Into college hoops? Then check out 'Shootaround' podcast

After chatting with coaches and players at the Big Ten's basketball media day in October, Debbie Antonelli ate a quick lunch and was ready to make her way back to O'Hare.

The South Carolina native had barely been in Chicago long enough to know that she actually was in Chicago. But that's the way Antonelli rolls. In one city one minute, gone the next.

Or in about three or four hours, to be more exact.

Antonelli is the closest thing women's basketball has to a face and a voice.

A color analyst, she does a whopping 80 television games per season - far more than most of the top broadcasters on the men's side - and about 90 percent are women's game. Even with three sons at home ages 14 and younger, Antonelli manages to go from coast to coast covering the game like no other.

She calls games mostly for ESPN, CBS Sports and Fox Sports Net and even does some radio for Westwood One.

"Sometimes I'll actually do two games in one day, as long as they're in close proximity to each other," Antonelli said. "But besides my three boys, this is my only job. It's busy and hectic but I love it."

Antonelli has kept up this dizzying pace for nearly 15 years, and with all of this criss-crossing the country, she recently started dreaming about hosting a national talk show for women's basketball. With such broad exposure to the game, Antonelli figured she'd be a natural to host it.

She approached one of her frequent television partners, play-by-play voice Beth Mowins, and "Shootaround with Beth and Debbie" was born.

Partnered with the Women's Basketball Coaches Association and run through its Web site (wbca.org), "Shootaround" is the first national women's basketball podcast that is designed like a sports talk-radio show.

"Coaches love it so much that they get mad at us if we haven't had them on yet," Antonelli laughed.

The 30-minute show, now in its third season and also available on iTunes, runs each Wednesday at 11 a.m. Central from mid-November until the season ends in early April. It features traditional analysis, debate and interviews with coaches, but is also edgy, conversational and anecdotal in its delivery.

Two years ago, the show drew 180,000 hits for the season. Last year, that increased to 350,000.

Now, "Shootaround" even has a corporate sponsor, Werner Ladder, the official ladder of the NCAA Basketball Championships.

"No one has ever said to me, 'You're responsible for being a caretaker of the game,' " said Antonelli, who got her start playing basketball for North Carolina State in the 1980s. "But I feel that I do because this is my profession, this is what I do and I sense a strong responsibility to help the sport grow.

"("Shootaround") has been a great outlet for that. It's a show that's caught on and it's growing and we think it's growing the game. We're creating a buzz about women's basketball. We've touched a market where there's never been anything like this and the feedback we've gotten is all positive."

Except for when Antonelli, who's been known to hold a strong opinion or two, occasionally rubs someone the wrong way.

"I call Beth (Mowins) 'Switzerland' because she's always so neutral about everything. But I'm always putting my opinions out there and people disagree with me all the time," Antonelli said with a laugh. "But that's OK. We want that. We want that kind of dialogue."

Recently, Antonelli put together a piece about Connecticut's dominance in women's basketball and pointed out that only 15 active Division I players in the country have ever won a game against Connecticut, which has gone 139-11 over the last four seasons, including 75-2 in the last two.

"Well, someone wrote in and was like, 'Um, I think you forgot about two players,' " Antonelli said. "And sure enough, I did. I forgot about a transfer at one school and a redshirt senior at another school who was a redshirt freshman the year her team beat Connecticut. I didn't like that I had made that mistake, but it felt good that people are listening that closely to us.

"I think that's a good sign."

pbabcock@dailyherald.com