{"id":674827,"date":"2026-05-30T21:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T21:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/674827\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T21:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T21:48:08","slug":"frustrations-mount-for-sky-during-four-game-skid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/674827\/","title":{"rendered":"Frustrations mount for Sky during four-game skid"},"content":{"rendered":"

Frustrations are rising in the Sky<\/a> (3-5) locker room.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what happens when you lose four straight at home after a 3-1 start to the season. Guards Rachel Banham and Sydney Taylor looked at a loss for words after Friday night\u2019s loss to the Lynx. Asked what was going on with the team, Taylor gave a long pause.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not quite sure,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re battling a lot of adversity, a lot of injuries. People are sick right now.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s no excuse for coming out and playing like that. I think sometimes we\u2019re great on offense and sometimes we\u2019re great on defense. But like coach said, we got to put both sides of the ball together and finish games.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pancake of Sky basketball has indeed come out lumpy as of late. Wednesday against the Tempo, the offense finally clicked for 104 points \u2014 but they let Marina Mabrey and company<\/a> run loose for 111. Then they held the Lynx under 80 and failed to score 60 themselves.<\/p>\n

One frustrating fact has held constant through it all: the Sky can\u2019t hit a 3 to save their lives. The team is shooting 24.7% from deep, dead last in the league. Banham, their best 3-point shooter, is at a career-low 29.4%.<\/p>\n

Asked whether a systemic issue was keeping the team from hitting shots, Banham gave an emphatic \u201cno.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve gotten great looks,\u201d Banham said. \u201cI think I\u2019ve gotten the best looks I\u2019ve got in my entire pro career this season. I\u2019ve never been this open. For real. It\u2019s exciting. And then I can\u2019t make a damn basket.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just not making shots right now. It really is what it is. We\u2019re gonna shoot ourselves out of it. I haven\u2019t lost confidence in myself, or Syd, or any of our shooters. It\u2019s just frustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n

Snipers missing open shots is deflating. Uncharacteristic turnovers are, too. The Sky had softened the blow of poor shooting by taking great care of the ball this season \u2014 but they coughed it up 18 times against the Lynx, who capitalized.<\/p>\n

Looming over the inconsistent play are the injuries. Leading scorer Rickea Jackson is out for the season. Rookie wing Gabriela Jaquez has missed the last two games with a knee injury<\/a>. And stretch big Azur\u00e1 Stevens, in her third game back from injury, remains on a minutes restriction \u2014 and has hit just 1 of her first 11 3-pointers.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s squeezed the roster. Rookie development player Aicha Coulibaly has had to spot big minutes and has already been activated for six of her 12 allotted games. Signing rookie Saylor Poffenbarger to a hardship contract became necessary as the \u201chealthy\u201d player count fell below 10.<\/p>\n

The Sky are not playing with the marquee rotation fans imagined when the season began.<\/p>\n

Still, there\u2019s a sense inside Wintrust Arena that the remaining talent should be performing better.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have little moments where we\u2019re really bad, and moments when we\u2019re really good,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cWhen they\u2019re bad, they tumble and keep adding up.\u201d<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll have a chance to stop tumbling on the road next week. Their next two games are against the Mystics (11th) and a rematch with the Tempo (10th). Though the WNBA season has no \u2018gimmes,\u2019 they\u2019ll have better odds than battling the Lynx (1st) three times in two weeks. Win both, and they\u2019re back at .500.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have accomplished players in that locker room and this is still early season,\u201d coach Tyler Marsh said. \u201cNobody\u2019s given up on where we\u2019re at, what the vision is, or what the season still could be. We\u2019ve gotta come together and fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lose both, though, and Marsh, too, might find himself at a loss for words.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Frustrations are rising in the Sky (3-5) locker room. That\u2019s what happens when you lose four straight at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":674828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-674827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}