2025 WNBA Regular Season
- Thread starter azfan
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Yeah the imbalanced officiating of physical play really irked me in the Fever @ Mercury game last night, but it is what it is.
I also wonder what the record is for these East Coast teams that have to travel to the West Coast and play games at 10 PM EST. I have an inkling of a suspicion that West Coast teams have a disproportionate amount of wins due to the time of game play. I think it would be much harder to play a game at the time you're usually thinking about going to bed, but alas that is the life of a sports professional and they must overcome it. West Coast teams don't have the same issue when traveling to the East Coast.
I also wonder what the record is for these East Coast teams that have to travel to the West Coast and play games at 10 PM EST. I have an inkling of a suspicion that West Coast teams have a disproportionate amount of wins due to the time of game play. I think it would be much harder to play a game at the time you're usually thinking about going to bed, but alas that is the life of a sports professional and they must overcome it. West Coast teams don't have the same issue when traveling to the East Coast.
TheFarmFan
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Yes but: Golden State's worst loss of the season was a 10am PDT Sunday start in Incasville after finishing around 12:45 am EDT Saturday morning in San Francisco. So it definitely cuts both ways.
As for the reffing in Merc games, I think they're the team that gets away with the most unwarranted contact across the entire league. And let's be honest: AT has the most aggressive elbows I've ever seen in the W.
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Don't know if I agree. I would much rather play at 10 am than 10 pm, but that is probably preferential. I am a morning person after all. 😆
I would think that it would be much harder to stay mentally active at 11:30 pm in the 4th quarter. At least with morning games you can wake your body up through the game play.
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But I think you're overlooking the time difference and the impact on their internal body clocks into your scenario. Being three hours behind, plus playing on short rest, will have some impact.
This topic comes up every year during the NFL season with west coast teams playing 1 pm games on the east coast. There seems to be some logic to the theory based on some of the studies the networks have reviewed during their pre-game shows.
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I don't think I did. IMO internal body clocks would be more impacted by playing games past ones bedtime vs the morning time when most people are awake. I definitely agree that both scenarios would cause impacts due to playing outside of norms, but I think it would be disproportionate impacts to East teama travelling west to play past bedtimes. At least West teams playing on the east coast at 10 AM their local time would have been awake at that hour on their coast.
As far as other impacts, I'm chalking that up to bad scheduling. I consider that a different category but I agree that shorter recovery time leads to issues no matter the scenario. As a fan, I really dislike these back-to-back games and how they affect the outcome of the game.
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I think the lost to the wings is worse
TheFarmFan
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Except the Liberty have been on the West Coast since Friday, so their body clocks should be fully adjusted by Tuesday evening (general rule is an hour adjustment per day). I get your theory as a theory but in practice it really shouldn't apply here, and I can assure you when you take a red eye that leaves at 3+ am EDT on a Saturday (right after a game), waking up at 7 am EDT Sunday to warm up for a game doesn't feel any better than staying up until 11:30 EDT five days after going west.
And in any event, the Liberty outscored us after half time, so the eye test also didn't suggest they wilted at that "late" hour.
YKCornelius
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FarmFan, you are absolutely correct regarding the red-eye scenario. I would suggest to everyone posting on this topic, that it is more than just the change in a player's body clock (i.e., do they feel like it is either still morning or still evening to them) that can effect performance.
Another significant component of the "jet lag" effect, which further underscores the goofiness of the WNBA scheduling, is that when a person is on a 5.5 hour flight from East Coast to West Coast (or 4.5 hour from West to East flying in the jet stream) his/her body is breathing air regulated at approximately 6.5K feet of pressure altitude for all but about an hour of the flight. A body, especially a professional (or collegiate) athlete, needs time to acclimate and adjust in order to optimally perform.
Bottom line: WNBA scheduling is bonkers. Any team who flies x-country the day before playing is set up for poor performance, if not abject failure. Adding at least one full day of travel-time should be a hard line in the new CBA.
The team really misses Sabrina