The Commissioner's Cast Trip

Last couple weeks on the WNBA mid-season:

The last few weeks of WNBA have marked the 5th WNBA Commissioner’s Cup (the “Cup”) tournament, which is an in-season tournament that runs from June 1-17 and features 36 games.  Essentially, the Cup is the mid-season cast trip our favorite Bravolebrities take during the season to spice things up and turn up the drama.

All 13 WNBA teams compete in the Cup and the team from each conference (i.e., the Eastern Conference and Western Conference) with the highest record in Cup games will face off in a final game for a $500,000 prize pool.

The structure of the Cup is slightly more organized than the that of the Real Housewives of New York’s (RHONY) structure for picking rooms on the “Scary Island” cast trip – luckily here, no one wins by throwing their bag and dirty clothes on the bed of the best room in the house. In the Cup, each team plays one game against each of the other teams in its Conference.

The final standings for the Cup are as follows (as the Fever just secured the Eastern Conference position and the Minnesota Lynx have just secured the Western Conference Position):

Eastern Conference:

1.     Indiana Fever

2.     New York Liberty

3.     Atlanta Dream

4.     Washington Mystics

5.     Chicago Sky

6.     Connecticut sun

Western Conference:

1.     Minnesota Lynx

2.     Phoenix Mercury

3.     Golden State Valkyries

4.     Los Angeles Sparks

5.     Las Vegas Aces

6.     Dallas Wings

The biggest commonality between an in-season tournament and mid-season cast trip is they both raise already high tensions and competitive natures.  The women of the WNBA want to win on any given day, but the Cup turns the gas way up and lights a massive competitive fire under them.  Similarly, the cast trips put Bravolebrities in one house with their favorite frenemies for days on end with no time to cool down before having to engage with one another again. 

For example, think Jesse Lally and Michelle Lally in Santa Barbara – taking two people in the midst of a very contentious divorce, spilling the nasty tea of the boys only group chat, and including endless amounts of wine all wrapped up in one single house and you end up with one of the most perfectly aimed water toss throws you’ve ever seen.  Like Jesse and Michelle, in the heat of determining which team would be representing the Eastern Conference in the Cup, we saw an intense match-up between the Connecticut Sun and the Indiana Fever which resulted in two physical altercations. Jacy Sheldon (of the Sun) and Caitlin Clark (of the Fever) share a colored past dating back to their Big 10 days and tonight’s match-up was expected to be heated between the two.  Things got chippy in the first half between the two on a basketball play after which Caitlin pushed Jacy which then resulted in the Sun’s Marina Mabrey (aka everyone's favorite Jersey Girl), pushing Caitlin.  The refs fumbled the situation and as result tensions continued to rise well into the second half where Jacy was on a breakaway and was slammed to the floor by the Fever’s Sophie Cunningham (which resulted in a flagrant 2* foul against Cunningham).  Jacy shot back up and a physical altercation ensued resulting in Jacy, Sophie and the Sun’s Lindsay Allen, who got up to protect Jacy, all being ejected from the game.  

The lesson here is that mid-season shakeups, whether via a cast trip or an in-season tournament are one way to intensify a season.

*A flagrant 2 foul is given for “unnecessary and excessive contact committed by a player against an opponent” and results in ejection of the player committing the foul.

WHERE TO WATCH MORE IN-SEASON DRAMA

The final Cup game will be July 1 between the Indiana Fever representing the Eastern Conference and the reigning champs, the Minnesota Lynx representing the Western Conference.

It is rumored The Valley cast members are headed for another season cast trip, to Hawaii – sans Mr. Jax Taylor.  Stayed tuned into Bravo on Tuesday nights at 7/8 Central or stream on Peacock the following Wednesday to catch it.