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Saturday Open Thread: Quick Thoughts On The Washington Mystics' Loss To The Sparks

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It seems that the Storm and Shock need a Special Saturday just for all of us to watch. That's what we'll have on for today.

The other 10 teams will have another quintuple-header tomorrow but all will play different teams I believe. First, I'll give some quick thoughts on the Mystics/Sparks Game from yesterday (well I'm still awake from it).

Sparks 96, Mystics 68

WNBA.com | Lacey Presser | WaPo Recap

Good

1. The Mystics were able to keep up with the Sparks for the first quarter.

2. Alana Beard was given a nice ovation.

3. The UMD women's basketball team was there, considering that three Terps (Coleman and Toliver for LA; Lang for DC) played in this game.

4. Mo had a great game individually with 16 points, 4 boards, 3 dimes, a steal, and NO TURNOVERS!

5. Natalie Novosel played 11 minutes, and scored four points. She did have three turnovers however, but again, she's adjusting to the pro game which takes any and all rookies, some time to do.

Bad

1. Lang had an off night. 2-9 shooting and 6 points overall....

2. DC had 15 TO's so that's below average for them, but only 10 dimes.... LA had 19 TO's, but had 26 assists.

3. This goes beyond basketball. I talked with some other STH's today about four or five, and we all asked if we would renew by the mythical September 14 deadline. The answer was a near unanimous NO. Some wanted the team to do a strategy I already proposed, which was to hire a new GM, and have that person decide what happens with coaching, and Marynell Meadors has of course gotten a lot of endorsements, but I don't want to be zeroed in on anyone.

Others want to wait until the draft lottery to see if the Mystics get a Top Three pick. The draft lottery is luck at the end of the day. We either get a top three pick or we don't. Just assuming that a top three pick is going to guarantee success is also fool hearty. Even if the Mystics end up with the fourth pick, that does not give an excuse for them to just meddle around. Just outwork the other teams with what they have and stick to the plan, whatever it is.

I also spoke with my guest services rep and she is also aware of how I feel, and noted that I did renew my Wizards tickets before the trade deadline when the Nene trade happened, and that renewal deadlines for the Mystics just happen to be at a time before big changes can be made. So in short, I should have a little faith. She's a real nice lady and I understand what she's talking about, but I can't give the Mystics the benefit of the doubt. We'll see in the coming weeks.

Plenty of UMD and Sparks fans in the crowd, at least for Mystics standards. People were cheering at least as much for LA as they were for DC tonight....

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Today's game, at 8 PM ET, 7 PM CT, 6 PM Mountain Time (yes I know you also read the blog too but there's no team in that time zone) and 5 PM PT, the Seattle Storm travels to Tulsa and plays the Shock in a rematch of Thursday's game. This is only on LiveAccess.

WNBA.com | The Storm's downpour on Tulsa was historic | And rookie Shekinna Stricklen is getting in her stride (you know what I want to say when it comes to rookies at this point) | Storm Preview

The Shock got killed Thursday, but today is a new day for the Young Guns and the Grannies, not to mention that the game is now in Oklahoma, not in Washington State. I personally don't think this game will be that close either, but we'll see.

So that's it for today. Go ahead and chip in your thoughts on tonight's game, as well as your thoughts on yesterday's Mystics/Sparks game, though it was pretty ugly for many of you.