H.S. sports are back
Connecticut high school sports return today.
The Connecticut Sun stamped something ugly into the franchise’s history book Tuesday night and coach Curt Miller headed into the offseason with an idea for how to start processing lost opportunity.
“We’ll all look ourselves in the mirror,” he said.
Good idea. Anything to avoid another glance at the box score and its hideous numbers. Hopefully the game recording was destroyed at IMG Academy, where on Friday the WNBA Finals will begin without the Sun involved because the team failed at some of basketball’s most basic functions.
The Sun couldn’t shoot. The Sun couldn’t score. And the
Sun — perhaps fatigued, though clearly rattled and in disarray — couldn’t handle the win-or-gohome pressure of a Bradenton Bubble that finally burst, via one brick after another, with a 66-63 loss to the Las Vegas Aces in Game 5 of a league semifinal.
The Sun spent the past couple of months putting together something special. Then they fell apart, abruptly and inexcusably, blowing a 16-point first-half lead to fall off the Finals doorstep.
They scored nine points in the third quarter, making 4 of 16 shots. They scored nine more in the fourth on 4-for-17. A disjointed final possession ended with DeWanna Bonner’s leaning
heave — from inside the 3-point line while trialing by three — ricocheting off the backboard.
Mirrors, please.
“Where could we have stolen just a couple more points?” Miller said.
Anywhere, really, but mostly from the perimeter. The team made 3 of 19 3-pointers. With a transition game halted by turnovers and Las Vegas’ offensive rebounding, there was no overcoming that and other breakdowns.
“I don’t care what level you coach at,” Miller said. “You don’t win a lot of games when you shoot under 25 percent for a half.”
This was truly unsightly basketball all around. Bill Laimbeer’s top-seeded Aces did nothing pretty. They, too, were bad on offense. Just not historically bad. They rode the willpower and power, period, of A’Ja Wilson and timely baskets from Angel McCoughtry while chipping away and pulling ahead.
Wilson went to the free throw line 10 times in the fourth quarter alone and the Aces were a team playing to an identity, through a star. They won an arm wrestling match because the Sun couldn’t improvise or keep cool.
This latest unexpected playoff run should have continued. Connecticut basketball fans should have been made to spend the week deciding who to root for in the finals — the Sun, or two of the most popular athletes in state history. The top-seeded Aces will face Sue Bird, Breanna Stewart and the Seattle Storm for the trophy.
The Sun blew it. No #disrespeCT.
That’s what the team should want to hear, right? That more should have been achieved. All the talk the past couple of seasons about being doubted or overlooked has been good fuel and good fun, but the teams that can’t be overlooked are the teams that do their job much better than the Sun did Tuesday while fizzling on the big stage.
No need to analyze records or seedings or talk under underdog or favorite when teams split four games and move to decisive Game 5. It was all on the line, and there for the taking.
What’s so irritating about a lead like this slipping the way it did is that so much had to be working well in the first place. And it was. The Sun scored 30 points in the first quarter and were rolling, using a 20-6 run. Alyssa Thomas was supercharged, posting 12 first-quarter points.
The lead was 35-19 in the second quarter but just 45-39 at halftime, and the second half was a mess. The Sun committed eight turnovers in the third quarter after committing just five in the first half. Both teams played outstanding defense. Both teams were worn out.
“You have to push through,” Thomas said.
One team found a way. Thomas faded. Bonner, the key offseason acquisition whose role became even more important when Jonquel Jones opted out, never got going. Wilson and McCoughtry did just enough to send the Aces to the Finals and send the Sun home.
No matter how good the sum of their parts wound up being, the Sun didn’t have a player to lean on in a situation that demanded it. Everyone tightened up. The final possession was fitting. The Sun had 13 seconds to work with and never got off a useful shot. That’s on Miller as much as Bonner.
Bonner took the ball at the top and was guarded by a smaller defender, Danielle Robinson. She leaned left and stepped over the 3-point line for a shot that had no chance, anyway.
“We just had a great story,” Bonner said of her first season with the team.
Yes, for sure. The Sun started 0-5, climbed their way into the playoffs and won two single-elimination games. The way they played in the first quarter Tuesday should have catapulted them into the Finals for the second year in a row and the fourth time in franchise history.
How sweet it would have been for longtime
Sun fans to beat Laimbeer, who tormented the Sun as Detroit Shock coach in the 2000 s and entered Mohegan Sun Arena to “Imperial March,” Darth Vader’s music, as the WNBA’s perfect villain.
How fun it would have been to match up with Seattle, the team that stopped the Sun back in the 2004 Finals, when Nykesha Sales’ series-winning shot from the corner clanked off the side of the backboard.
How interesting all those conflicting Connecticut emotions would have been with Sue and Stewie on the opposite side.
How ... did this opportunity get away?
Because the Sun missed the mark time and again, over and over, frozen in the moment.
Mirrors.
“We truly believe we can win a championship with the defense we have,” Miller said. “Our offense has been chunky at times.”