A Random, Interesting Q&A with wnbadata

Wario, GOAT debates, avalanches, and more

There are a ton of great basketball-centric creators out there, who I personally want to learn more from and about, and I thought you might want to as well. So I started reaching out.

One of my favorite follows on Instagram and TikTok is wnbadata. Maddy churns out fascinating videos covering every aspect of the women’s game you could imagine, and then some. Her videos strike a perfect balance of succinct yet comprehensive that is a) hard to achieve and b) often missing from basketball conversation.

Maddy was kind enough to give really thoughtful answers to my meandering questions, on topics ranging from her teaching background to GOAT debates to solving the algorithm and more. So without further ado, here’s my conversation with Maddy from wnbadata:

---

CHRIS: Here’s what I know: you’re a math PhD student living in Seattle, and a huge fan of the UW Huskies women’s basketball team and the Seattle Storm. You started wnbadata in 2022 to highlight interesting things going on in women’s basketball and give the players more respect. What am I missing?

wnbadata: Before I made my WNBA account I was making TikToks on another account, mainly about the UW campus, but the people in the comments were really pissing me off. One day I had an epiphany that I could make content about both the WNBA, which I was really getting into at the time, and math/data, since I wanted to learn more data science stuff. It felt like all the WNBA content at the time was just rehashing the same two headlines over and over again (which is still kinda true today). I was surprised to find out that the username “wnbadata” wasn’t taken (a little inspired by @bachelordata) so I just started making videos on that account instead.

I think one way wnbadata and Charting Hoops are similar is that we both like exploring random, out-of-left-field, but interesting questions answered with data. Where did the idea for the Wario metric come from?

I literally don’t know where the Wario metric came from, and I’m shook that it’s been like three years since I made that. It might have just been because of the ‘W’. But I know for sure that the Wario herself, Azura Stevens, has seen that video, so that’s kinda scary.

One thing I love about your videos is the simple way you explain complex topics. Win share week is a great example. How much does wnbadata help your role as a TA PhD student, or vice versa?

I think they’ve both helped each other for sure. I don’t think I would have felt comfortable talking from a place of math authority in videos online if I hadn’t been TA’ing college math classes for a couple of years already. I especially think the freshman “Business Algebra” class I have TA’d for gave me lots of practice in explaining math concepts to non-math people, which is definitely what I do in some of my videos! I was also able to use my video skills to make homework hint videos for the linear algebra class I TA for, which students always say they love :)

What’s something that’s true about women’s basketball that others don’t agree with you about? (e.g., Alyssa Thomas should have an MVP)

Yeah AT has like 5 almost-MVPs at this point so they should just give her one!!

This is less of a truth and more of an opinion, but I just think that the Fever are annoying (don’t fight me.) I like most of the players individually (not Sophie) but the hype is scary!

What’s the focus of your PhD?

I study probability, specifically a stochastic process called “activated random walk.” It’s supposed to be used to model avalanches or something, but I guess physicists don’t really like it that much. I like probability because it’s kinda closer to the applied side of math, even though I am in the pure math PhD program at UW. Honestly if I could go back I would probably major in statistics because that’s really my vibe, but probability is pretty similar!

You did an internship with Stathead. What’s an interesting skill or insight you learned there you wouldn’t have gotten elsewhere?

Throughout my intern projects I learned that sometimes Google and copy/paste are the simplest and best ways to find and collect the data you’re looking for. I assumed that they’d have a lot more fancy ways of acquiring data, which they do for modern sports seasons, but for more historical data, there was a lot of Googling and ancestry.com stalking involved. I also helped gather data for some old women’s soccer seasons, which involved going to the Web Archive and copy/pasting the pages into a spreadsheet that someone from the data department had set up to extract all the game data.

It was also interesting to realize that sometimes official data or stats are just straight up wrong or impossible, and that’s ok. I investigated a handful of college basketball games in the database for which players had more minutes played than there were minutes in the game. In many cases, the data Sports Reference had was equivalent to what was on ESPN or newspaper accounts of the game, so we’d generally keep the error unless there was an obvious explanation for what it should actually be.

The juxtaposition of 90s retro tech with modern data analysis techniques is unique. Was that intentional, just a vibe you like, or something else?

It was kinda intentional but also kind of an accident. When I set up all my TVs, it was not with the intention to use it in my content at all, but I do love the old tech vibes. I wanted to make a video one day but didn’t feel like downloading a bunch of highlight clips to use in the background like I used to, so I ended up sitting in front of the TVs, and the algorithm really seemed to love it. Before doing that style the Instagram algorithm hated my stuff so I’m glad I randomly switched it up that day!

You made a video trying to recruit Sloot to the Storm, but I’d assume you still think Sue Bird is the GOAT Point Guard? Convince me why.

Yeah, I’m still kind of offended that Courtney Vandersloot ignored me. Suzanne is still the all-time assists leader and has way more win shares than Sloot, so that says it all.

What do you think is going on with Breanna Stewart’s 3 point shot since leaving Seattle?

Honestly idk she needs to get a grip.

Whichever you want to answer: what do the Storm need to do this offseason / What are you excited about for the upcoming UW season?

I truly don’t know what any WNBA team needs to do ever, especially with the non-existent CBA. But I’m excited that the UW women’s basketball team has some new Forwards/Centers, so maybe they won’t have to keep running their five-guard lineup at all times! It’s also so random that Avery Howell came here so I hope it works out for her.

What has been your favorite piece to work on (not necessarily the most successful)?

One of my favs is the NCAA jersey number video, and that’s one that I always come back to and remake. I love finding things that other people aren’t really talking about to make a video on, and it’s especially fun to analyze not so consequential stuff like jersey numbers. I still don’t know why more people aren’t talking about the relaxed jersey number rules in college?? Stay tuned for the 2025-26 update!

Favorite basketball book?

I’ve been bad about reading lately :/ I like Sprawlball a lot, even though it’s about the mans.

How tall is Mike Thibault?

I guess he’s 5’8” but I once asked someone who works for the Mystics and they didn’t tell me, so I think it’s actually a secret.

---