Programming Note: The Sky Townies will be publishing every other week from now until things calm down in our lives. Our Lead Basketball Analyst just started a new job, the Voice of Gen Z just adopted two kittens, and I’m in the throes of trying to finish another writing project. Wish us luck.
Ok some quick playoff math for our eighth place Sky. If the season ended today we’d slide in to the playoffs with the final seed. Here are the standings as of September 1st:
Technically we’re tied record-wise at 15-21 with the LA Sparks, but thanks to our down-to-the-buzzer win against them this week, the Sky have the tie-breaker.
There are four games left in the season for us to defend our spot. The betting odds dictate that both the Sky and the Sparks will go 1-3, so if both teams play to expectations, we’ll get in to the playoffs.
Might be nice to give ourselves a little breathing room and go 2-2 though. I think the clearest path would be beating the Indiana Fever + Minnesota Lynx, but honestly we’ve played well against the Liberty and the Sun too.
Here’s to hoping the Sparks end up losing to the “good teams” (Liberty, Sun, and Mystics) on their remaining schedule.
Random Observations from Beating the LA Sparks
The Townies have mad respect for Morgan Bertsch. Bertsch has been whipped around by the coaching staff this year: she began the season as a starter, at times has been used as a role player, and other times has ridden the bench for entire games/stretches of games. It’s really tough mentally to come in and perform under those conditions, but that’s what Bertsch has done! Against the Sparks, she started in place of an injured Alanna Smith and held her own: 12 points on 5-9 from the field, with two key threes as well. Our Lead Basketball Analyst thought she played with crazy confidence, getting hers when the Sparks left her open. Also, I would have thought playing without Alanna Smith and our general undersized-ness would’ve meant getting man-handled by the Sparks post combo of Nneka Ogwumike and Azurá Stevens. That didn’t happen. The two combined for a measly 24 points on 13-35 from the field. Some credit has to go to Bertsch there.
Free throws? Does anybody have a comprehensive theory to explain the Sky’s 1) inability to get to the line and 2) inability to make free throws when they do get there. I can tell you one problem is that we don’t have a knock down free throw shooter (like a Jordin Canada, Jewell Loyd, Kelsey Plum, etc.) in our Starting Five to pump up our average. But there’s gotta be other stuff going on. Our percentage is last in the league right now at 74.5%, and we’re 10th in attempts. Our friends at The Skyhook Podcast have theorized that the problem was former head coach James Wade, since getting to the line was an issue during his entire tenure. Now he’s gone, but we’re still running his system.
General Observations
Marina Mabrey is not the Black Sheep. Ok, so last time we wrote about the Missing Piece Myth, which is when die hard fans tell themselves that, “If we would only play this one person (i.e. Dana Evans) more, our team would be so much better.” This time we’re writing about the dark side of that myth, the Black Sheep Myth, which is when die-hard fans tell themselves that, “If only we kicked this one person off our team, our team would be so much better.” So I’ll admit that I started Black Sheep-ing Marina Mabrey in late July. I just couldn’t do it anymore with the clanking of the deep threes and the crazy attitude, but hey, in the last five games she’s heating up at a time when Kahleah Copper is cooling off. That’s been a huge part of keeping us afloat in our playoff push.
The “Carli Lloyd situation” made me feel bad about the Sky Townies’ early take on Courtney Williams. Quick summary of the “Carli Lloyd situation:” Carli is a former US Women’s National Soccer Team star turned announcer for this year’s World Cup. After the US team tied the Netherlands, Carli got on her high horse and condemned the players for bonding with fans instead of crying out in agony or pulling themselves up by their bootstraps or whatever. Such an annoying take from Carli. Like, sure, critique the team for the disappointing showing but don’t police the players for having fun or building their brands. Anyways, it made me realize the Townies did the exact same thing to Courtney Williams at the beginning of the season. Williams wasn’t playing well, and we were mad about it, so when I’d see her joking around on the court, I’d shout, “How dare you have fun while shooting 35% from the field!” Anyways, since then Williams has gotten her shooting average back up to normal and turned into a pretty good point guard for us. Her six assists per game are fifth best in the league, right behind Sparks point guard Jordin Canada. So what I learned overall is that players are allowed to have fun while they aren’t playing well; indeed, having fun just might be the thing that helps them turn their performance around. And what I learned about myself through this whole thing is that if a Sky player is shooting below 40% from the field, they’ll become my Black Sheep, unless it’s Kahleah Copper, in which case I just wait patiently for her slump to be over.
Final Thoughts
Does this playoff push even matter if we’re just going to end up playing the Las Vegas Aces in the first round?
Yes.
We’ve played some of our best basketball against the Aces. Plus the Aces are having their existential crisis of discovering they are human and capable of slumping, so I really do believe an upset is possible.
Our next game is Sunday, September 3rd @ 2 p.m. against the New York Liberty at home. Extra incentive to be at Wintrust: Allie Quigley will probably be in the stands cheering on wifey. Or, watch on ESPN2!