Sun rise

Sometimes you see things that make no sense in the not-so-imminent future and just ignore them, but when they get closer in the proverbial mirror, they look even more illogical. Thus begins three games in nine days for the Sun against the Atlanta Dream (60% of their remaining schedule), a team they haven’t seen in three months. There might be reasons (maybe?) for such a run out to conclude 2025, but it’s a little disappointing now that it’s here. Instead of the Sun and its rookies getting to test itself against various squads to see how much they’ve improved, it’s going to be all Atlanta, a very talented team that sits just a half-game out of second place. For the rest of the teams fighting that second spot, as much as we love the Sun and they’re playing better, it’s an advantage for the Dream, whose other two contests are both against Los Angeles consecutively later this week. Rhyne Howard and Allisha Gray are among the top three  in the WNBA in minutes played this season. (Chris ...

We’ll see what happens in the final five games but Saturday night’s 94-70 rout for Minnesota over Connecticut at Mohegan Sun Arena seemed more about the quality of the Lynx than how poor the Sun played. Not that they played well by any stretch, but the top defense in the WNBA was stifling for most of the night, refusing to give the Sun any decent looks (except off second chances, something that could haunt Minnesota deep in the playoffs), and running off those misses. At the other end, everyone on the Lynx shoots, as the Sun found out in last year’s playoffs (of which the only player on the court for Connecticut from that series is Marina Mabrey although DiJonai Carrington is now on the visiting team). When the Lynx shoots 15-for-28 from beyond the arc and Napheesa Collier is playing, they are a championship team. They might win a title making half as many. The Sun weren’t giving up dozens of layups as they were in the beginning of the season (or at Dallas on Wednesday), but Connectic...

This week supposed to be countdown to extinction for the Connecticut Sun. I (and seemingly most others) thought when the sale of the team looked imminent that surely the Sun would be in Boston by 2026 . Instead, it now looks like Houston (?!?) is the most likely destination for Connecticut, but we’ll get at least one more campaign at Mohegan Sun Arena, and if the ticked off Mohegan Tribe really wants to be stubborn, maybe even a couple more. Before we get to another season of Leila Lacan and the rest of the rookies, the Sun have six games remaining. The good news is four of them are at home. The bad news is their opponents have a combined record of 104-50 as of Saturday morning. That might have been a tough way to say goodbye.  Napheesa Collier and DiJonai Carrington will be teammates at Mohegan Sun Arena Saturday night. (Abbie Parr / AP) But maybe not? Because they haven’t played Minnesota, Atlanta, and Phoenix in months, the only one of the three that has competed against Lacan ...

Paige Bueckers was scratched just minutes before tip Wednesday night, depriving us of the much anticipated showdown against Leila Lacan , but it also put the Connecticut Sun in an unfamiliar spot, as a fairly heavy favorite on the road. It was a patchwork Dallas Wings team at best, but it became clear early that they were a hungry one, racing to a double-digit lead as the Sun defense again parted multiple times for layups. It was far from their best effort, especially on the defensive end, and they somehow went seven minutes in the fourth quarter without a field goal, but they survived 101-95, and that’s much better than the alternative. In the process, the Sun have quadrupled their road win total in the last two weeks, and have now hit double digits in 2025 victories, something that seemed darn near impossible when the month of August started. They also scored 100 points for the first time in more than a year, the last being August 16, 2024, ironically (or maybe the Wings are just bad...

Yeah, you can have your playoffs and title runs, but we have the Battle of the Century in the WNBA Wednesday night in Arlington, Texas . Paige Bueckers vs. Laila Lacan. They have never met because both meetings (neither in Texas) earlier this season happened while Lacan was still in France, and - somewhat predictably - Bueckers dominated in both meetings , with the Wings averaging 97 points per game in two victories. Lacan has been the Sun’s stopper, and even with a gruesome black eye suffered Saturday came out two days later and gave the defending champs a proverbial run for their money. Officially, she’s second behind Seattle’s Gabby Williams in steals, but it’s by a razor thin margin and Lacan is now officially eligible because she’s played enough games. She also has the size to matchup with Bueckers, the runaway Rookie of the Year in the WNBA this season. But Bueckers scored 44 against Los Angeles last week, shooting 17-for-21 from the field. She’s struggled from the field in her l...