DALLAS, TX — After a four-game road trip, the Dallas Wings didn’t return to their usual home.
Instead of College Park Center, the Wings were welcomed back at American Airlines Center in downtown Dallas. Sunday’s matchup with Chicago was the first of three games the team will play in the arena with a capacity of 21,146 this season before it potentially becomes the Wings’ home for 2027.
While Dallas had played in the arena twice last season, it got its first win downtown on Sunday. A crowd of 13,236 watched the Wings pull off a double-digit comeback to complete a season sweep of the Sky.
“It’s huge,” Dallas head coach Jose Fernandez said postgame of the crowd’s impact. “I thought in the fourth quarter, you can feel the energy… If we have a home crowd like that in this building, it’s special, and then your players feed off of that.”
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The late-game heroics the downtown audience experienced have been commonplace for the 16-8 Wings this season. They’ve trailed by double-digits in all three games against Chicago before coming back to win. They’ve trailed in the fourth quarter of half of their wins this season as well.
Dallas doesn’t want to have to make late pushes as often, but star guard Paige Bueckers praised the team’s “sense of urgency.”
“It’s kind of a habit for us to do that in the fourth, and it’s something that like we need to change and play that way starting at the at the tip at the start of the 40 minutes,” Bueckers said. “But we collectively lock in, are on the same page offensively, defensively, and what we want to execute, and we just really hone in on the details.”
Bueckers has been the centerpiece of the come-from-behind efforts, leading the WNBA in fourth-quarter scoring this season. In the series finale against the Sky, she had eight points and five assists in the final period of play, finishing with a 22-point, 11-assist double-double.
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She was far from the only one making plays late, however. Despite an overall poor shooting night, rookie Azzi Fudd hit two threes in the fourth quarter, the second a game-tying triple to end Chicago’s time in the lead for good. On the next defensive possession, an emphatic block by Fudd forced a jump ball before the Wings eventually came up with a stop.
Jessica Shepard and Li Yueru both had double-doubles, the latter a key force in slowing down Sky center Kamilla Cardoso. Six of Arike Ogunbowale’s 17 points came in the final 2:20 of game time, along with a key steal with a minute left.
“I thought they did a very good job executing coming out of the fourth quarter and in late-game situations,” Fernandez said. “… Everybody played and had a significant piece to this victory.”
It all added up to Dallas’ fifth straight win, and its first ever in American Airlines Center. It played two games at the venue last year against the Indiana Fever, losing both.
Those 2025 games against a high-profile opponent drew notably larger crowds, but Sunday’s environment was respectable for a team which might make the building its first downtown home. The game’s attendance mark would rank fifth in the WNBA if averaged across a full season, just ahead of the Los Angeles Sparks’ 12,505 average.
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Fernandez, who was first to say the team would play the 2027 season at AAC before Wings CEO Greg Bibb clarified that the franchise is merely in “advanced” talks to do so, kept things light-hearted and cautious when asked questions Sunday about the atmosphere. His focus will be on leading the team to wins wherever home is.
“They’re both great environments,” Fernandez said. “I think CPC has been a really good home court advantage, right? This building just holds a lot more people.”
