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You can find previous installments in the WNBA season preview series here: New York Liberty, Minnesota Lynx
After checking in on the WNBA Finals participants from New York and Minnesota, our trip through last year’s standings brings us to Connecticut, which is coming off of its fourth straight season winning at least 25 games and sixth straight appearance in at least the semifinals. Those streaks are almost certain to come to an end following the departure of coach Stephanie White (now with the Indiana Fever) and most of the team’s notable players (more on them in a bit).
Connecticut’s playoff streak includes a sub-.500 finish (10-12) in the Wubble in 2020, but the team has won at least 20 games in each of its last seven full-length seasons. Including the playoffs, the Sun’s 204 wins since 2017 are five more than any other team in the WNBA (the Las Vegas Aces are second with 199).
The Sun will move forward with first-time WNBA head coach Rachid Meziane, who has previously coached both the Belgian national team and several professional teams in his native France. Last year, Meziane guided his most recent French club, Villeneuve, to the 2024 Ligue Féminine and the first EuroLeague Finals appearance by a French team in two decades before falling to a Fenerbahçe team featuring Napheesa Collier, Kayla McBride and Emma Meesseman.
The Sun’s decline coincides with the UConn women’s basketball team reclaiming its rightful place atop the college hoops world after eight years, and perhaps this confluence of events was written in the stars because it always seems to happen this way. As hard as it is to believe, it’s been 21 years since the last time UConn won a national championship and the Sun made the WNBA playoffs in the same year. Allow me to show my work on that claim:
The Sun’s last four missed postseasons line up perfectly with the UConn four-peat from 2013-16.
Before that, the WNBA franchise had consecutive playoff berths in 2011 and 2012 while Geno Auriemma’s squads lost in consecutive national semifinals.
UConn titles in 2009 and 2010 coincided with two more years of the Sun missing the playoffs.
Before that, the Sun made the playoffs every year from 2003-08, but UConn went four straight seasons without a title at the end of that streak. We’re all the way back in 2004 before finally finding the last UConn title/Sun playoffs double dip.
I’d normally do some sort of analysis of what the Sun have looked like on the court over the last couple of seasons here, but that doesn’t strike me as particularly informative given those teams bear almost no resemblance to what Connecticut will put on the floor in 2025. Instead, here’s an inexhaustive rundown of what’s gone from the Sun team that lost the WNBA Finals in 2022. Suffice to say, Sun fans can find reminders of what the franchise has lost almost anywhere they look around the WNBA.
The exodus started immediately after the 2022 season with five-time All-Star and 2021 WNBA MVP Jonquel Jones’ departure for the New York Liberty and Courtney Williams leaving for the Chicago Sky in 2023 (she’s since moved on to the Lynx). Another 2022 Sun starter, Natisha Hiedeman, joined Williams in Minnesota after the 2023 season.
Six-time All-Star DeWanna Bonner left as a free agent this winter to join former coach White (and Caitlin Clark) in Indiana on a team with championship aspirations.
The face of the franchise, five-time All-Star Alyssa Thomas, was dealt to the Phoenix Mercury in the offseason to form a new “big three” of her own with Kahleah Copper and Satou Sabally while shepherding the Mercury into life after Diana Taurasi.
Three-time All-Star Brionna Jones, whose presence helped the team absorb the loss of Jonquel Jones, left for the Atlanta Dream as a free agent.
2024 WNBA Most Improved Player and All-Defensive First Team selection DiJonai Carrington, the last notable member of the 2022 playoff rotation as a second-year player, was shipped to the Dallas Wings in the offseason.
Adding a layer of insult, Curt Miller, who coached the Sun to those Finals and another appearance in 2019, has taken on the GM position with the Dallas Wings where his notable moves include not only taking Carrington off the Sun’s hands but also drafting Paige Bueckers away from the Nutmeg State.
