There were more Dallas Wings jerseys in the crowd for Sunday afternoon\u2019s Toronto Tempo game than usual for an away team. Yet, when the 2025 and 2026 WNBA No. 1 overall draft picks are in town, that can be expected. <\/p>\n
For the first time, Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd played WNBA basketball in Toronto, with their Wings winning 89-76 over the Tempo.<\/p>\n
The Tempo also suffered a last-minute scratch to their starting lineup after Julie Allemand injured her foot before the game. Tima Pouye was inserted into the lineup in her place, but without Allemand and Kiki Rice, who is still healing from an ankle sprain, the Tempo had no true point guard.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t like these surprises just before the game,\u201d head coach Sandy Brondello said after the game. \u201cIt kind of hurt us because we had no point guards, and you could tell out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had to go a bit of a point guard by committee today,\u201d shooting guard Kia Nurse said. \u201cUltimately, we prepare for games the same way every single day, and whoever is or isn\u2019t out, you can\u2019t really put too much stock into it.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Allemand out, and the Tempo still missing Rice and Brittney Sykes, they had to activate their newest development player, Ornella Bankole. The Tempo signed Bankole to a development contract last week out of Europe, where she plays with Casademont Zaragoza in Spain. Due to the limited amount of games WNBA teams can play development players, Brondello didn\u2019t expect Bankole to be active Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought she came in and just played hard,\u201d Brondello said of her newest player. \u201c[She doesn\u2019t] really know a lot of our stuff. [She\u2019s] been here for a hot minute, the leaders out there are trying to help her.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust play hard, you know? [She\u2019s] been here enough time, and I thought, for the minutes, she gave some good energy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the effort to make up for the depleted backcourt, the Tempo were not able to overcome the star power of the Dallas Wings. The Wings won the rebounding game 42-35, and a 22-point performance from Bueckers paired with 17 from Fudd tipped the game in their favour. <\/p>\n
For the Tempo, their leading scorer was Marina Mabrey with 19 points, and Nurse came off the bench to score 12 for Toronto. Maria Conde\u2019s 10 rebounds was a season-high for the Spanish wing as well.<\/p>\n
While this was the first time Bueckers and Fudd played in Toronto for the Wings, it wasn\u2019t the first time fans have seen them hoop north of the border. In December 2023, their UConn Huskies came to play against now-Tempo assistant coach Carly Clarke and her TMU Bold women\u2019s basketball program. That was also a homecoming game for then-UConn guard and Canadian Aaliyah Edwards, who now plays in the WNBA for the Connecticut Sun.<\/p>\n
\u201cCanada, Toronto specifically, loves women\u2019s basketball, loves sports in general,\u201d Bueckers said before the game on Sunday. \u201cReally happy that there\u2019s a team here. Aaliyah always talks about how proud she is to be from here, and how it\u2019s a family, and how everybody rides for each other, so I\u2019m happy to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s game is the only time this season the Wings will be in Toronto, specifically. They will be back in Canada later in the week to face the Tempo in Montreal for the first of the Tempo\u2019s Cross Canada series.<\/p>\n
That game has the potential to break a WNBA record for attendance, as Montreal\u2019s Bell Centre can hold over 22,000 fans.<\/p>\n
Before that, the Tempo host the Golden State Valkyries at Coca-Cola Coliseum on Wednesday. The hope is that Allemand will be healthy for that game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope it\u2019s just a one-day thing,\u201d Brondello said after the game. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There were more Dallas Wings jerseys in the crowd for Sunday afternoon\u2019s Toronto Tempo game than usual for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":783377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[712,49,48,122687,3302,243298],"class_list":["post-783376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-apple-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-dallas-wings-sports-basketball-team-team-statscom-155","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-tempo-sports-basketball-team-team-statscom-45513"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=783376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}