Ballhalla is the Sixth Man with Kayla Thornton

Sarah Spain (0:01)

Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where yesterday I ended my six plus year streak of voting in my Bird Rapinoe 2020 sweatshirt. Hillary Knight and Brittany Bowe, it's time to step up, your country needs you. It's Wednesday, November 4th, and here's hoping we all woke up feeling a little more hopeful. Not the Nazis, of course. I hope they're having a real shit day. On today's show, WNBA champion Kayla Thornton joins us to discuss Golden State's title win, playing in front of an incredible crowd at Ballhalla, the best moments from the team's celebration so far, and how this championship feels different than the one she won with the New York Liberty. Plus, day one is in the record books, Juju is back, and the Liberty decided to finally call that time out. It's all coming up right after this.

Welcome back, Slices. Here's what you need to know today.

Let's start with College Hoops, where the first full day of games saw an NCAA single game record broken. Northwestern State sophomore Chloe Donnell recorded 14 three-pointers in her team's 120-40 victory over non-NCAA-affiliated Ecclesia College Monday night, tying the NCAA record for most three-pointers made in a single game. Donnell, who transferred from South Alabama ahead of this season, finished the night with 46 points. Monday's Slate of Games also saw the return of USC guard Juju Watkins, who missed all of last season after tearing her ACL during the 2025 NCAA tourney. Watkins scored 21 points in USC's 168 victory over UNLV, adding five rebounds and two assists in her 25 minutes on the court. A couple more noteworthy efforts in season openers. Washington's Savia Seller started hot with a triple double, 25 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists to lead the number 16 Huskies past UC San Diego 79-63. While LSU sophomore guard Zakiya Johnson scored a career high, 33 points and added 13 rebounds to help number nine LSU to a record 129-35 route of southeastern Louisiana. Finally, friend of the show Michaela Blakes picked up where she left off last year, 27 points, nine rebounds and six assists for number eight Vanderbilt in a 1-12-53 route of Lipscomb.

To the WNBA, the New York Liberty fired head coach Chris DiMarco on Tuesday, less than one year after he was hired. DiMarco led the team to a 26-18 record in 2026 While the eight seed Liberty upset the Minnesota Lynx in round one of the WNBA playoffs, they were swept by the Atlanta Dream 3-0 in the semifinals. Liberty fans won't soon forget the infamous game two loss in which DiMarco failed to use their reset timeout in overtime and then let star Brianna Stewart answer questions about the failure in the team's postgame presser. A few days later during exit interviews, DiMarco said he expected to return as head coach for the 2027 season, but his players didn't express the same level of confidence. And throughout the season, Stewart was frequently seen leading the team on the sidelines, inspiring internet memes joking that she should have been named WNBA coach of the year. Following the firing of Sandy Brondello last year, Liberty GM Jonathan Kolb said of his third coaching search that's taking the job in 2019, quote, we need to nail this.

Safe to say with New York now searching for its third head coach in three years and fourth in Kolb's tenure, they didn't nail it.

To hockey. We mentioned earlier this week that Britta Curl-Solemmi was notably absent from the US hockey roster for the upcoming World Championship. And now we know why. On Monday, Britta and her husband posted a photo on Instagram of the two of them sitting beside a literal bun in a literal oven. And PWHL Detroit, which signed Curl-Solemmi during the expansion process, confirmed that she is pregnant and will miss the upcoming PWHL season.

Slices, we wanted to give a shout out to the 80-year-old marathon runner that yesterday's guest, Erica Edwards O'Neill, mentioned in her interview. Her name is Mildred Baker, and she fell in love with running in her late 70s when she joined the New York Roadrunner Striders, the organization's free fitness program for older adults. And we're happy to share that on Sunday, at 80 years old, Mildred completed her first ever marathon in seven hours and three minutes. Now, surprisingly, she wasn't the oldest runner to finish the race. A 90 year old man takes that title. But huge congrats to Mildred for reminding us all, it's never too late to start. All right, we're going to take a break. When we come back, champagne and confetti with WNBA champion, Kayla Thornton.

Joining us now, she's a member of the 2026 WNBA champion Golden State Valkyries. Now a two-time WNBA champ, having won a chip with the New York Liberty in 2024, she started her career with the Washington Mystics in 2015, returned to the W in 2017, signed with the Dallas Wings, spent six seasons there before getting traded to the Liberty, then got scooped up by the Valks in the 2025 expansion draft. Born in Germany, raised in El Paso, she graduated Irvin High School as the school's all-time leading scorer and finished her college career at UTEP as that team's all-time leading scorer too. She's a singer, she loves a waffle fry and she hates to know it all. It's Kayla Thornton. Hi, Kayla.