to discuss Watkins’ recent injury, the impact it will have on USC as they move forward in the NCAA Tournament, and more:

“First things first, it’s just horribly sad and depressing … wishing all the best to JuJu and people around her to just make sure that she has everything she needs during her recovery,” Merchant said. “And hopefully, like this is not the last that we’ve seen of peak JuJu Watkins in the USC uniform. But you know, I think this was a fairly wide open tournament field when it was announced, and throughout much the regular season, there was an expectation that at least five or six teams could realistically compete for a national title. And I think USC is probably not one of those teams anymore. You know, I hate to discount a team that’s clearly going through something and honestly, very, very impressive without JuJu Watkins in the lineup yesterday [against Mississippi State]. You know, Kiki Iriafen is about as good of a second banana as you can get in any team across the country. And if she’s your best player, like you’re still doing okay, she has the ability to rise to number one option, but there is just a little bit, you know, less talent on that team. There’s that magic missing without JuJu Watkins, and that means that there’s probably four to five teams that can win a national title now.”

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“And I think the field is still fairly open, you know, UCLA, Texas, South Carolina, UConn, maybe Notre Dame, maybe TCU. Like, there’s a lot of teams that still have an opportunity to go out to Tampa and win this thing,” she continued. “So I think the parity still exists. There’s still a lot of match-ups to be really excited about. Unfortunately, one of them is not the Elite Eight in the Spokane 4 regional. But I think there is still a lot to look forward to in this tournament. But you know, especially being in L.A. and like, having a lot of USC fans in my life, it is kind of a downer right now. And the atmosphere in the Galen Center was just like, one of the weirdest places I’ve ever watched a basketball game last night. … hopefully, there is a way to turn the page, at least for this USC team, which has so many seniors who are playing out their college careers right now, and just for the tournament as a whole.”

Tune in to hear more from Merchant and Leite about JuJu Watkins’ impact and the NCAA Tournament, including details on upcoming match-ups and analysis of recent games. Make sure to subscribe to the Locked On Women’s Basketball podcast to keep learning about the WNBA, women’s college basketball, basketball history and much more!