Head coach Stephanie White is excited by the prospect of running it back for a second season with the Connecticut Sun.
White, who was named Coach of the Year in her first year in Connecticut, said that the team is eager to build upon last year’s 27-13 season. Last year, the Sun’s season ended at the hands of the star-studded New York Liberty, falling 3-1 in the semifinals, after elite campaigns by MVP candidate Alyssa Thomas (15.5 points, 9.9 rebounds, 7.9 assists per game) and DeWanna Bonner (17.4 points).
In the offseason, the team re-signed 36-year-old Bonner, who was a free agent coming off of a career season, as well as Brionna Jones, who also was having an excellent year before she ruptured her Achilles 13 games into the year. Jones was putting up 15.9 points and 8.2 rebounds per night; she is expected to return to the court once she makes a full recovery.
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The advantage in keeping Connecticut’s veteran core together is that White and her staff can build off of last year’s success, rather than start from scratch with a new group. Last year, the Sun had the second-best defense in the league with a 98.8 rating. That defensive success largely is what allowed them to be so effective during the regular season.
“As a staff, we’re sitting here and we’re talking about all of these things that we can do with our personnel that are outside the box, that are a little bit innovative,” White said on draft night. “[We’re] continuing to just build off of the first layer that we were able to lay last year.”
Connecticut made quiet but potentially impactful moves around the margins
Connecticut’s offseason moves didn’t grab the major headlines other WNBA transactions did, but the Sun did manage to acquire two guards via trades that will play impactful roles this season: Tiffany Mitchell and Moriah Jefferson. Mitchell, who comes from the Minnesota Lynx, is a defense-oriented guard who should plug into the Sun’s defense. She also reunites with White, who she played for as a rookie with the Indiana Fever. “I’m excited to be on the same sideline with her again,” White said in a press release. “She’s a competitor and fits the grit and toughness that permeates our franchise.”
Jefferson is a floor general who is quite familiar to folks in Connecticut. She won four national championships at UConn, before struggling with a myriad of knee injuries early in her WNBA career. For the past two seasons, however, she’s been highly effective on offense. Last year, she averaged 10.5 points per game for the Phoenix Mercury.
After the trade, Jefferson told reporters she was excited by the prospect of playing read-and-react basketball in Connecticut. “It’s not really cookie-cutter, robot type of basketball; you have a lot of different flows and different reads,” Jefferson said. “Playing with [Thomas] and [Bonner], I think that’d be really easy to do.”
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Meanwhile, at the 2024 WNBA Draft, the Sun selected two players with the future in mind and two players who could make an impact right now. French guard Leïla Lacan and Columbia University guard Abbey Hsu are not joining the team for training camp this year, but a pair of defensive-minded draft picks, Kansas forward Taiyanna Jackson and Arizona guard Helena Pueyo, are in camp with the Sun. Jackson was one of the top rim protectors in the draft class, while Pueyo, Arizona’s all-time steals leader, plays like a veteran. Both draft picks reflect the organization’s prioritization of defense.
“We felt she was a prospect that could be a better pro than college player,” general manager Darius Taylor said of Pueyo on draft night, dubbing her the steal of the draft.
The Sun continue to have championship aspirations
The Las Vegas Aces, coming off of back-to-back championships, will be the favorite to win it all again this season. The New York Liberty, who lost to the Aces in the 2023 WNBA Finals, also will be contenders, as will the Seattle Storm after adding Skylar Diggins-Smith and Nneka Ogwumike this offseason.
But the Sun, who oftentimes don’t get mainstream media coverage, in part due to the franchise’s more obscure location in Uncasville, are right in the mix for a championship. That’s Moriah Jefferson’s ultimate objective as she returns to Connecticut.
“I’ve won on every level except the WNBA,” Jefferson said. “So obviously, I want to get a championship. That’s never an easy thing to do. We’re playing [in] the hardest league in the world. But for me, that’s my end goal, so coming here, I want to do whatever I can to make this team better and to get as close as possible to that goal.”
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