Sky's the Limit

It's official: we're the worst team in the WNBA. It's early, but losing at home to the Sky--a second year expansion team with no wins previously--is inexcusable. Kudos to the front office, coaches, and players for taking up the challenge and delivering. Opposing teams are shooting over 50% against us, a sure sign of bad defense and lack of chemistry. Poor shooting percentages on offense, no bench scoring to speak of, save for new addition Tiffany Stansbury, who also had 13 rebounds last night, and no energy. All of those elements add up to a bad team, at least for right now.

Lindsey Harding played a better game against lesser competition, but a two person game won't cut it in this league, and I'd like to see Harding play well against better clubs. We finally out rebounded a team, but even those stats are deceiving. If a team shoots as badly as we do, there will be more offensive rebounds available to grab. We dominated that stat last night 19-6, which helped keep us in the game, along with Seimone Augustus. But in the end, it was the failure of our low post players to finish and poor defense that did us in last night.

At least for the near future, it's a season of moral victories, playing hard, and pleas for patience. If this continues, I would fully expect Augustus to ask for a trade, or an increase in salary, merely because she's trying to do the work of two or three players. Ever since the Katie Smith trade, our rebuilding efforts have plummeted us further down the abyss. Not only are we unable to create a team chemistry that has failed to provide hope, but we failed to add any local talent (Lindsey Whalen, Janel McCarville) that would help keep people in the seats until we could see signs of progress.

Other key failures that can't be passed over are the contributions of both of our U Conn #1's--Svetlana Abrosimova and Tamika Raymond. While not total busts, they have not been close to performing at the level expected when they came out of that storied program. Add to that the mediocre play of Ohlde and minimal contribution of Vanessa Hayden while she was ON the team, and you have four major reasons why the team is exactly where it is today. One star player, a bunch of others, and one rookie guard trying to show some promise. Kind of reminds you of another Minnesota professional basketball team, doesn't it?