Sloot/WNBA

[seacatfan]

Sky made it respectable, but I don't think they ever got closer than 8 in the Commissioners Cup game.

Back and forth w/ NY tonight, Sky pulled away at the end. Sloot's best game in a long time, 23 pts/9 assists/6 reb.

[seacatfan]

Sloot is now at 2338 assists. Whalen is 2345. One more game and she could move to number three.

[seacatfan]

Chicago and Connecticut in OT. Sloot w/ 9 assists, so she's now in third place.

[seacatfan]

Sky win by 3 in OT. Beat the third place team in the league, with no Parker. Sloot just missed a triple double--16 pts/12 assists/8 reb.

[ZagDad84]

Interesting that when Parker sits out (the last 2 games) Sloot all of a sudden plays 31 mpg and 34 mpg and has more sloot-like numbers. CV's replacements (Allemand & Evans) only played a total of 11 mpg and 15 mpg over the same last couple of games.

Sloot has 170 assists on the season with 6 games to go which is her lowest total for a season since 2016 when CV only had 141 assists. Sloot's lowest total of assists over the past 5 years (when she led the WNBA) is 218 assists with one year having 300 assists. The Sky have six (6) more games left in this season, so if Sloot is going to get anywhere near her lowest assist total in the last five years (218 and 220) she will need to average 8+ assists over her last 6 games.

After today, Sloot is now 250 assists behind 2nd place Ticha Penicheiro on the all-time WNBA assists leaderboard, which, assuming no injury ro retirement, she might get at the end of next year.

ZagDad

[ZagDad84]

With great stats over her last two games, Sloot has been named Eastern Conference player of the week.

Congrats Courtney, well done.

ZagDad

[seacatfan]

Very well deserved.

Wandering off topic a bit, Western Conference Player of the Week is Kelsey Plum. As far as I know there are only 3 players in the W who played college ball in the State of Washington, and 2 of them were just named POW. Plum averaged 24 ppg and shot an insane 74% from the floor, 75% from 3.

[ZagDad84]

Sky fall to the Dallas Wings, who played without Arika Ogunbowale, 84-78. Marina Mabrey scored a season-high 26 points, Teaira McCowan added 20 points and 12 rebounds and the Dallas Wings beat the Chicago Sky 84-78 on Tuesday night. Dallas was missing Arike Ogunbowale, who is third in the league in scoring at 19.9 points, due to an ankle injury. The Sky lost primarily because they had 15 turnovers to the Wings 9 and because they only made 14-22 free throws (63.6%). For the most part, in the WNBA you simply cannot give away free away free points and expect to win.

The Wings are fighting to hold onto a playoff position while the Sky are fighting to stay as the WNBA's No. 1 team. While the Sky lost last night, so did the Las Vegas Aces, so the Sky are still the WNBA's top ranked team by a single game with four to play. The Sky are two games ahead of Connecticut in the Eastern division.

Sloot had an up and down game last night, playing just under 30 mpg resulting in 9 points, 8 assists, 5 rebounds, 2 steals and a block to go with 3 turnovers. CV's backups (Allemand and Evans) played a total of just over 11 minutes last night.

[seacatfan]

Strange game. Parker was back, and w/ Arike out I thought it would be a fairly easy W for the Sky. I couldn't have been more wrong. Dallas just looked more motivated and got most of the loose balls and 50/50 plays. Looked like Chicago might steal it at the end, but they missed a few critical FTs late. Parker had one of those kind of games where she looked disinterested and had almost zero impact.


OT, but Lexie Hull has been suffering thru a fairly brutal rookie season, I was happy to see she had a good game tonight. 14 pts/7 reb. Fever were down almost 30 at halftime but apparently got as close as 5 in Q4 before losing by 10. Poor Indiana is just perpetually the worst team in the league, doesn't look like they'll ever get out of that sinkhole.

[ZagDad84]

Even though the Sky had today off, a couple of things did occur that significantly impact Chicago's playoff status.

On the 2nd place (in the East and 3rd place overall) Connecticut Sun, Sun guard Bria Hartley will miss the remainder of the WNBA season with a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee, the team announced Wednesday.

Those same Dallas Wings who took down the Sky in their last game, beat the 2nd place Las Vegas Aces tonight. With the loss tonight, Las Vegas and Connecticut are tied for 2nd place overall with identical 22-10 records, 1.5 games behind the league leading Chicago Sky (23-8) with five (5) games remaining in the regular season. Chicago really has their fate in their hands as the finish up against the top teams in the league. They play No. 5 Washington, No. 2/3 Connecticut & No.4 Seattle at home then finish at No. 2/3 Las Vegas and Albums Phoenix who is a half game out of the last playoff spot.

Sky start the final push for the No. 1 seed tomorrow at 5:00 PM PST at home against Washington on NBA-TV.

ZagDad

[seacatfan]

Sky beat the Mystics. EDD sat this one out. 10 pts/7 assists for Sloot. Her assist numbers are definitely trending up. She'll be hard pressed to catch Natasha Cloud though. Will likely be the first time in what, 5 years she hasn't led the league in apg?

[seacatfan]

For a while I thought Sloot's streak of 200 or more assists seasons was in jeopardy (5 and counting currently). Now she's up to 185 w/ 4 games left, so she should be able to get there.

[ZagDad84]

Sky beat the Mystics. EDD sat this one out. 10 pts/7 assists for Sloot. Her assist numbers are definitely trending up. She'll be hard pressed to catch Natasha Cloud though. Will likely be the first time in what, 5 years she hasn't led the league in apg?

Sloot has led the WNBA in assists for the past five years. The WNBA record for consecutive years leading the WNBA in assists is six (6) by Ticha Penicheiro. Sloot won't lead the WNBA in assists this year and she is not even 2nd at this time. The quick stats show CV with the second highest average assists per game, but remember she missed 4 games so in the total number of assists this year, going into tonight's games the order is:

- Natasha Cloud - 220 assists
- Sabrina ionescu - 199 assists
- Alyssa Thomas - 198 assists
- Chelsea Gray - 185 assists
- Sloot - 178 assists
- Skylar Diggens Smith - 166 assists
- Sue Bird - 160 assists

With 5 games to play (4 after tonight) Sloot might catch Gray but I think Cloud, Ionescu and Thomas are out of reach this year. One thing that has kept CV down this year is not only missing 4 games but Sloot is only playing 26.7 mpg with only Sue Bird, on the above list, playing fewer minutes at 26.3 mpg. All of the other ladies on the list, play considerably more minutes than Courtney ranging from Gray's 29.3 mpg to Diggens-Smith's 34.0 mpg.

[ZagDad84]

Several good things came out of tonight's Sky win.

With the victory tonight, the Sky (24-8) are now two (2) full games up on 2nd place Las Vegas (22-10) and Connecticut (22-10), four (4) games up on Seattle (20-12) and 4.5 games up on Washington (20-13) with four games to play.

With the win tonight the Sky have set a regular season record for victories with 24.

Courtney had a reasonable night today with 10 points, 7 assists, 5 rebounds (more than Parker and Meesseman) and a steal to go with only 1 turnover. With Parker back, Sloot only played 23 minutes today. Tough to make up ground in the assists race when you are playing 5-10 minutes less than the other competitors.

Next game up for the Sky is on Sunday versus Connecticut is on Sunday at 10:00 AM PST as the first game of a WNBA double header on ABC. Interesting enough, the second game of the ABC WNBA double header has the Las Vegas Aces traveling to Seattle to play the Storm in what may be Sue Birds last home game (game is already sold out).

ZagDad

[seacatfan]

OT again. After having a solid outing in their last game, Lexie Hull is starting today. Double figure scoring back to back games. She's BARELY been playing for a good chunk of the season. Maybe the Fever gave up on her too soon and should've been playing her more consistent minutes all season. It's not like they were going ANYWHERE this year, in the cellar by a mile.