Connecticut Sun - Name That Tune: Is it “I’ll Follow the Sun” or Fantasy (the Twelfth of Never)?

By Andy Lipton

Leading the ‘Break®

 

The Connecticut Sun basketball team will hardly be recognized this coming WNBA with its starting five dispersed through free agency and trades.  Although never the bride, it’s been a consistent title-contending team for a good number of years.

 

Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio?  I mean DiJonai Carrington, Ty Harris, Alyssa Thomas, DeWanna Bonner, and Brionna Jones.  And if you don’t know where Coach Stephanie White has gone, ask Caitlin Clark.

 

With a new head coach, a relatively new general manager and many new players, it’s very fair to say that the Sun won’t be shining bright again very soon.

 

But suppose, just suppose, UCONN basketball player alums President Jennifer Rizzotti and GM Morgan Tuck gather together the tight UCONN family that’s dispersed in the WNBA to come to the rescue of the Sun for a UCONN reunion dressed in Sun uniforms.

 

Let’s start with the conquering hero, Breanna Stewart, the UCONN alum who has now won three WNBA championships in far-away lands (ok New York is not far away). Imagine her returning to the Constitution State and a fan-base that saw her start to become one of the greatest women players of all-time.  Chills. She would be the lynchpin of the team.

 

Stewart and Tuck played together for four years at UCONN and won four NCAA Championships together.  There is a strong bond.

 

Stewie will be a free agent after the 2025 season.  She is still one of the best players in the world.  A last hurrah in Connecticut?  Remember LeBron James upon winning a NBA Championship in Cleveland.  “This one’s for you Cleveland.”

 

(And by the way, if Stewie ever leaves the Liberty, expect Satou Sabally to come to New York.  It’s her kind of town, will open up opportunities outside of basketball, she’ll get the recognition she deserves as one of the best in the W, and it will give her the chance to play with her sister, which Satou has said is a future goal.)

 

Up next, Napheesa Collier, Stewie’s business partner in the Unrivaled League as well as her teammate one year at UCONN.  This could be a very tough sell as she’s in the prime of her career and the foundation for a Minnesota Lynx team that lost a gut-wrenching deciding Game 5 in the recent WNBA Finals and is hungry for a title. If the Lynx win it all this coming 2025 season, maybe….

 

Next up might be Azura Stevens, also in the prime of her career.  She’s a big part of the Los Angeles Sparks and is very happy in LA.  But if the Sparks don’t make significant progress this year, maybe a once-in-a-lifetime UCONN reunion will be appealing.  Stevens recently won a championship in the Unrivaled League with the Rose BC and I’m sure she is yearning for a WNBA title.

 

How about Gabby Williams?  She has played for the new Sun Head Coach Rachid Meziane when he was an assistant coach with the French National Team in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics (played in 2021) and in the 2021 European Championships.

 

And in 2022, Williams experienced playing with three other UCONN alums with the Seattle Storm, to wit, Sue Bird, Breanna Stewart, and Tina Charles.

 

In June 2022, after a Storm victory against the Liberty, but before Charles joined the Storm that season, I asked Williams what it was like playing with UCONN alums Stewart and Bird, and did they help her game.  She couldn’t have been more complimentary about the two.  Here are some of her comments:

 

“There’s just a connection between all UCONN alumni.  I even saw like Kalana Greene tonight in the stands. Never played with her but just a huge great hug.  It’s almost like we all have similar experiences and maybe that kind of brings us together.…It’s been really amazing to be able to have Sue and Stewie here…. Stew tells me anything, I almost want to write it down in a notebook and remember it forever….”

 

And there’s Tina Charles who looks like she could play until she’s 50.  Oh, my bad, she’s already on the Sun, having joined this off-season.

 

Kia Nurse is a two-time UCONN NCAA champ having played with Tuck and Stewie. Nurse was a four-year starter at UCONN and a very important part of those teams.

 

She’s been with five WNBA teams. The Liberty, Storm, Mercury, Sparks, and now the Sky.  In her six years in the league, only her Mercury teams in 2021 and 2022 made the playoffs and Nurse was injured in 2022. So, she’s only played in the playoffs in 2021. Maybe her mojo is waiting for her back in Connecticut.

 

Talking about mojo, success seems to follow Kiah Stokes, a two-time WNBA champ with the Las Vegas Aces, two-time EuroLeague Champion, two-time Turkish Cup Champion, a three-time NCAA champ at UCONN, and a state champ in high school.

 

Given Kiah’s good sense of humor, she may find this reunion amusing. But it also might be very attractive to be to play again with former UCONN teammates Stewart, Tuck, Nurse, and Moriah Jefferson.

 

Moriah Jefferson, now with the Chicago Sky, played with Stewart and Tuck in winning those four NCAA championships together.

 

Tiffany Hayes recently signed with the expansion team Golden State Valkyries and briefly retired from the WNBA when she was with the Sun two years ago.  Back in 2009 and 2010 she won NCAA championships with UCONN.  A WNBA championship, though, has eluded her after 12 seasons in the W.  Might she think: last hurrah?

 

Big Mama Stef Dolson - she could be the leader of the pack to help facilitate this get-together.

 

If second-year WNBA players Aaliyah Edwards and Nika Muhl don’t have the right to be free agents and don’t have the clout to force a trade in a year or two, maybe Tuck could make the Mystics and Storm offers they can’t refuse.  Cue the Godfather music.

 

Olivia Nelson-Ododa.  Already on the Sun.

 

And there’s also Lou-Lopez Senechal, Dorka Juhasz, Evina Westbrook, Christyn Williams, and Crystal Dangerfield.

 

Apologies if I’ve left anybody out.

 

Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi coming out of retirement?  Now that’s a fantasy.

 

Let’s turn to the curious case of Paige Bueckers - no introduction necessary. In a few days she will likely be the first person selected in 2025 WNBA Draft. The Dallas Wings own the number one pick and will likely take her. The Sun has the 7th and 8th overall picks. 

 

But will Bueckers play in the WNBA in 2025?   Howard Megdal, the veteran women’s basketball writer, in the March 19, 2025 article in The IX, posits that Bueckers may substantially benefit economically if she sits out the 2025 WNBA season. 

 

If the WNBA and the WNBA Players Association reach an agreement and enter into a new collective bargaining agreement for the 2026 season it is likely to be a substantial financial improvement for the players given the growth in the league. He says Bueckers could still benefit financially the year she sits out by playing overseas and/or the Unrivaled League.[1]

 

If Bueckers does sit out the 2025 season, she would be a free agent for 2026 and could sign with the Sun.

 

I spoke with Bueckers at the 2024 WNBA Draft as she was there to support her UCONN teammates Nika Muhl and Aaliyah Edwards.  That night she told me that it was always her dream to play in the WNBA. [2]

 

 Given her numerous endorsements with companies like Nike and Gatorade and the financial support that provides her, I’d be very surprised if she put her dream on hold for financial reasons.

 

But if she did sit for a season and then signed with the Sun, Bueckers could be the lynchpin of a young team trying to find its identity, or if there is a reunion, she could be one of many terrific former UCONN players on the Sun.

 

And last but not least, Coach Geno Auriemma.  Wouldn’t expect him to leave UCONN, especially after just winning his 12th NCAA title and seeing and hearing how meaningful it is to still coach at UCONN. And it’s only right to give new Sun Coach Meziane a good chance to succeed.

But Auriemma could keep his day job and moonlight as a consultant to the Sun with his deep knowledge of and affection for his former UCONN players.

 

After a UCONN game against St. John’s this past January, Auriemma was asked about his former spoke players Stewart and Collier starting the Unrivaled League. He said he couldn’t be prouder, as if they were his own children.[3]

 

Moonlighing. Btw, come to think of it, Geno and the character Bruce Willis played in Moonlighting, David Addison, have that common ability to be funny while making a pointed comment.

 

So which song is it?

 

Will it be the Beatles song, written by Lennon and McCartney, I’ll Follow the Sun? 

 

“One day, you’ll look, to see I’ve gone, for tomorrow may rain so I’ll follow the sun”.

 

Or will it be Earth, Wind & Fire’s Fantasy (The Twelfth of Never) written by Maurice White, Verdine White, and Eddie del Barrio?

 

I guess it’s true when EW&F sing:

 

“Every man has a place,

In his heart, there’s a space

And the world can’t erase his fantasies.”

 

1 https://www.theixsports.com/features/who-really-won-unrivaled-georgia-amoore-talks-kentucky-wnba-future/

2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzJ-ljFpTlA

3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byhK298yO50