Katie Smith Announcing - Questions Not Asked?

[Jackalope]

It was nice to see Katie Smith doing the color announcing for the UCONN/ECU game yesterday, but I was disappointed that two topics she could provide some fairly unique perspectives on were barely discussed, if they were mentioned at all. Katie, while also being an assistant coach of the New York Liberty is also a member of the USA Women's basketball Steering and Selection committees ( http://www.usab.com/about/inside-usa-basketball/committees.aspx ). She certainly could have provided some interesting conversation during a fairly boring game about:

USA Basketball:

1. What does the selection committee consider in getting to the final 12 for Rio?
2. What did she think about the recent training camp?
3. What are the chances of Stewie making the team?
4. Is there any concerns about the Zika virus? Are the players concerned?

WNBA draft and the WNBA:

1. Stewie is almost certainly #1. Does she think that San Antonio will take MoJeff at #2, despite already having Danielle Robinson already on the team, and have other needs greater than an elite point guard?
2. How much of an issue is Tuck's knee? Will that be a consideration when and where she is drafted?
3. What is the liberty looking for in this draft?
4. Kiah Stokes?

Yes, she might not be "allowed" to talk about these questions by the various powers that be, but it is a shame that she barely touched on them.

 

[UcMiami]

I enjoyed the announcing team yesterday and hope they are on for today as well.
We complain when announcers talk 'over' the game, and now we complain that they don't talk enough about stuff other than the game - tough crowd to satisfy!

I agree that the questions would be interesting, but I doubt she has much insight on other WNBA teams' plans and I doubt NY has been spending a lot of time considering the very top of the field of draftees since they are unlikely to have enough to offer any team to trade up there.

On USA basketball - would certainly have liked her impressions of the camp, but on the selection process I think pretty much everyone involved has their own 'constituency' (hers being a player perspective) and they are pretty vanilla in anything they say so as not to rock the boat with the others - they leave it up to Carol and Geno to be the spokespeople and present a unified front.