UNCASVILLE, Con. — While much of the conversation about the Connecticut Sun has been about their future — and the team’s imminent relocation to Houston next year — the sentiment inside Mohegan Sun arena on Sunday was focused entirely on the present moment.
With 5,218 screaming fans in attendance, the Sun played their final preseason game ever as a franchise against the New York Liberty on Sunday. Despite the 67-79 loss, their performance gave a glimpse at just how young, fun and gritty the team that head coach Rachid Meziane and his coaching staff are building can be.
Before the game, the Sun unveiled a new intro video, which paid homage to the past 26 seasons and also looked ahead at how exciting this season will be as they compete “one last time.”
While their final roster has yet to be finalized, Meziane gave all of his available players minutes and an opportunity to show just how they can fit into his system, which he described before the start of training camp will be centered around “energy, spacing and in and out game.”
Ahead of their preseason matchup against the Liberty – who the Sun will face again this Friday in the regular season-opener – it was Meziane who set the stage before the game.
“This is not just a preseason game for us. It’s a step in our progression,” he told the media in his opening statement. “We are not going to judge the result, but we are going to judge ourselves under pressure.”
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In his own words, the Sun showed “flashes” of their potential against New York. For the most part held their own, too: the Sun shot slightly better from the field than the Liberty did (41% to their 37%) and scored more points in the paint (40 to their 26), a tactic, thanks in large part to the newest addition of Brittney Griner, who showed just how crucial her presence is to the Sun offensively. She led the team in scoring with 16 points on 7-9 shooting, a majority of which were scored inside the paint. She also knocked down two clutch shots from beyond the arc.
“Our inside out game, I think that we played well with BG, but we need to move around her,” Meziane told The IX Basketball. “I think that every time we found her, we [did] too much watching her and putting everything on her. She’s a good passer, so she makes us have to understand that, but we have to move around her and create some windows opportunity to kick some [passes]…We had a lot of open shots, but we missed them but in thinking about how we are creating this open shot, that’s also something positive.”
The next step for Connecticut is figuring out how to build on their strengths this season. While their growth and on-court production will take time, especially when it comes to improving their ball movement, playmaking and finding those players who are open, chemistry is the one thing that can’t be forced. But with the Sun, it clearly doesn’t have to be.
Their chemistry was on display all night long, even in the little moments like how they celebrated each other’s successes with lots of high fives, hugs and constantly cheering for each other on the bench. In the span of just a few weeks, the Sun have also become a team that also hanging out with each other outside of practice, too, and make Tik Toks dancing videos together. Now, with the season on the horizon, they want to compete alongside each other, too.
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“The way everybody shows up, each and every day, we don’t really have to coach effort here, everyone is showing up ready to go, eager to learn and that’s all you can really ask for, honestly,” Griner told the media postgame. “Especially with a young group…We have our fun but when it’s time to work, we work. And then afterwards, we go back and Tik Tok, [do] splits, do all of that kind of stuff. But that’s what’s impressed me the most, they want to learn…You see them getting their voices, you see certain players stepping up and saying things and commanding [the] floor and I love that. When you have players do it and do it in a respectful way where your teammate can hear you, that’s a team that I’ll definitely want to be on.”
For players like Olivia Nelson-Ododa, who is going into her fourth season in Connecticut, it’s that camaraderie that will be what propels Connecticut forward.
“Just with us being a younger group, I think it’s important to have that chemistry off the court, too, and just have that energy,” said Nelson-Ododa, who averaged a career . “I think eventually it translates when you’re bonding and hanging out together and stuff, but we’re excited to see where it goes…Just continue to build that, especially on the court because that’s really where it matters right now. We’re looking forward to that this season.”
When asked how she would describe the identity of the Sun in just one word, Nelson-Ododa, who had nine points and four rebounds that game, paused for a second before carefully choosing her answer. After averaging a career-high 8.2 points per game and 5 rebounds last season, she made it clear that neither she, nor the team are settling for what happened last year, in which the Sun won just 11 games.
For them, a new beginning is just on the horizon.
“I would say hungry,” she said confidently. I think, especially the people that were here last year, we weren’t satisfied with just the way that season went and I think how we all just played individually in general. I think using this offseason to really prepare for a season where people count us out and really don’t expect much from us, but we still know what we’re capable of and what we train for and practice for each and every day and what we can bring to each game. I think that’s the biggest thing that we’re carrying with us right now.”