Connecticut routs Aces in season-opener 101-65
UNCASVILLE, Conn. — Four months from now, the WNBA’s regular season will have wound down and there will be irrefutable evidence about whether this western shift from San Antonio to Las Vegas had a positive impact on last season’s worst league franchise.
But there was no sense getting ahead of things Sunday when the Las Vegas Aces, a team very much still in its evolutionary stage, made their debut against the Connecticut Sun at Mohegan Sun Arena.
The Aces bolted from the block with the kind of opening four minutes sure to excite, a 10-point lead in the midst of a noisy partisan crowd expecting a championship this season from the Sun.
As for the rest, it wasn’t quite as good. The Sun eventually caught their breath and flattened the Aces 101-65 before an announced crowd of 6,637.
“We came out with a good start that began on the defensive end,” said Aces’ forward Tamera Young, who led the team with 23 points. “But when we started having little mishaps, that’s when we began to step back.”
Center A’ja Wilson, the team’s first draft pick, debuted with 14 points and 10 rebounds. But in the end, the Aces couldn’t shoot their way (18 of 68, 26.5 percent) out of trouble.
“It was a pretty decent debut, but, of course, I would have loved it had we won,” said Wilson. “Any jitters I might have had are gone now. I am starting to get a better feel for my teammates.
“The middle was still pretty clogged, just like it was in college, but now they are playing above the rim with me, which I didn’t see a lot in college.”
The Aces lead 14-4 with 6:20 remaining in the first quarter, with Young’s hoop 51 seconds into the game the first in franchise history.
“I’m thinking, holy crap,” said smiling Aces’ coach Bill Laimbeer. “But we have a long way to go, we know that. We are missing a lot of players, core contributors from last season. But they (Connecticut) have a very good basketball team and we knew we were in a hornet’s nest.”
Wilson missed her first five shots before finally scoring with 4:55 to play in the first, which gave Las Vegas a 16-10 lead.
But the Sun, one of the league’s emerging teams, quickly gained its balance, outscoring the Aces 21-7 through the end of the quarter to emerge with a 25-21 advantage.
It was clear Connecticut’s core, structurally intact and supplemented by the return of Chiney Ogwumike, had an advantage over an Aces’ team still assembling pieces, particularly in the backcourt.
For example, meet the new Ace Lindsay Allen, who played her rookie season for Laimbeer in New York in 2017 and was signed Saturday after the Liberty released her on Thursday. She started and played nearly 29 minutes (six points, no assists).
The Aces, who also signed the waived Shoni Schimmel last week, are badly in need of guards until Moriah Jefferson (injured), Kayla McBride and Kelsey Plum, the first overall pick in the 2017 draft, return. McBride and Plum are still in their Turkish League playoffs.
The Sun’s lead at the half was 49-37, the Aces’ field goal percentage by that point down to 26.3 percent (10 of 38). And the Sun incrementally extended the lead as the second half played on, opening a 31-point edge (82-51) with five minutes to play.
