• The Connecticut Sun is now 3-0 for the start to the 2018 season. The last time Connecticut got off to a 3-0 start was in 2008.

• Five Connecticut players finished with 10 or more points – Alyssa Thomas (21), Rachel Banham (14), Courtney Williams (11), Jasmine Thomas (11) Chiney Ogwumike (10)

• Alyssa Thomas led the Sun with a season high of 21 points on 8-of-12 shooting from the field.  This is her third straight game in double-figures for the Sun.

• Rachel Banham finished with a career-high 14 points. Her previous career-high was 13 points on May 14, 2016 at Chicago. The guard also collected a season-high two assists.

• Courtney Williams matched a career high with six assists and had season high of seven rebounds for Connecticut.

• Jasmine Thomas collected 11 points for her third straight game in double figures.  The guard also had a season high of three steals.

• The Fever’s Erica Wheeler finished eight points and matched a career high of nine assists.  She has done this two other times.

• Victoria Vivians had a career high of 13 points on 5-of-8 shooting from the field. The rookie also had a career high of two assists.

• Erica McCall matched a career high of nine rebounds set last year on the same floor.  She also matched a career high of two assists.

• Kelsey Mitchell finished with 18 points.  This is her fourth straight double-figure game. (4 of 5 to begin pro career)

CONNECTICUT SUN QUOTES

Head Coach Curt Miller

Opening Statement:

“Well it wasn’t always pretty tonight, and certainly we had stretches that we didn’t play particularly well, but mission accomplished. We didn’t shy away this year from talking about how important May was. We got off to slow starts my first year and second year. We knew when the schedule came out and how much we’re on the road in June and early July, that this three game home stand to start the year was very, very important to us, so mission accomplished getting to 3-0. We’re really excited about that, good teams take care of business at home. Despite any of those three teams being at full strength, we did what we needed to do. Tonight, I thought we had good stretches. We couldn’t sustain it for as long as we wanted. The fourth quarter, as good as it was for us the other night, was a struggle tonight. I have to give credit to Indiana’s second unit, their energy in the second half with 10 offensive rebounds alone in the half and a lot of put-backs, and their fight in the fourth quarter was a reversal of what we did the other night in the fourth quarter. We’re proud of our gang that we got to the finish line.”

Sun Forward Alyssa Thomas

On keeping up with Indiana’s pace

“Yeah for sure, they have a lot of speed. When shots aren’t falling, you have to get in transition. Unfortunately, we were struggling a little bit to slow them down and get turned around quick enough, but once we were able to keep them in the half court, we were able to get stops.”

On Rachel Banham’s performance

​”She’s finally healthy and playing super confident. She’s been playing well all preseason for us, and I’m glad to finally see her get some time and she’s playing really well.”

INDIANA QUOTES

Head Coach Pokey Chatman

Opening Statement:
“You want to come out in the win column, that is just what you do at this level, that is what you expect and what you prepare for and why you play the 40 minute game. No one else expect for us in that locker room expected us to have a chance to win anyway. You could see the frustration in how we were making the uncomfortable and they were taking timeouts and uncharacteristic stuff. I will always give the opposition credit in terms of the win, but I think there were some turnovers in there, we had 18 that led to 18 points off of them and it should have been 12. I thought we did the hard part, outrebounding them, we just have to do a better job of being disciplined defending without fouling.”

On the effort of her team tonight
“I was pleased the effort especially with the babies. They are still learning things and retaining things and I want to make sure we don’t take a step back because that is an effort thing and they gave a lot of it tonight.”

CANDICE DUPREE

On the effort of her team tonight
“We got some great energy off the bench, they competed and had a lot spring in their step and we are appreciative of that and hope we can do that every single game.”

On the progression of the young players
“They don’t have much of a learning curve because training camp is so short, they just need to lock in a focus a little more in practice. They are doing a great job, they don’t have a lot of time to catch on to things and they are learning on the fly through game experience and Pokey is doing a good job getting them that game experience. They just have to play through their mistakes and we will take the good with the bad. I just love the energy they are giving.”

KELSEY MITCHELL

On the progress that the young players on the team are making
“It’s a huge adjustment because you have to know personnel and I am really bad at that at this point because I don’t know that a player like Bentley can shoot the three and put it on the floor and how you have to close out a player like that. For us the huge adjustment is knowing that the energy had to stay up for the entire game.”