May 4th, 2008: Phoenix at Connecticut (preseason)

Connecticut Sun 94, Phoenix Mercury 66

Some miscellaneous players in Mercury purple, orange, and silver take on some miscellaneous players in Sun white and red. Tracy Gahan, Mike Thibault, and the Game Notes Of Doom all have the magic touch.


If more than eight of these players are physically present in the arena the next time these two teams play, and if more than six of them are on the active roster, and if more than four of them actually play, I'll eat my hat. And it's a nice hat. I know preseason games have a distressing tendency to lack players who have any significance whatsoever, but the Mercury were without Taurasi, Pondexter, Miller (either Miller, as far as I could tell), Smith, Mazzante, Snell, Willingham, or Pringle. Connecticut wasn't much better off; I didn't even see Whalen or Whitmore in the building, and Carey didn't play. This was definitely a get-out-the-kinks game, and both coaches well and truly treated it as such.

Y'all don't care about the trials and tribulations of your traveling chronicler, or about the most amazing speedrun ever on Sunflower Express. Suffice it to say that despite losing nearly an hour in Manhattan, we still made it to Mohegan Sun in time for the anthem and intros. I… really wish we'd missed the anthem. It was bad. It was really bad.

Starters for Phoenix: Jen Derevjanik, Barbara Farris, Amy Lewis, Marscilla Packer, Brooke Smith. If more than Derevjanik and Farris are still on the roster come opening day, color me surprised. Lewis really didn't impress me at all- neither she nor Packer seemed to have a lick of sense when it came to being on the floor. Smith at least had a better idea of the positioning concept, but she's a one-trick pony with a propensity for getting physical in ways that don't help her team. Crockett was aggressive, but a little too aggressive- this is why having LA as your first WNBA team will scar you forever. Mitchell would be a solid guard if she were bigger, but she doesn't know how to adjust for her lack of size, which resulted in bad passes and extra steps. She's a goner. I liked Oga's style of play, and she seems willing to learn how to adjust to American basketball- I hope she sticks. Phoenix, in general, had a helluva time finding the basket. Some ugly shots went up. Right now, I'd say maybe four of these players will stick: Derevjanik, Farris, maybe Oga, maybe Jaysie Chambers, who was at least willing to bust ass out there. The rest of them are in over their heads.

Starters for Connecticut: Jessica Foley, Kerri Gardin, Amber Holt, Tamika Raymond, Ketia Swanier. Holt looked really good. Very strong, very aggressive. Gardin also impressed me- are there any Sky fans who can clue me in as to why she didn't make the team there? She's got great hustle (and reminds me disconcertingly of a larger Monique McLean [St. John's small forward], which makes me wonder what will happen when Sista Christon and Big Little Sista Christon meet on the 18th). Raymond was pretty much all glass, no score, which I'm given to understand her game has essentially become in recent years. Swanier- damn, she's fast. Yes, I know, belaboring the obvious, but I hadn't seen her all that closely. There was one play where her speed actually did her wrong- she took one too many steps, took her layup- and watched it hit off the side of the backboard. Eurgh. She can be a good point guard if she's given time, I think, but with Whalen, Carey, and Phillips, is Connecticut the place she's going to get time? Turner… I guess she played well in statistical terms, but things seemed to grind with her on the floor. No matter how many points she put up, I just couldn't shake the feeling that she was actually playing badly. I will say this: the Huskies on the floor all seemed to know where they all were. Swanier pulled off a couple of impressive passes to Turner. Where the hell did Tracy Gahan come from? And if anyone says Iowa State and/or the WNBL, I will beat them with a stick. How come she couldn't be this good when the Liberty drafted her? hjkdffklsdhg. Love her hustle. Love the way she works. Page got a lot of shots, but I don't know if that translates into anything. Again, you've got maybe four or five roster makes here: Gardin, Holt, Raymond, Swanier, Turner, and maybe Gahan if Maltsi isn't coming or if Thibault can move Carey.

I wish the Sun would make up their mind. Do they have a part-share in one of the most well-read fanbases in all of women's basketball, one that considers itself to be among the smartest in the land? Or are they going to go straight for the lowest common denominator? In the last few years, Connecticut really seems to be underestimating the intelligence of its fans and increasing the schtick they use during timeouts. The boy found himself missing Scottie B., that's how on-edge Matt and Jackie had us. Connecticut fans- if, as player acquisitions would seem to suggest, they're also Husky fans- should not need to be whipped into a frenzy by this kind of nonsense.

Still clearly preseason- they've got to work some bugs out of the previously mentioned entertainment, along with the scoreboards, which seem to have shrunk, much to our dismay, replaced by additional advertising space. Come on. Queenie wants her stats.

The rummage sale looked pretty interesting, and if I'd won money on my free bet before the game instead of after, I might have gone shopping. Old jerseys and the like always pique my interest.

The new side panels are ugly as sin. On the home whites, it's just Connecticut up the side, in a blue or black font that does not go with anything else on the jersey and looks suspiciously like UConn's font. Seriously, wouldn't someone from another Big East team take some kind of offense to this? Setting that aside- it doesn't go with the rest of the jersey. Gack.

Major, major props to the collegiately-clad family we ate next to at Geno's, especially the woman and the young lady with the big brass ones. There's moxie, and there's moxie, and then there's going to Geno's food court, surrounded by UConn history and UConn fans… in a Tennessee t-shirt or a Rutgers hoodie. Less props to the old guy who saw my jersey, accosted me, accused my team of wearing Rebecca Lobo down, and refused to believe me when I told him that she tore her ACL, yes, really, you cannot blame the coaching staff for a freak knee injury 43 seconds into the season, yes, REALLY, she tore her ACL, don't try to tell me she didn't, I was there and saw her writhing on the court, YES REALLY.

Autograph hunting would have been exceptionally pointless on accounta 1) barely recognizing anyone and having the autographs of anyone I would already, and 2) not really having anything to sign on accounta Connecticut not giving out rosters. The only reason I could identify anyone was because I brought my own printouts… and trying to print anything from the Sun website on a printer with no color ink in the cartridge is just a recipe for disaster. I had to write in the names (which were in yellow on the site) with the information I was given in terms of numbers, schools, and size. And then Meredith Alexis wandered in from nowhere and really bollocksed the whole thing up.

And then we went off and actually won money, so all in all, a pretty interesting day.