Sun vs. Tempo: Connecticut Wins 95-81 in Its Final Game Before the Franchise Moves to Houston

The orange shirts came out one more time. So did the longtime season ticket holders, the old stars, the mascot and a sellout crowd that knew exactly what it was watching. On Thursday night, the Connecticut Sun played their last game in Connecticut, and they made sure the final page had a happy ending.

The Sun beat the Toronto Tempo 95-81 at Mohegan Sun Arena in the franchise's final game before it moves to Houston, where, according to the AP, it will be renamed the Comets starting next season. Ashlon Jackson scored 18 points, Raegan Beers added 17 and Aaliyah Edwards had 16 in front of a sellout crowd of 8,911.

A Night Built for Goodbyes

This was never going to be just a basketball game. Before tipoff, the Sun honored longtime season ticket holders, and Nykesha Sales, who along with Rebecca Lobo was one of the faces of the franchise after it relocated from Orlando following the 2002 season, was among those recognized. Blaze, the team's mascot, even banked in a half-court shot before the players took the floor, which is honestly a better pregame hype video than most teams can produce.

When the final horn sounded, the five Sun players on the court wrapped each other up, and the rest of the roster walked out to join them with their arms raised. Then team president Jen Rizzotti, a former UConn star, took a microphone and spoke to the crowd.

"You guys have been our family for 24 years," Rizzotti said. "I know how hard it is. You have proved that Connecticut deserves a WNBA team."

The Game Itself: Tight, Then Not

For a half, Toronto refused to play the role of polite houseguest. The Tempo strung together eight straight points across the end of the first quarter and the start of the second to grab a 24-23 lead, and the teams swapped the lead 11 times over the course of the night. Edwards kept Connecticut afloat with 14 first-half points, and the Sun led just 38-36 at halftime.

The third quarter is where the Sun turned a farewell party into a proper send-off. Clinging to a 56-52 lead with 2:35 left in the period, Connecticut ripped off 11 unanswered points to go up 67-52 and carried a 69-57 lead into the fourth. The margin topped out at 17.

Toronto kept chipping in the fourth but never seriously threatened, and Jackson made sure of it. She scored 12 of her 18 points in the final 3:28, starting with a floater, then splashing 3s from 29 and 27 feet before a 29-foot running heave with 51 seconds left made it 95-78. If you are going to close a building, you might as well do it from the parking lot.

Five in Double Figures

The AP noted that five of the 10 Sun players who saw the floor on Thursday were rookies, a sign of how difficult this final season has been. On this night, though, the scoring came from everywhere. Jackson came off the bench and went 6 of 11, including 5 of 9 from deep. Beers posted 17 points and eight rebounds, made all five of her free throws and was plus-13. Edwards scored 16 on 6-of-11 shooting in only 17 minutes.

Hailey Van Lith might have been the best all-around player on the floor: 12 points, nine rebounds and eight assists, which the team said was a season high in assists. Gianna Kneepkens added 12, giving Connecticut five players in double figures. The Sun shot 50% and owned the paint 54-38.

Toronto's Kiki Rice was terrific in defeat, scoring a game-high 28 points on 9-of-20 shooting with a perfect 8 of 8 at the line and eight rebounds. Isabelle Harrison added 19 points and 10 rebounds, and Laura Juskaite scored 15, nine of them at the stripe. The Tempo made 26 of 30 free throws but shot just 5 of 29 from 3-point range, and that math was never going to work.

The Turning Point

The 11-0 run late in the third. Toronto had hung around for most of three quarters, and a four-point game in a season finale between two lottery teams could have gone either way. Instead, it was the Tempo who went cold, and by the time they scored again, the Sun had a lead big enough to let the crowd start celebrating early.

Stats That Matter

• 11-0: Connecticut's third-quarter run that broke a 56-52 game open.
• 54-38: The Sun's edge in points in the paint.
• 5 of 29: Toronto's 3-point shooting.
• 12: Jackson's points in the final 3:28.
• 8,911: The sellout crowd for the last game in Uncasville.

What It Means

Both teams finish 11-33, with the Sun going 8-14 at home and the Tempo 4-18 on the road, and the AP noted both now await the WNBA Draft lottery. Connecticut snapped a six-game losing streak to end the season. Toronto, which still won the season series 2-1, closes on an eight-game skid and dropped 20 of its final 21 games.

The history is the bigger story. Per the AP, Connecticut made the WNBA Finals in only its second season, dropping a deciding Game 3 to Seattle in 2004, and came up short again in the 2005 and 2022 Finals. The arena hosted the WNBA All-Star Game four times between 2005 and 2015. And here is the detail that writes itself: the franchise's first home game, on May 24, 2003, was an 82-73 loss to Los Angeles, and its first win came six days later, against the Houston Comets. It now heads to Houston to become the Comets.

General manager Morgan Tuck, who played at UConn and for the Sun, framed the night as a beginning as much as an ending.

"The legacy is that we had a positive impact on a lot of people," Tuck said. "It might be an end here but it is not an end to our team. It is not an end to our players and what they are trying to do on the court."

Closing Take

Most franchise finales feel like the last episode of a show that got canceled: rushed, awkward, nobody quite sure how to say goodbye. This one felt more like a series finale written by people who loved the show. The shooters hit their shots, the legends got their applause, the mascot hit a half-court bank, and the crowd got one more win to take home.

Coach Rachid Meziane had told his team the goodbyes could wait until after the game. When they came, he put it best.

"People will never forget this franchise, never forget the name on the jersey," he said.

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Game details and quotes as reported by the Associated Press and the Connecticut Sun's official game recap.