The Guru’s WNBA Report: Connecticut Ends Franchise Run With a Win; Playoffs Set as Washington, Minnesota, and Las Vegas Romp and Golden State Rallies

 Content updating with Lynne Roberts firing and other items.

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsgurux

UNCASVILLE, Conn. – In any other scenario the end of the WNBA regular season here Thursday night at the Mohegan Sun Arena would have been eclipsed by the ending shuffling into the final standings setting up what promises to be an exciting last piece of September and all October of playoff basketball that if the finals go the seven-game distance, which did not occur last season in their first time in expanded format, will last until 24 hours before the collegiate basketball season opens with a double header in Rome between the men’s and women’s teams of Villanova and Notre Dame.

The Connecticut Sun, in a two year-rebuild, would have been focused on getting back to the glory days jumped started as a lottery team with a bunch of talent rich candidates, while the Toronto Tempo, finishing its first year as an expansion squad, would have reflected on surviving a debut hampered by injuries but also having the same focus as a lottery participant.

However, as one of the top storylines has been the welcoming of expansion cities coming into the fold until the end of the decade when Philadelphia becomes the 18th team following the arrivals of Golden State (2025), Cleveland (2028), and Detriot (2029), the latter two returning to previous WNBA towns, Wednesday saw a 24-season saga come to its conclusion with the Sun headed to Houston, rebranded as the Comets, the same name as the original operation in the Lone Star State that won the first four league titles (1997-2000).

The ownership is NBA, but a different group than the previous management in charge of one of the eight charter members when the WNBA launched in 1999, coached by Van Chancellor and headlined by Hall of Famers Sheryl Swoopes, Cynthia Cooper, and Tina Thompson.

When the Mohegan Tribe, which acquired the former Orlando Miracle and became the first non-NBA group involved with the WNBA, put the team up for sale, it appeared to be targeted for nearby Boston, which would have seen the team leap from one of the smaller markets to a major city that would still be accessible by the passionate fan base here that grew beyond the crowd raised on the domination by the University of Connecticut.

Indeed, there has been much UConn DNA involved; team president Jen Rizzotti was the dynamic point guard on the first NCAA champion of 11 more to come out run by Geno Auriema, and general manager Morgan Tuck was a later star with the Huskies, while media people in the Nutmeg State covering the collegians doubled up in the summer also  dealing with the Sun.

Both Rizzotti and Tuck have been hired to run the team in its new city, which, for Rizzotti is a return to a place she played for two seasons after the New England Blizzard was part of the collapse of the American Basketball League in the second month of its third season, a demise set when the powerful NBA announced the coming of the WNBA.

 Rizzotti, however, was filled with emotion here after the team thrilled the sellout crowd of 8,911 adding to the nostalgic final chapter of the Sunset Season with a 95-81 victory, book marked when rookie and Duke alum Ashlon Jackson nailed a 3-pointer and scored her 18th point, the team high for the night and final score in franchise history.

When the final buzzer sounded the crowd stood up and applauded as the team took one more set of photos.

“‘Coach (Frenchman Rachid Meziane) spoke about us playing for our pride - pride for our fans, pride for our name, pride for the organization itself. I think we did just that.”

Thank yous were issued throughout from both sides after the game ended, to the point that Meziane presented one of the consistent local media beat members with a bottle of French wine.

The Sun (11-33), which snapped a six-game losing streak, finished tied for 13th with Toronto and ahead of last-place Seattle (8-36) while behind the also-lottery teams tied for 10th in Phoenix (16-28), last season’s surprise runner-up to Las Vegas, Chicago and Los Angeles, and ninth-place Portland (17-27), this season’s other expansion team that was still nine games behind the last playoff qualifier in eighth place New York (26-18).

Saluting the crowd, Rizzotti proclaimed to the crowd, “You guys have been our family for 24 years. I know how hard it is. You have proved that Connecticut deserves a WNBA team.

“And I just want you all to know that no matter what happens from here, this team, as they move onto the next chapter of their careers, the success that all of them have in their future, you will always be part of that. Always.”

All season the team brought back legendary coaches and players who helped make the team the gold standard in terms of operation while falling short several times of a WNBA title, the most recent in 2019 when the Sun were beaten in a full five-game series by Washington, coached by the Sun’s original and longtime mentor Mike Thibaut, whose daughter Carly was an original ball girl and now is not far away to the near South as a successful coach of Fairfield, which has won three straight Metro (formerly MAAC) titles and earned a national ranking in the Associated Press women’s poll.

Thibault was one of the last honorees brought back in Sunday’s home game against Minnesota, whose support coaching staff includes former Sun and Lynx all-time great Lindsay Whalen and Thibault’s son Eric, whose previously succeeded his father coaching Washington, while Dad remained GM until both were let go several years ago.

Mike has been coach of the Belgian national team following Meziane after the latter’s hire by the Sun.

Houston ended up with a team, set in action by now-departing commissioner Cathy Engelbert, who spoke much of the city just missing making the expansion group, out of a round which Boston had not submitted a bid.

Back at Wednesday’s game, Jackson was 5-for-9 on three-pointers. Rooie Raegan Beers added 17 points with eight rebounds, former UConn standout Aaliyah Edwards had 16 points, rookies Hailey Van Lith and Gianna Kneepkins each scored 12.

Edwards, in a postgame TV interview afterwards, shouted to the crowd, “This is the basketball capital of the world, baby! Don’t ever forget!” echoing the claim her alma mater makes off the slew of women’s national titles and multiple crowns won by the men’s team.

Toronto, headed by former New York Liberty coach Sandy Brondello, let go last fall one season removed from guiding the franchise to its first WNBA title in then-29 seasons of existence, against Connecticut got 28 points from rookie Kiki Rice, one of a record six draftees from NCAA champion UCLA.

Isabelle Harrison had 19 points, Laura Juskaite scored 15, and Kia Nurse scored 10 points.

Before the game, Brondello, looking at the first season of the Tempo, noted having just two weeks to put a team together, a situation created due to how late labor negotiations went until a landmark major deal brought the start of multi millions of dollars in salaries.

WNBA Playoffs Set

Though the eight teams in the field were decided several weeks ago, the seed placement overall went undetermined for all but two teams into Thursday night.

Defending champion Las Vegas (31-13), winner of three of the last four titles, defeated Phoenix handily 100-82 on the road as A’ja Wilson, the former South Carolina star and favorite to win another MVP for the season, which would be her fifth, scored 34 points, while Jewell Loyd off the bench scored 25 points.

It wasn’t totally in the bag as it seemed when the Mercury cut a 31-point deficit to nine midway in the fourth period until the rally died in the act of a pair of offensive fouls and a technical.

Fourteen more points for the winners came from Stephanie Talbot, while Chelsea Gray scored 12 of 56 percent shooting from the field, with 28 assists, while Jackie Young had 11 assists and 10 more helpers from Gray.

Wilson’s 30 tied a league mark she set last year with her total happening 13 times this season scoring 30 or more.

Philadelphia-born Kahleah Copper, a Rutgers grad, scored 18 for Phoenix while Shay Ciezki, a former Penn Stater, scored 13 and Natasha Mack scored 12.

That left the final piece of the season-ending puzzle to Golden State (32-11), which a year ago set an expansion record with season wins and qualifying for the playoffs before record sellout home crowds of 18,040, that have marked every game the past two seasons.

The Valkyries were even better this year, narrowly close to winning the No. 1 seed when Minnesota slumped the last two weeks, but on Thursday, in what was veteran Nneka Ogwumike, the longtime president of the players’ association, in her final career game, performing with Los Angeles at home, scored 17 points with 15 boards and five assists for the Sparks with her 19th double-double and 134th to finish six on the career charts, while Dearica Hamby and Rae Burrell each scored 15.

The Sparks had built a 69-57 lead with 4:42 remaining in regulation, and if it held, the Valkyries would slip to a third seed, depriving them of home court advantage if meeting the Aces in the best-of-five semifinals.

But Golden State suddenly stirred and deprived Los Angeles from the field the rest of the way until the last shot of the game for a 69-57 victory as the visitors finished on a 17-4 run.

Gabby Williams, another of the slew of UConn stars in the league, scored 14 points in 20 minutes, eight in the final 90 seconds, while Kaitlyn Chen, who played undergrad ball for Ivy champion Princeton before concluding as a graduate at UConn, scored 14 of her 18 points in the final quarter.

When the Valkyries were introduced as the first expansion outfit in a long time, the owner, who also owns the successful NBA Golden State Warriors, predicted a title within five years, a forecast of which the team lead by last season’s coach of the year in Natalie Nakase are projecting much faster.

Nakase, the first Asian American coach in the league, who was a former Becky Hammon assistant in Las Vegas, suddenly was a potential candidate to retain her coach of the year title, pending how many ballots still had not been cast for postseason awards from a nationwide media panel, whose ballots are due Friday.

On the other side by Friday morning Lynne Roberts, hired a year ago from Utah, was fired, ESPN cited sources, after the Sparks missed the playoffs in both her seasons.

Meanwhile, another coaching candidate is Sydney Johnson, whose Washington Mystics (27-17) weren’t predicted to make the playoffs but landed the fifth seed with the most wins in franchise history, more than the title achievers in 2019, after exciting a home crowd by capping it off with a 101-93 win over the Chicago Sky as second-year pros Sonia Citron scored 21 points and Kiki Iriafen scored 16 with 15 boards, both players being late insertions into openings on what became the Gold Medal winning USA champions over France earlier this month.

The Mystics finished the season strong, winning seven of eight and 16 of 19, and sweeping Chicago 3-0.

Michaela Onyenwere added 16 points and Georgia Amoore scored 14 with 12 from reserve Cotie Mahon, a rookie. Shakira Austin grabbed 11 of the Mystics dominating 44-27 advantage on the boards.

Veteran Courtney Vandersloot scored 16 for Chicago, as did Kamila Cardoso and Sydney Taylor, a walk-on rookie who was stellar all season for the visiting Sky.

Washington last played in the postseason in 2023.

The move to fifth was made possible by the remaining game of the night as Minnesota (33-11), which had dominated the season but slumped down the stretch, including a Monday blowout loss from Indiana (28-16), but backed into the top seed when Golden State was upset in overtime by Phoenix, on Wednesday paid back the Caitlin Clark and Kelsey Mitchell Fever 86-66 despite for the second straight game missing rookie sensation Olivia Miles with a calf injury.

Kayla McBride for the winning Lynx, shoot 6-for-10 from deep and finished with 22 points, Natasha Howard scored 21, and Courtney Williams had nine points, seven boards, with 10 assists.

Indiana’s Mitchell had her record 20-plus scoring streak stopped at 27 games, held to 10 points, while Clark was much worse with a season-low two points shooting 1-for-12 from the field.

Several days ago, the Fever, which was heading to finish on a high note, lost the season tiebreaker to Washington.

Crowds on the final night of the regular season continued to be plentiful.

Besides the sellout here at Connecticut, Minnesota drew 15,221 at the Target Center in Minneapolis, which gained the top seed for the second straight year after being upset last season in the semifinals by Phoenix, which had opened ousting then-defending champion New York, which Wednesday for the second straight night fell to Atlanta, enabled the Dream to finish fourth.

Dallas won its game Wednesday to end a playoff drought by landing the seventh seed.

Washington, moving to the larger Capital One Arena, drew 9,798 down town in the nation’s capital, as opposed to its smaller CareFirst Arena in the Southeast portion of the city.

The Mercury in the Arizona Desert drew 12,385 at the Mortgage Matchup Center, which hosted the NCAA Women’s Final Four in April when UCLA won its first national title in the organization, having won a previous crown led by Ann Meyers Drysdale under the Association for Intercollegiate Athletic for Women (AIAW) in 1978.

For Ogwumike’s final game, Los Angeles at home in the Crypto.com Arena, formerly named the Staples Center, drew 15,965.

The Matchups

The playoffs open Sunday with first-round action consisting of best-of-three 1-1-1 formats, followed by a best-of-five semifinals in a 2-2-1 arrangement before the finals are played in a 2-2-1-1-1 arrangement.

Anyone can win with upsets possible in all four opening rounds, besides the semifinals and finals, as proven by New York’s recent win at Minnesota, a team two years ago the Liberty beat to win the championship at home at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn in overtime in an exciting Game 5.

All four series will begin Sunday with No. 1 Minnesota hosting No. 8 New York at 2 p.m. on ABC, while No. 4 Atlanta hosts No. 5 Washington at 7 p.m. on Amazon Prime, No. 2 Golden State hosts No. 7 Dallas at 9 p.m. on USA Net, and No. 3 Las Vegas at 4 p.m. on ABC hosts No. 6 Indiana, which a year ago when injury-riddled, narrowly came close to upsetting the Aces in the semifinals.

On Tuesday, two games hosted by lower seeds will be played with Indiana hosting Las Vegas at 6:30 p.m. on Amazon Prime and New York hosting Minnesota at 8:30 p.m. on USA Net, likewise on Wednesday, Washington hosts Atlanta at 7 p.m. on ESPN in the CareFirst Arena and Dallas hosts Golden State at 9 p.m. on ESPN.

If necessary, one or two elimination games will be played Thursday back in Minnesota and Las Vegas, and one or two more on Friday back in Atlanta and Golden State.

The semifinals best of five series opens Sunday, Oct. 4, on NBC at a time to be announced and on ABC at 4 p.m.

ESPN and Peacock have Games 2 on the following Wednesday, while Games 3 air Friday, Oct. 9 on ESPN2 and Peacock.

ABC and NBC have Games 4 the following Sunday while potentially decisive Games 5 will be played the following Wednesday, Oct. 14 on ESPN and Peacock.

The best of seven finals open in the home of the highest surviving seed Saturday at 3:30 p.m. on NBC and stay in place Monday, Oct. 19, at 8 p.m. on USA Net.

The lower seed then hosts Game 3 Thursday at 8 p.m. on USA Net and if necessary Game 4 Saturday at 3:30 p.m. on NBC.

Potential Game 5 goes back to the high seed on Monday, Oct. 26, at 8 p.m. on USA Net, the low seed if necessary hosts a  first-ever Game 6 at 8 p.m. on USA Net the following Thursday while the high seed gets a penultimate Game 7 Saturday at 8 p.m. on USA Net, which would be the last or if the finals finish earlier under departing Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, whose retirement is set for Dec. 31 unless a successor had not yet been hired.