Marquette In The Wubble: Seattle Storm 95, Connecticut Sun 72

Well, look. Seattle is in first place at 10-1 at the midpoint of the WNBA season for a reason.

They showed that reason in the third quarter, as they took a 42-33 game and blew it out into a 15 point lead with 10 minutes left. Any thoughts about the Sun managing to get a comeback going were doused when the Storm pushed the margin out to 19 points early in the fourth quarter.

With that said, Connecticut head coach Curt Miller elected to sit his starters in the fourth quarter. That didn’t help matters as Seattle pushed the lead to 23 at the final horn. However, that’s the nature of the schedule in the WNBA bubble season at IMG Academy. They’re halfway through the campaign, and if Miller wants to make a push for playoff seeding in the second half of the season, then sometimes you have to just accept that you’re down 15 after 30 minutes and things aren’t going to get better for you against the league’s top team.

The upside of the bench getting a deep run for Connecticut is that Natisha Hiedeman got 17+ minutes of action in this game. She went just 1-for-5 from the field including misses on all three long range attempts to finish with six points. Shouts to going 4-for-4 from the free throw line. Hiedeman also added a rebound to her statistical production.

Up Next: Connecticut starts the second half of the 22 game season on Tuesday when they face Indiana. That game will come at you on CBS Sports Network with a 6pm Central time start. The Sun are 4-7 after 11 games, but you have to remember that they started out 0-5. They are currently in a tie with Dallas for eighth place in the league standings and are just a half-game behind — SURPRISE — Indiana. If we presume that the WNBA uses the same playoff format as last year, the top eight teams qualify. Connecticut already has a season sweep against Dallas and Tuesday will be their first of two meetings with Indiana. Seems kind of important!