Connecticut Sun limit Arike Ogunbowale, defeat Dallas Wings 80

May 12, 2023

UNCASVILLE —Entering Sunday's matchup, Connecticut Sun head coach Stephanie White mentioned how big of a task her team had at hand in slowing down the Dallas Wings’ big three of Arike Ogunbowale, Natasha Howard and Satou Sabally.

The recently-crowned WNBA Coach of the Month clearly came prepared with a plan as the Sun did just that en route to a 80-74 victory at Mohegan Sun Arena.

Ogunbowale was averaging 23.8 points, 4.2 assists and 3.8 rebounds per game on the season, but the Sun completely limited her production. She fouled out and scored a season-low eight points along with six assists and three rebounds. Natasha Howard, who is averaging 18.2 points and 9.2 rebounds on the season, also fouled out and was held to a season-low 11 points, five rebounds and two assists. Sabally finished with 26 points and 14 rebounds.

"We really made an intentional effort to make everything with Arike tough — her catches tough, her shots tough," White said. "We sent multiple players to her, making her make decisions, just trying to keep her off balance as much as possible. It helped us that Natasha Howard was in foul trouble, and that's a tribute to Breezy (Brionna Jones) really offensively going at her to start, Breezy doing an outstanding job of getting really good position and her teammates finding her so that she can go to work.

"Look, every team in this league has multiple go-to players on their team and we have to be able to mix up how we play different players at different times and I thought our team did a good job of that tonight."

Though she would exit early with an injury, former UConn star Crystal Dangerfield finished with 13 points on 5 of 7 shooting for the Wings.

DeWanna Bonner led the Sun with 22 points, along with four rebounds and three assists. Brionna Jones recorded 21 points, eight rebounds, three assists and three steals. Alyssa Thomas added 13 points, 10 rebounds and six assists, while Tiffany Hayes had 17 points, six rebounds and four assists

The Sun jumped out to a big lead early thanks to a dominant first quarter. With a little under three and a half minutes left in the period, Natisha Hiedeman dished a brilliant crosscourt pass to DeWanna Bonner in the corner. The Wing drained a 3-pointer and drew the foul for a four-point play that had the Mohegan Sun Arena crowd going nuts.

After a defensive stop, Bonner again came up with another clutch play. She hit a contested turnaround jumper, promoting DiJonai Carrington to shout "too easy!" from the bench. Those buckets allowed the Sun to extend their lead to 19-8 and the Wings to call timeout.

By the end of the first quarter, Connecticut held a 23-13 advantage over Dallas. Sun head coach Stephanie White elected to have Hiedeman faceguard Ogunbowale early in the game, and it worked brilliantly as the Sun barely allowed the star guard to get any looks off.

"I’m really proud of her," White said of Hiedeman. "So much of a heavy focus for us with her was she's going to stick with Arike like glue. … And Dijonai when she came in too. When you’re asked to check one of the best players in the league, every possession, not let her get anything, it's going to weigh heavily on you. And I felt like they rose up to that challenge exactly like we would have wanted them to."

Connecticut has often let off the gas, gotten sloppy and fallen into a lull in the second quarters of games to give up leads so far this season, but that wasn't the case on Sunday.

The bench players held their own while starters got rest, particularly so Carrington, who kept up the defensive assignment on Ogunbowale. Once the starters were back in the game, they got the lead back up even further, and Connecticut entered halftime with a 44-30 lead.

"I think we just got a lot of gritty people that want to play defense," Bonner said. "Even coming off the bench with Dijonai, Ty Harris. … Everybody knows that saying defense wins championships. So yeah, we know we have a lot of offensive power but if we lock in on defense, I really believe that this team is pretty much unstoppable."

Bonner opened the second half with a 3-pointer from the corner to push the Sun's lead to 17 points.

The Wings managed to make it a 10-point game a little less than midway through the third. Dangerfield trimmed it to single digits with a layup, but then she went down on the ground holding her right lower leg, in a visible amount of pain. Dallas trainers came over and eventually helped her to stand up and walk off the court and back to the team locker room. She was questionable coming into Sunday's game with an Achilles injury.

Connecticut got its lead back up after that, entering the fourth with a 63-52 advantage.

The Wings cut the lead to 78-74 with 9.1 seconds left after an offensive foul and layup from Sabally, making things a little close for comfort, but the Sun's team full of veterans came through in crunch time. Hayes made two shots at free-throw line to seal the victory.

Former UConn star Lou Lopez Sénéchal, who was drafted fifth overall by the Wings in April, did not make the trip to Connecticut.

Lopez Sénéchal has yet to take the court as a pro, as she's been sidelined with a knee injury, which she suffered during the Huskies’ Sweet 16 loss to Ohio State in March.

The Wings declined to give specifics on the nature of the injury but a team spokesperson said that Lopez Sénéchal had surgery on May 24 with an approximately eight week return.

"She's rehabbing currently, and that's going to take a while. But I know that she's eager to get back," Wings head coach Latricia Trammell said. "Even when I’m on the road, her and Diamond (DeShields) and and even (Teaira McCowan) now, I always connect with them. So I know she's watching and she wishes she could be on the floor and so do we, but she's still staying connected."

Trammell said the rehab process has been going "really good" for Lopez Sénéchal.

"So hopefully she’ll be back sooner than later," Trammell said. "But I just don't want to do too soon to hinder her performance and we want to make sure that she's fully healthy before she returns to the court."

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