The Guru’s WNBA Round Up: Washington Snaps Three-Game Skid by Edging Clark-less Indiana

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

An enhanced crowd of 11,183 Mystics fan at the only WNBA game of Wednesday night who were at the CFG Bank Arena in Baltimore got the two things they came to see: Indiana’s Caitlin Clark and what became an 83-77 win by Washington (3-3) that snapped a three-game losing streak, all by narrow setbacks off the recent road trip.

The attendance figure was for sold tickets, the actual live crowd, a bit less, according to the Washington Post, which said the cheapest ticket price on the secondary market was $41 when first on sale but had plunged to $6 near the time of the opening tip, few taking advantage.

The Fever dropped to 2-3 but Clark had no role in the loss, but she did on the price decline being on the bench out of uniform sidelined by a left quad injury announced Monday missing the first of a minimum of a predicted four games the next weeks.

“That’s a very good team,” said Washington first-year coach Sydney Johnson after the game of the Fever, adding, “and I feel like we’re showing a little bit of something ourselves.”

As all WNBA teams with small home arenas have done involving Clark visits since she came into league last season, the Mystics, who had already sold a slew of tickets prior to her injury in last Saturday’s narrow home loss to New York, moved the game up the road from their Southeast Washington home to Baltimore unable to use the larger downtown sister NBA Capital Center that is undergoing renovations.

Clark is out of pro action for the first after all 40 regular season and two playoff games in 2024 and the first four of this season. Additionally, she had perfect game participation her Iowa career that began with the 2020-21 Covid-plagued season.

The last time she was out of uniform was her sophomore season at Dowling Catholic High in her hometown of West Des Moines.

Ironically, the Mystics game included a rookie player who filled Clark’s point guard spot last winter after the all-time NCAA leading scorer graduated Iowa to be the No. 1 overall pick of the 2024 draft by the Fever who went on to be rookie of the year and made the All-WNBA first team.

That would be Lucy Olsen, who transferred from Villanova to the Hawkeyes her senior season and kept Iowa relevant last winter though unable to extend a two-time advance to the NCAA title game.

Olsen, drafted in the second round at 23rd overall last month, only played six minutes off the bench, about her floor time average in five earlier games but she made the most of them shooting 2-3 making both 3-point attempts and she also dished for an assist.

That is about the same average time Olsen’s former Villanova teammate Maddy Siegrist, the all-time Philadelphia’s NCAA women’s scorer, saw in 2023 after going third overall to Dallas.

Leading the way in Washington’s win Wednesday night as she has done most of the season was Syracuse grad Brittney Sykes with 21 points and nine boards.

“Being able to bring this game here is so much more than basketball.” Sykes said. “Just being able to have a performance like we did in front of little girls from Baltimore – little guys, too, but especially little girls – is just helping them see what the WNBA is.”

Rookie Kiki Iriafen, fourth overall in the draft, added 16 points, the former Southern Cal and previous Stanford standout looking as a potential threat to Dallas’ No. 1 overall pick Paige Bueckers to rookie of the year as has been Washington’s other first rounder Sonia Citron, the Notre Dame grad who scored 13 points.

Ole Miss grad Shakira Austin off the bench also scored 13, all in the first half which ended with the home team ahead 44-40. She had missed a week caused by a concussion.

The Mystics are the youngest of the 13 WNBA teams just over an average age of 29.

On the other side, free-agent signee Dewanna Bonner, formerly with the Connecticut, off the bench was 5-10 with a pair from deep scoring 21 points for the Fever, Kelsey Mitchell added 14 points, Aliyah Boston scored 10 with seven rebounds, Natasha Howard scored 11 with six boards and Lexie Hull was just short scoring double figures with nine points.

Bonner, just before the game’s end, hit a long 3-pointer and now is the first WNBA player with 7,500 points, 3,000 rebounds, and 1,000 assists.

Despite Clark’s absence, replaced by Sydney Colson scoring four points as a starter in 31 minutes, the game was close all the way, Washington securing the win with Sykes blocking Mitchell’s attempted layup and then adding three of four free throw attempts in the last minute.

Prior to the tip, Clark signed autographs and took selfies with fans behind Indiana’s bench, according to the Washington Post, over 12 minutes before moving by the scorer’s table for the game close to the Fever coaching staff headed by Stephanie White.

“When you're forced to sit on the sideline for a while, there's some things you can see you might not have noticed in live action,” White said afterwards. “So, I think it gives Caitlin an opportunity to look at it a little more from a coach's perspective.... She can hear some of the conversations, hear points of emphasis and see it through a different lens.”

Washington next up hosts New York, part of Friday night’s five-game slate, the defending champion Liberty coming as part of a back-to-back after hosting Golden State Thursday at 7 p.m. on the WNBA’s streaming League Pass.

New York (4-0) also hosted the expansion Valkyries Tuesday at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, winning 109-87, setting a WNBA record reaching 90 points in all four season games to date.

Indiana on Friday at 7:30 p.m. hosts Connecticut (0-5), the visiting Sun still after their first season win in the game at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. All five Friday games are on ION and League Pass.

Thursday’s other game, which is airing on Amazon Prime, has the league’s other winless team, the Chicago Sky (0-4), at 8 p.m. at Dallas (1-4), which was led by overall No. 1 pick Paige Bueckers Tuesday at Connecticut in the Wing’s first win this season.

Washington is back in Baltimore again in September when Indiana next visits.

As for the magnet effect on these arena moves caused by the phenomenon surge of interest in the sport caused by Clark dating to her junior season at Iowa, White, who previously coached Indiana to a title but recently had been running the Connecticut Sun, gave her perspective:

“I don't care what the reason is that you come to watch that first time,” she said. “Because then, they fall in love with the product. They fall in love with the game. They fall in love with how these women are the best in the world. It just takes getting them there once, and they'll want to come back.”