Exclusive: New Mystics announcer talks Georgia Amoore, ‘connectivity’ before WNBA season

The Washington Mystics debuted a few key players in Saturday’s 77-66 preseason loss to the Minnesota Lynx, including point guard Georgia Amoore, center Lauren Betts, forward Cotie McMahon, forward Angela Dugalic, guard Cassandre Prosper, and guard Rori Harmon. However, they also debuted their new play-by-play announcer Dorian Craft.

Monumental Sports Network, which broadcasts Mystics, Washington Wizards, and Washington Capitals games, announced Craft’s arrival on April 20. The Virginia Tech alum replaces Megan McPeak, who left Monumental after seven years to join USA Network’s WNBA broadcast team.

Craft started her career as a sports reporter in Hagerstown, Md. in 2013, which is around 90 minutes from Washington, D.C. She held a variety of roles after transitioning to live game broadcasting in 2016, including women’s basketball broadcasting on ACC Network and ESPNU. She’s been a full-time play-by-play announcer since 2022 and has called games for men’s and women’s basketball, pickleball, volleyball, softball, tennis and beach volleyball.

Craft will work alongside returning color commentator Christy Winters Scott and new sideline reporter Juliana Morgan. This will be Winters Scott’s 17th season as a commentator, while Morgan expands her role after being a multimedia journalist, on-camera talent, and social/video producer at Monumental since 2024. Winters Scott played for the University of Maryland from 1986 to 1990 and led the Terrapins to their third Final Four appearance in 1989. The Virginia native also coached at George Mason, Maryland, and Georgetown after her playing career.

Craft (left) and Winters Scott (right) can be seen giving postgame commentary from Saturday’s contest below.

The @WashMystics stayed on the same page all game long @doriancraft and @Christy51WScott break down their communication and defensive effort from the preseason opener! pic.twitter.com/7GCqsijN4T

— Monumental Sports Network (@MonSportsNet) April 26, 2026

Craft sat down with ClutchPoints for an exclusive interview on April 23 to discuss why she took the job, what makes her unique, and what excites her about this current era of Mystics and WNBA basketball. Washington is in Year 2 of its rebuild amid Year 1 of the WNBA’s new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), which includes a salary cap increase from $1.5 million to $7 million, a minimum player salary increase from $66,079 to $270,000-300,000, a maximum salary increase from $214,466 to $1.19 million ($249,244 to $1.4 million for supermax), and league-wide charter flights. These upgraded benefits come amid an unprecedented era of growth for the league, as the 2025 season was the most-watched ever on ESPN.

Meanwhile, the Mystics have a deep, young roster led by 2025 All-Stars Sonia Citron and Kiki Iriafen. They also have 2025 Associated Press Comeback Player of the Year Shakira Austin, while Betts won 2026 NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player honors after leading UCLA to the national title this past season. Additionally, Amoore is back in the fold after missing last season with a torn ACL. The native Australian was the No. 6 overall pick in 2025 after earning All-American honors at Kentucky.

Between that array of talent and its eight draft picks over the next two years, Washington has the resources to create sustained success, which Craft hopes to be a part of for the long haul.

Dorian Craft Q&A

Joshua Valdez: I know that you have a lot of experience across different sports and networks. What was it about the Mystics that grabbed you in particular? Obviously, working for one professional team for an extended period is going to be different.

Dorian Craft: Oh, I certainly hope it’s for a long period of time. You know, there are a couple of different ways that I looked at it. Personally and professionally, this job made a lot of sense for me…I started my career in the greater D.C. area, at WHAG-TV in Hagerstown, Maryland, which is an hour to an hour-and-a-half outside of the city, depending on how much traffic there is on the beltway. I used to spend a lot of time down here on my off days anyway. I’ve always loved coming to D.C. I have my graduate degree from George Washington, and I’ve got friends here who work at the Smithsonian and on Capitol Hill. So from a personal standpoint, this job made a lot of sense to me. I’ve always loved this area; it always felt like coming home.

So there was that, and then you look at the professional side of it. This is such an exciting time to be part of the W. You know, the league is just exploding. I was on a league-wide Zoom call earlier today, and I can’t reveal the details of that. But everyone knows the growth that the league has had over the last few years, and everyone believes in the sustained growth that the league is going to have in the years to come. So to get this opportunity, at this time, and then you add in the other facet of how young and exciting the Mystics are and what they’re building here in Washington, D.C….Quite honestly, I don’t know how anyone wouldn’t have wanted to be in this position. I’m just very fortunate that they decided that I was the right person for this moment and where they are as a franchise.

Joshua Valdez: Let’s stay on that for a second. Why do you think you are the right person, outside of your personal connection to the city?

Dorian Craft: Well, I think I’m a very versatile broadcaster. I’ve covered a lot of different sports, a lot of different basketball from a variety of leagues. I’ve actually gotten to call [Mystics guard] Lucy Olsen before. I called her career-high 33-point game when she played at Georgetown for Villanova. So, you know, I’ve gotten to call different leagues, different levels of men’s and women’s basketball. I also called a pair of ACC Network games with Christy before, so we already had that familiarity.

But I think one of the things that they liked about my style is that I don’t ever make the game about me. The game is about the game. It’s about the women, it’s about the action on the court. I want to set up Christy. I want her to be able to showcase her vast wealth of knowledge. She’s forgotten more about basketball than I will ever know, and she and I really have a good rapport. We also have a good rapport with our new sideline reporter [Morgan] as well. The three of us have hit it off tremendously, which is fantastic. But for me, I think it’s my energy, my passion, and just the way that I approach and care for each game, I think that’s one of my strongest suits.

Joshua Valdez: You talked about how exciting the team is. Who are a couple of players in particular that really excite you?

Dorian Craft: Pick your poison. The roster has exciting players up and down. Georgia Amoore, this’ll be her first year. That’s a really popular one for a lot of people in terms of players they’re excited to see get on the floor. I have my undergraduate degree from Virginia Tech, so I obviously noticed what she was doing and leading them to a Final Four, because the basketball program was not great when I was there. And then going to Kentucky with [head coach] Kenny Brooks…I’ve gotten to watch Georgia from afar for a long time, so I’m excited to finally see what she can do playing alongside Sonia and Kiki.

But you take a look at the draft class, I’ve been watching them in training camp the last few days. I’m really excited to see Angela out there on the floor. I think she has a lot of versatility. Everyone’s going to talk about Lauren. I know Lauren has a huge presence on the interior. I’m excited to see how Angela can play off of that. The size that this team has is going to make them really interesting too.

Rori Harmon, she brings so much energy. She has been so fun to watch in training camp. She is everywhere on the floor, she’s bouncing around. I just love her vibe. And then Cas Prosper, I just love the way that she’s been getting after it. She’s scrappy, she’s been on the floor. There are so many different players who bring so many different things to this roster.

Joshua Valdez: You also mentioned that the league itself is in a very exciting time. How might you approach this role differently than some of your past jobs given the WNBA’s new landscape?

Dorian Craft: That is a really good question. The way that I’ve called in the past…it’s been about the numbers to some degree. Someone asked me this yesterday about how I call games, and I feel like the games tell you how they want to be called. That may sound like a really weird answer, but every game’s not the same. You don’t know what kind of game you’re getting until you get into it. I feel like the games dictate the way that they’re called, just by the score and the flow and the necessity.

I think one of the key focuses for not just me, but for myself, Christy, and Juliana, is that we really want to be storytellers. We want fans to get to know these women, not just for what they do on the court, but also the women that they are off the court. I think that’s a big driver of what we’re seeing in terms of the popularity in the WNBA. People want to know these women. They want to know about them as people and really feel like they have a connection with them. And that’s one of the things that I really am putting an emphasis on, knowing these players on and off the court and [asking myself] “How can I best convey that to the fans?”

Joshua Valdez: Given that you’re new, you probably haven’t gotten that much time to get to know the players yet. How do you grapple with learning everything on the fly?

Dorian Craft: Well, I’ve been very fortunate in terms of being thrown into the deep end to get to know people very quickly, but with a ton of support from everyone here at Monumental. They’ve been great. You know, I came in, and we had Media Day immediately [on April 20]. We had a content capture day yesterday, because in addition to my responsibilities as a play-by-play [announcer], I’m also hosting Mystics Courtside this year. So we did some stuff for that show yesterday, and I finally got to meet every single player. I met some of them in passing at Media Day, but we got to chat for a few minutes yesterday as part of the show.

Just getting those little moments to discuss with them…I know that we’ll continue to build as the season goes on, but my main focus yesterday was, again, to get to know more about them as people. I can always ask them questions about the on-court stuff, post-practice, and as we go along. But the primary focus — and it’s not just the way that I call games, this is how I like my relationships to be as well — I want people to know that I care about them as people first, and the professional side of things second.

Joshua Valdez: Is there anything you can share yet about some of the players as people? 

Dorian Craft: I don’t want to get too deep into that, because some of the things that we’re doing for Mystics Courtside are embargoed until those shows come out…But I think the biggest thing to know about these women is — you’ll hear them talk about it — the word for this team so far is “joy.” I’ve already seen that in the first three days of training camp, the joy that they have for the game, the joy that they have for one another.

You know, I’ve been around a lot of different teams and a lot of different sports. You’ll hear players and coaches talk about “connectivity” and how important that relationship is. This team seems to have it from the jump, and that’s something that you can’t force; you can’t create. It’s just an inherent thing. I think that makes this team really, really special, but I also think it says a lot about who these players are as women, and about [head coach Sydney] Johnson. They genuinely seem like they care about one another, and I think that’s a really rare thing.

Joshua Valdez: Switching gears, who are some commentators that have inspired you along your journey?

Joshua Valdez: Well, I mean, obviously, I have to give a shout-out to my mentor, Kate Scott, with the [Philadelphia] 76ers. Kate took me under her wing when I was still a local sports reporter back in 2018. She is actually the one who recommended me for this job. I owe her so much. She’s talked me off so many ledges. She has boosted me when I didn’t believe in myself. Obviously, I love her, I love what she does. She’s opened so many doors for me and for other people coming behind me.

Beth Mowins is a huge one as well. I got the opportunity to actually do a Zoom interview with her during COVID, and I fangirled tremendously. You know, Beth is a trailblazer in our industry.

I’m a big tennis person, I listen to a lot of tennis, I play tennis. I love Jim Courier. I know he’s an analyst, but I love the way that he talks about his sport because I always feel like I come away learning something. In my role, I always try to make sure — and I set Christy up for this as well — but I want to make sure that people are not just entertained, but they also feel like they are learning something. Whether it’s learning about a player through storytelling, or learning something about the game in a higher manner, so that they’re taking something else away from it.

Joshua Valdez: What’s some advice you have for younger people who want to be like you when they grow up?

Dorian Craft: My biggest piece of advice is to try. You know, I fell into this. I always wanted to be a broadcaster. I wanted to do that since I was nine years old, but I was working in local sports. At the time, I still thought I maybe wanted to be a sideline reporter. I was living in Little Rock, Arkansas at the time, and UALR [University of Arkansas at Little Rock] was going on the ESPN+ platform. They needed somebody to call their women’s basketball games, and they reached out to me and said, “I know you’ve never done this before, but we think you’d be good at it if you want to try.” I said yes, but I said yes because I thought it would make me better in terms of my reaction time and having to speak with some preparedness, but I didn’t have something specific. We were gonna have to react to it in real time.

So I took it to better my skills in other areas, and it just so happened that I loved it. The more I did it, the more I loved it, and the more my career grew. My biggest thing is to say yes, be flexible, try new things, and try hard things. My husband told me before I left, “Always remember that you can do hard things.” That’s the thing that I want people to always know. I know things in life like career opportunities can seem daunting, but you can do hard things.

Joshua Valdez: Lastly, I know you just started the role, but what legacy do you want to leave behind when it’s all over?

Dorian Craft: Oh, that’s a question that I ask people. Like, I never think about it in terms of myself. The funny thing is, if I could do this job in total anonymity, I would. It just happens to have a forward-facing component. I am an introvert at heart. It’s weird that people want to know me. I understand that they do, but I don’t think I’m that interesting.

But what I hope is that other girls know that this is possible for them. That would make me so happy. There were very few women in sports broadcasting when I was a kid; it’s one of the major reasons why I wanted to do this. So if they could take that from it, I would love that.

But mostly, I just want people to remember me as somebody who really cared. You know, I care so much about what I do. I understand the responsibility that comes with it, because I understand that it’s not about me. I’ve been given this gift to have this opportunity, and so it’s about the franchise. It’s about the players, it’s about everybody that’s involved with this organization, with Monumental, with the Mystics. Just someone who’s eternally grateful and understands what this means to everybody else.

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