Sun rise

If you looked up late at the Connecticut-Seattle game Wednesday night on the east coast, you might be rubbing your eyes. Nell Angloma and Reagan Beers were leading the way for the Sun? Aneesah Morrow was benched after six minutes? The bench scored 64 points and Saniya Rivers had just two? Ashlon Jackson - in her first WNBA game - was making huge plays down the stretch? It added up to the first Connecticut win of 2026, finally, a gutty 80-78 victory in Seattle that will not exactly scare anyone in the WNBA nor likely solve any long-term problems, but it’s sure better than losing. In the end, Angloma (who doesn’t turn 20 until next month) led the Sun in minutes, with Charlisse Leger-Walker (29), undrafted Beers (28), and Angloma (27, tied with Aaliyah Edwards) not far behind. Morrow - whose body language left more than a little to be desired - didn’t appear in the second half, and Rivers had just 13 minutes, two less than Ashlon Jackson, who was signed on a developmental contract two wee...

The Sun were in a tight game against a shorthanded, but very motivated expansion Portland team Monday night, and you looked up with five minutes left to see a lineup of Charlisse Leger-Walker, Hailey Van Lith, Saniya Rivers, Aneesah Morrow, and Brittany Griner. It seemed (and has seemed) clear that Leger-Walker and Van Lith can’t keep good WNBA point guards in front of them, which isn’t the end all, be all of everything, however it’s made things difficult for Griner, who can’t really hard hedge many pick-and-roll actions at this stage of her career. If you add in the fact that Portland has a young coach in Alex Sarama, who clearly thinks his team’s best chance as an expansion squad is to pressure opponents into mistakes (how the Sun were successful at the end of last season). Leger-Walker had a nightmare against it, turning the ball over a couple times, almost doing it a couple more, and finally just giving up on taking the ball up the court altogether. Van Lith was a little more savvy...

  It was just a moment, but it will have to sustain us, at least until the Connecticut Sun get back to full strength (if they ever do). Playing without Brittany Griner, Olivia Nelson-Ododa, and Leila Lacan, it looked like the Sun were going to be on the losing end of another name-your-score blowout, trailing 72-59 late in the third quarter with an extremely young lineup that looked lost just two days earlier against the same opponent. But then Nell Angloma - not even 20 and making her WNBA debut - exploded for a bucket, and then Saniya Rivers, who looked miserable to start the season before Friday, found Angloma again for a layup. Charlisse Leger-Walker got a steal and Rivers hesitated before finally shooting a three-pointer and drilling it. Almost immediately, you could see a weight lifted off Rivers’ shoulders as her defensive intensity picked up and she hit another three to make it 72-70, forcing Becky Hammon to call time out. Maybe there was a way for the Sun to win this thing?...

There are games that you can extrapolate plenty from for what will happen going forward (I would argue Sunday’s might have been one of those ). Wednesday’s game was not one of them. It was going to be a tough ask for the Sun before Brittany Griner was ruled out, and once she was (with Aaliyah Edwards, Leila Lacan, and Nell Angloma also unavailable), it was always going to be ugly. And then Olivia Nelson-Ododa and Reagan Beers - known on the broadcast as undrafted Reagan Beers - were in foul trouble, you have one of the best players of all-time on the other side, and that was it. That doesn’t mean, of course, that there isn’t plenty to worry about going forward. Kennedy Burke, whom a lot was expected this season as an expensive free agent, has been poor to be generous, invisible if you don’t want to be so kind. Saniya Rivers does not look like the same players she was as a rookie (particularly her jump shot, which has been tough to watch). The point guard situation seems untenable, with...

We’re going to try to keep it positive as much as we can this season, but will be games this season that the Sun are not supposed to win, like Friday’s opener against the Liberty, and games that they really should have a good chance to prevail, like Sunday against Seattle. Add the fact that Dominique Malonga was limited to just 20 minutes due to foul trouble (and Stefanie Dolson just 21), and everything was set up to grab their first victory of the season before a potentially angry Las Vegas team comes in for a pair of games this week. But it didn’t happen, obviously, the Sun showed flashes (more on Aneesah Morrow later), but had too many turnovers, committed too many fouls, and just didn’t have enough on-the-ball defense to get the job done, even against a Seattle team that seems likely to be near the bottom of the WNBA standings with the Sun. Leila Lacan will solve some of their problems, but the concern is that things can spiral out of control quickly here, and in the final season i...

Needless to say, I hoped we were past the kind of beatings the Sun took Friday night in Brooklyn, made worse by the fact that Sabrina Ionescu and Satou Sabally (and a couple of others) weren’t even in uniform. Connecticut looked a step slow for most of the first half. Or two. Or four? I guess some of that is to be expected when you have as many new faces on the roster as the Sun did. Leila Lacan, who was the team’s MVP by a pretty wide margin as a rookie in 2025 is still in France, while Aaliyah Edwards is out with a thigh injury. That led Rachid Meziane to put out a starting lineup that never really stood a chance: Saniya Rivers, Aneesah Morrow (at the 2?), Kennedy Burke, Diamond Miller, and Brittany Griner. It was 36-13 and 46-19 before the Sun knew what hit them and it was all over early. There are a lot of things that can be fixed, but the Liberty shooting 16-for-20 on two-point shots in the first half (with Breanna Stewart just taking it to Morrow every chance she could with no ad...