Edwards returns and takes over
Aaliyah Edwards missed four games with an ankle injury. She came back Tuesday night in Uncasville and scored 26 points, a career high, on 11-of-16 shooting in 26 minutes. She grabbed 10 rebounds along the way. Her previous best was 24.
Connecticut beat Chicago 87-81. Diamond Miller added 21 points, Kennedy Burke chipped in 19, and for three quarters the Sun looked like the more organised team by a wide margin.
Edwards did her damage inside. Sixteen attempts, eleven makes, most of them close to the rim against a Chicago front line that had no answer until the game had already tilted.
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The fourth quarter got interesting
Connecticut led 78-58 early in the fourth. That was the biggest gap of the night and it should have been the end of it.
Chicago then ripped off a 21-4 run and cut the deficit to 82-79 with 2:20 on the clock. Kamilla Cardoso drove that surge, finishing with 24 points and 13 rebounds for her 14th double-double of the season. Azura Stevens added 18.
The Sun scored the next four points. Edwards blocked a shot at one end and converted a layup at the other, pushing the lead back to seven and shutting the door. Chicago never got closer.
Two teams playing for next year
Connecticut moved to 10-27. Chicago dropped to 15-24. Neither is going to the postseason, and the standings elsewhere confirmed it on the same night: Dallas beat Portland to claim the last playoff berth, joining Minnesota, Golden State, Las Vegas, Atlanta, Indiana, New York and Washington.
That leaves games like this one as auditions. Edwards is 24 and in the middle of a rebuild that has produced far more losses than wins this season. A 26-point, 10-rebound line in her first game back from injury is the kind of evidence Connecticut needs before deciding who stays.
Cardoso, meanwhile, keeps piling up double-doubles for a Chicago team that cannot convert them into results. Fourteen this season, and a fourth-quarter run that came four minutes too late.
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