Ex-WNBA player Ruth Riley new radio, TV analyst

MIAMI — The Miami Heat have hired Ruth Riley Hunter, the former Miami Sol WNBA player, as their radio analyst and television studio analyst.

Riley Hunter, a two-time WNBA champion, replaces John Crotty in those roles. Crotty this season takes over as television analyst for Tony Fiorentino. She will work a radio schedule of home games alongside Mike Inlgis, as well as appear on Fox Sports Florida studio programming during road games alongside Channel 10 Sports Director Will Manso.

Riley Hunter, a firstround pick of the Sol in the 2001 WNBA draft out of Notre Dame, will be reunited with Heat halftime television host Ron Rothstein, her coach during her two seasons with the Sol, which folded in 2002.

Riley Hunter’s broadcast experience includes serving as color commentator on Notre Dame women’s basketball broadcasts. She has remained a presence around the NBA, participating in the recent NBA’s Africa Game, which featured Heat center Hassan Whiteside, as well as with the NBA’s Basketball Without Borders European initiative.

Riley Hunter, 39, last played in the WNBA in 2014, with the Atlanta Dream, after time with the Detroit Shock, San Antonio Silver Stars and Chicago Sky. She was on Notre Dame’s 2001 NCAA championship team and then won WNBA championships in Detroit in 2003 and ’06. She is the first player to be named Most Valuable Player of both the NCAA women’s Final Four and the WNBA championship series.

Riley Hunter most recently served as general manager of the San Antonio Stars, until that franchise relocated to Las Vegas this past WNBA season.

Born in Kansas and raised in Indiana, Riley Hunter also played professionally in Spain, Poland and Greece.

Her work off the court has included serving as spokesperson for the UN Foundation’s Nothing but Nets, a global campaign to saves lives through the strategic prevention of Malaria, and Share Our Strength, a national nonprofit committed to ending childhood hunger in America.