By a wide margin, the Indiana Fever were the worst WNBA team in 2017.
This year, with well-known rookie Aliyah Boston joining a roster that already has a lot of young talent, that shouldn’t be the case. Boston and her new teammates begin the season against the Connecticut Sun on Friday night at home in Indianapolis.
Boston drove South Carolina to the 2022 NCAA title and the 2023 Last Four preceding a misfortune to Caitlin Clark and Iowa in one public elimination round. The 6-foot-5 forward joins 6-4 NaLyssa Smith, who found the middle value of 13.5 places and 7.9 bounce back last year as an Indiana tenderfoot, in what figures to be one of the association’s best frontcourts for quite a while.
Christie Sides, Indiana coach for the first time, said, “She is such an incredible piece for us.” Aliyah is all set. She’s an expert as of now.”
The Fever won’t be the sluggish 5-31 team they were last year if veteran guard Erica Wheeler and seasoned scorer Kelsey Mitchell, who averaged 18.4 points per game, are added together. A playoff spot would not be out of the question if the ball bounces their way a few times.
In the mean time, Connecticut has retooled its program a cycle in the wake of losing in the WNBA Finals to Las Vegas. The Sun are still expected to compete with a core of DeWanna Bonner, Brionna Jones, Alyssa Thomas, and 11th-year WNBA veteran Tiffany Hayes, despite Jonquel Jones’ departure to one of the league’s new “super” teams in New York.
After Curt Miller left to take over for the Los Angeles Sparks, Connecticut now has a new coach. The Sun is run by Stephanie White, and defense has been her first priority.
According to guard Rebecca Allen, “Our first practice, they even got us into a huddle and were saying, this is our expectation that we need to be elite defensively.” We want to spread the word about our presence protectively. Assuming that you come in here, you can’t be delicate.”
The previous season, Connecticut won all four meetings.
