By Tiffany Williams –
For more than two decades, the Connecticut Sun have walked onto the basketball court at Mohegan Sun Arena carrying the name of a state, the history of a tribe and the expectations of a region that already knew something about loving women’s basketball. Now, after 23 seasons, Connecticut is preparing for something it has never had to do before: say goodbye.
The FIBA World Cup break is over, and Thursday night the Sun will return to basketball. Connecticut will travel to Gateway Center in College Park, Georgia, for a 7:30 p.m. matchup against the Atlanta Dream. It will be the first of only four games remaining in the 2026 season, but these are no ordinary final four games.
The clock is running down on an entire franchise era.
Connecticut enters Thursday at 10-30, sitting at the bottom of the Eastern Conference and riding a three-game losing streak. Atlanta is at the opposite end of the standings at 26-14, tied with Indiana for the best record in the conference.
Atlanta has already beaten Connecticut twice this season. The Dream won the first meeting, 91-75, on June 2 in Atlanta before delivering a 104-69 victory in Connecticut on August 13.
The numbers show the distance between the two teams entering Thursday. Atlanta averages 90.8 points per game compared with Connecticut’s 79.0, while the Sun allow 87.8 points per game compared with 85.7 for the Dream.
Atlanta also holds advantages in field-goal percentage, rebounds, assists and steals. Connecticut has averaged more blocks, 4.5 per game compared with Atlanta’s 3.3, but almost everywhere else the statistics favor the Dream.
The Sun went into the international break having lost four of their previous five games. Connecticut lost 97-71 at Dallas on August 30 after falling 111-91 at Indiana and 89-64 at home against Golden State. The Sun’s lone victory during that five-game stretch came against Chicago, 87-81, on August 25.
Atlanta entered the break having won four of five. The Dream defeated Minnesota, 89-81, after losing to Portland, 101-83. Before that loss, Atlanta defeated Los Angeles, 78-71, Phoenix, 99-89, and Los Angeles again in a 124-88 rout.
Connecticut will also return without Kennedy Burke.
The Sun announced Monday that Burke will miss the remainder of the season after sustaining a right shoulder injury during Turkey’s September 6 FIBA World Cup matchup against Australia. After deliberation with the Sun’s medical staff, Burke was ruled out with an acromioclavicular joint sprain to her right shoulder to provide her with time to properly heal.
For another team, four remaining games might simply represent the final stretch of a difficult season. For Connecticut, every remaining date now carries another meaning because there will be no next season for the Connecticut Sun.
After Thursday’s game in Atlanta, the Sun will return to Mohegan Sun Arena on Sunday, September 20, to host the Minnesota Lynx. Then comes one final road trip.
Connecticut travels to CareFirst Arena in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, September 22, for a matchup against the Washington Mystics. When that game ends, the Sun will come home one last time.
Thursday, September 24.
Mohegan Sun Arena.
One final game.
When Connecticut takes the floor that night, it will be the final home game of the season and the final game ever for the Connecticut Sun. Twenty-three seasons of basketball will come down to 40 final minutes before a franchise that became part of New England women’s basketball history reaches the end of its Connecticut story.
It is difficult to understand what that final night means without going back to the beginning.
The Connecticut Sun story started in January 2003, when the Mohegan Tribe purchased the Orlando Miracle. The WNBA was shifting away from its model of direct NBA-parent ownership, and the Miracle was facing an uncertain future.
The Mohegan Tribe paid $10 million for the franchise and moved it to Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville. In doing so, the tribe became the first Native American tribe to own a major professional sports franchise.
There was another enormous question waiting for the new team. Could professional women’s basketball survive outside a traditional major metropolitan market and without the infrastructure of an NBA organization surrounding it?
Connecticut was about to find out.
The franchise was planted in a region where women’s basketball already mattered deeply. The UConn Huskies had created a powerful following, and the Sun entered a market where fans did not need to be convinced that women’s basketball deserved their attention.
The organization immediately reached toward that connection. Rebecca Lobo was brought home in a blockbuster trade and joined fellow UConn icon Nykesha Sales.
Lobo retired after the 2003 season, but Sales became one of the foundations of the young franchise. Her scoring and presence helped establish an identity for a team still introducing itself to Connecticut.
Mike Thibault was hired as head coach before the inaugural season. A year later, Connecticut drafted point guard Lindsay Whalen, and the Sun quickly transformed from an experiment into a championship contender.
In 2004, Connecticut reached the WNBA Finals.
Whalen, Sales and Taj McWilliams-Franklin helped carry the Sun through the Eastern Conference and into a championship series against the Seattle Storm. Connecticut pushed Seattle to a decisive Game 3 before falling short.
Then the Sun came back and did it again.
Connecticut added 7-foot-2 center Margo Dydek and finished the 2005 regular season with a dominant 26-8 record. The Sun returned to the WNBA Finals, this time facing the Sacramento Monarchs.
Again, Connecticut came close.
Again, the championship went somewhere else.
Sacramento won the series 3-1, leaving Connecticut with consecutive Finals appearances but no trophy. What those seasons established, however, was that the unusual little basketball experiment in Uncasville was no novelty.
The Sun could compete with anybody.
As that first core aged, Connecticut found another centerpiece. The Sun selected UConn center Tina Charles with the first overall pick in the 2010 WNBA Draft, beginning another chapter built around one of the dominant interior players of her era.
Charles produced extraordinary double-double numbers and won the 2012 WNBA MVP award. Connecticut remained dangerous, but another Finals appearance remained out of reach, and the franchise eventually moved into a rebuilding period.
Then came another reinvention.
Curt Miller arrived in 2016 and reshaped the Sun around a more physical and versatile approach. At the center of it was Alyssa Thomas, the player who became known as “The Engine.”
Thomas became synonymous with Connecticut basketball. Playing through severe labrum tears in both shoulders, she affected games with physical strength, court vision, defense and an ability to control the basketball without needing to dominate the scoring column.
Around her, Connecticut built another championship contender.
Jonquel Jones emerged as a star. Courtney Williams became another important piece. By 2019, the Sun were back on the biggest stage in the league.
Connecticut faced the Washington Mystics in a five-game WNBA Finals series. The championship came down to Game 5, where Washington ultimately prevailed in the closing minutes.
The Sun had been here before.
Close enough to see the trophy.
Close enough to imagine bringing it home.
Still searching for those final victories.
Jonquel Jones reached another level and captured the 2021 WNBA MVP award. One year later, Connecticut returned to the Finals for the fourth time in franchise history.
The opponent was the Las Vegas Aces.
Thomas produced history in that series, recording the first triple-double in WNBA Finals history. But Las Vegas won the championship in four games, leaving Connecticut with another remarkable run that ended just short of the ultimate goal.
Stephanie White took over as head coach for 2023 and 2024, with Thomas, DeWanna Bonner and Brionna Jones helping Connecticut remain among the league’s strongest defensive teams. Thomas finished her Connecticut tenure with 15 career triple-doubles, an extraordinary statistical legacy for the player who had become the heartbeat of the franchise.
Through all those different versions of the Sun, one thing remained the same.
They stayed in Connecticut.
Stars arrived. Stars left. Coaches changed. Rosters were rebuilt. Championship windows opened and eventually closed, but the Sun kept returning to the same arena in Uncasville.
That is what makes these final four games different.
The franchise that began as a $10 million gamble is approaching the end of its Connecticut existence following a $300 million sale to Tilman Fertitta, owner of the Houston Rockets. The 2026 campaign became the “Sunset Season,” the final opportunity for New England fans to watch the team before its relocation to Texas and the return of the Houston Comets brand in 2027.
The economics surrounding the WNBA have changed dramatically from the world Connecticut entered in 2003. Charter flights became mandatory, player salaries increased, corporate sponsorship became increasingly important, and major metropolitan markets gained greater financial importance.
For 23 seasons, Connecticut operated differently.
The team played inside a casino complex in Uncasville rather than an NBA arena in a major city. It was owned by the Mohegan Tribe rather than an NBA ownership group, and it built its following in a region where college women’s basketball had already become part of the culture.
That experiment lasted more than two decades.
It produced four trips to the WNBA Finals. It produced MVP seasons from Tina Charles and Jonquel Jones. It produced the toughness of Nykesha Sales, the arrival of Lindsay Whalen and the remarkable all-around career of Alyssa Thomas.
What it never produced was a WNBA championship.
That absence will always be part of the history. So will everything Connecticut accomplished while chasing one.
Now there are four games left.
Atlanta comes first Thursday night. Minnesota follows Sunday at Mohegan Sun. Washington waits Tuesday night in the final road game.
Then everybody comes home.
There will be a scoreboard on September 24, and one team will win while another loses. There will be statistics, substitutions, fouls and all the ordinary details that have defined thousands of minutes of Connecticut Sun basketball since 2003.
But when the final horn sounds, the score will tell only a small part of what happened that night.
A franchise will have completed its final game.
An arena that welcomed professional women’s basketball for 23 seasons will watch the Connecticut Sun walk off its court for the last time. Fans who followed the team through four Finals appearances, MVP seasons, rebuilding years and championship pursuits will know there is no home opener waiting the following spring.
The Connecticut Sun began because someone was willing to believe professional women’s basketball could work somewhere different.
For 23 seasons, it did.
Thursday night in Atlanta, the final countdown begins. Four games remain, and then, after all those years of basketball in Uncasville, the Sun will set on Connecticut.