Connecticut Sun

Team information

Inaugural season: 1999

Home stadium: Mohegan Sun Arena

Owner: Mohegan Reservation

Team colors: Orange, blue, white

Overview

The Connecticut Sun is a professional basketball franchise that competes in the Eastern Conference of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA). Established in 1998 as the Orlando Miracle, the team played its first season in 1999. In 2003, the Mohegan Native American tribe acquired ownership of the Orlando Miracle and moved the team from Florida to Connecticut, rebranding the franchise as the Sun. The team plays its home games at Mohegan Sun Arena, which seats approximately ten thousand spectators for basketball games.

In April 2021, the Sun revealed a new uniform collection as part of a league-wide apparel makeover in partnership with corporate sponsor Nike. The Sun’s WNBA Nike collection includes three jerseys: the Heroine Edition (white), the Explorer Edition (orange), and the Rebel Edition (blue). The colors and imagery used in the Sun’s new uniforms reflect the team’s connections to the Mohegan tribe and were chosen to reflect Mohegan myths, ideology, and symbolism.

Since moving from Orlando to Connecticut, the Sun have emerged as one of the WNBA’s most successful teams in regular-season play. In the nineteen seasons spanning 2003–2021, the Sun posted a winning record 13 times, including a spectacular mark of 26 wins, 6 losses in 2021 that challenged the all-time WNBA mark for wins in a season. However, postseason success has thus far proved elusive for the franchise, which has yet to win its first WNBA title despite three trips to the league’s championship series.

History

In 1998, WNBA officials announced that an expansion franchise had been awarded to the city of Orlando and would begin play in the 1999 season. Named the Orlando Miracle, the new team was originally the property of the DeVos family, owners of the Orlando Magic of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Carolyn Peck, former coach of Purdue University’s varsity women’s basketball team, joined the Miracle as head coach for the team’s first three seasons. After finishing out of the playoffs with a 15–17 record in 1999, the Miracle made their first postseason appearance in 2000 after going 16–16 in the regular season. The team lost in the Eastern Conference semifinals, then finished outside the playoffs again in 2001. Peck was replaced by former NBA guard Dee Brown for the 2002 season. Under Brown, the Miracle finished 16–16 but failed to make the playoffs in what proved to be their final season in Orlando.

In October 2002, the Miracle announced they would be leaving Florida for a destination to be named later. That destination was revealed as Connecticut in January 2003, when the Mohegan Native American tribe purchased the team from the DeVos family through the Mohegan Sun business entity. The renamed Connecticut Sun thus became the first franchise in WNBA history to be independently owned and operated, as all other clubs in the league at the time maintained formal affiliations to parent NBA clubs. The Sun began play at the ten-thousand-seat Mohegan Sun Arena in 2003. The arena is part of the Mohegan Sun entertainment complex in Uncasville, Connecticut, which also includes a world-class casino.

The team’s first season in Connecticut was a success, with the Sun compiling a record of 18–16 and making a deep playoff run under new coach Mike Thibault, ultimately losing in the Eastern Conference finals. Thibault guided the Sun to an identical 18–16 record in 2004, but the club broke through to reach that year’s WNBA Finals. The Sun lost the best-of-three series by a 2–1 margin to the Anne Donovan-coached Seattle Storm, which won the deciding game in the set by a 74–60 score. In 2005, the Sun raced to a league-best 26–8 record and made their second consecutive appearance in the WNBA Finals. The championship round expanded to a five-game format in 2005, but the Sun once again came up short by falling to the Sacramento Monarchs by a 3–1 margin. After going 26–8 again in 2006, the Sun stumbled in the playoffs, losing in the Eastern Conference semifinals to the eventual champions, the Detroit Shock.

Thibault remained the Sun’s bench boss through the end of the 2012 WNBA season, with his tenure being marked by multiple playoff disappointments after considerable success in the regular season. Particularly noteworthy campaigns during this era include the 2008, 2011, and 2012 seasons, during which the Sun went 21–13, 21–13, and 25–9, respectively. However, the team lost in the Eastern Conference semifinals in 2008 and 2011 and bowed out in the 2012 Eastern Conference finals.

In 2013, the Sun embarked on a rebuild and made their first coaching change since relocating to Connecticut from Florida. Thibault exited, and Basketball Hall of Fame member Anne Donovan replaced him. Donovan, a two-time US Olympian, also won a national collegiate championship in 1980 as a member of the Old Dominion Lady Monarchs. However, Donovan failed to lead the Sun to a winning season during her three-year tenure as the team’s head coach.

Curt Miller took over from Donovan ahead of the 2016 season, marking the beginning of the team’s return to regular-season success. After posting a 14–20 record in his first year with the Sun, Miller guided the team to a dramatic turnaround in 2017, when the Sun went 21–13 but lost in the second round of the playoffs. After finishing with identical regular-season and playoff results in 2018, the Sun broke through in 2019 to make their third WNBA Finals appearance. In the championship round, the Sun faced the Washington Mystics in a five-game set, which went the distance. The Mystics prevailed, winning the deciding game by a score of 89–78.

After going 10–12 in the 2020 season, which was shortened by the COVID-19 global pandemic, the Sun returned to their winning ways in 2021. That year, the team posted its best-ever record by going 26–6 but lost in the playoff semifinals to the Chicago Sky, who went on to win that year’s WNBA title.

In 2022, the Sun finished third with an overall record of 25-11. They advanced to the playoffs, winning the first three games but losing the championship to the Aces.

Notable players

In 2021, the ESPN sports network published a list of the twenty-five all-time greatest players in WNBA history. The Connecticut Sun was represented in the list by center Tina Charles (18th place) and guard Lindsay Whalen (19th place). Charles was selected by the Sun with the first overall pick in the 2010 WNBA Draft and went on to play for the Sun from 2010–2013. During her tenure with the team, Charles established herself as one of the league’s top shooters and rebounders and was a WNBA All-Star as a Sun member in 2011 and 2013. She left the team in a blockbuster trade between the Sun and the New York Liberty.

Minnesota-born guard Lindsay Whalen played six seasons for the Sun between 2004–2009 and represented the Sun as a WNBA All-Star in 2006. The playmaking point guard was an instrumental part of the Sun’s back-to-back runs to the WNBA Finals in 2004 and 2005, but she achieved greater success as a member of the Minnesota Lynx, which she joined in a 2010 trade. Whalen starred for the Lynx from 2010–2018, winning four championships in her six WNBA Finals appearances with the club.

Other noteworthy stars from Connecticut Sun franchise history include Taj McWilliams-Franklin, Chiney Ogwumike, and Jonquel Jones. McWilliams-Franklin is an original member of the franchise, having joined the team for its first season in 1999 when it was known as the Orlando Miracle. From 1999–2001 and again in 2005 and 2006, McWilliams-Franklin represented the team as a WNBA All-Star. Her statistically finest season with the franchise came in 2005, when McWilliams-Franklin averaged 13.9 points per game (PPG) and started all thirty-four of the club’s games.

Ogwumike played three seasons for the Sun between 2014–2018 and was named a WNBA All-Star in 2014 and 2016. The Nigerian-American forward-center was a strong and reliable performer for the Sun when healthy, but she sat out the 2015 and 2017 seasons with injuries. The Sun traded her to the Los Angeles Sparks in April 2019 in exchange for a first-round pick in the 2020 WNBA Draft.

The Sun acquired the rights to Jones through a 2016 trade with the Los Angeles Sparks. Jones, a forward, made her Sun debut in 2016 and represented the team as a WNBA All-Star the following season, when she posted 15.4 PPG while appearing in all 34 of the club’s games. She was named a WNBA All-Star again in 2019 and 2021, with her stellar 2021 campaign including a 19.4 PPG average. Jones missed seven games during the 2021 WNBA season, as the Sun temporarily suspended her contract to allow her to represent Bosnia and Herzegovina at that year’s International Basketball Federation (FIBA) Women’s EuroBasket tournament.

Bibliography

“Connecticut Sun.” Basketball Reference, 2024, www.basketball-reference.com/wnba/teams/CON/. Accessed 20 Mar. 2024.

“Connecticut Sun Uniform Unveil.” Women’s National Basketball Association, 8 Apr. 2021, sun.wnba.com/news/connecticut-sun-uniform-unveil/. Accessed 20 Mar. 2024.

“History—Connecticut Sun.” Women’s National Basketball Association, 2023, sun.wnba.com/history/. Accessed 20 Mar. 2024.

“Jonquel Jones Temporarily Leaving Sun.” The Day, 5 June 2021, www.theday.com/article/20210605/SPORT13/210609581. Accessed 20 Mar. 2024.

“WNBA’s Greatest Players of All Time: Ranking the 25 Best in League History.” ESPN, 21 Sep. 2021, www.espn.com/wnba/story/‗/id/32210623/wnba-greatest-players-all-ranking-25-best-league-history. Accessed 20 Mar. 2024.