The last time the Toronto Tempo won a game was one month ago – their July 12 victory in Montreal against the New York Liberty. The last time the Tempo won a game in Toronto was on June 25 – Marina Mabrey’s 53-point performance against the LA Sparks. On Wednesday, the Tempo closed out their road trip in Dallas, losing their 10th consecutive game.
Toronto showed fight, coming back to nearly tie up the game in the final frame, before ultimately losing to the Wings 94-88.
“I thought we didn’t come out with the appropriate energy that we want, I probably won’t blame that all on just defence,” head coach Sandy Brondello said. “I didn’t think we had an aggressive mentality, but we found it.”
The most used word of the Tempo’s inaugural season has been “injury,” and that was the case again in this game. Both point guard Julie Allemand (left thigh) and forward Maria Conde (left calf) were ruled out before tip-off.
Brondello said before the game that they both suffered those injuries in the team’s previous game, but she doesn’t think they are serious concerns. Brittney Sykes (left foot) has been out since June 16, and is eying a return soon.
Nyara Sabally started the game for the Tempo, but departed soon after with a left calf injury and did not return. Kiki Rice also slipped on the court mid-play in the fourth quarter and had to be helped off. Rice returned to the bench with just under a minute and half left in the game.
“Number one, she’s okay,” Brondello said of Rice’s status after the game. “She wanted to go back in, but we thought, ‘No, that’s silly, let’s not put her back in there.’ So thankful for that.”
Rice had a great night before slipping, starting the game for the Tempo in Allemand’s absence. She scored 13 points in 31 minutes, with five assists, three rebounds, and two steals. Her defence stood out as well, as she held WNBA All-Star and 2025 Rookie of the Year Paige Bueckers scoreless in the first half as her primary defender. Bueckers has only gone scoreless in the first half of a WNBA game two other times.
“That’s why we think so highly of Kiki,” Brondello said of Rice’s performance. “She just plays aggressive, loves the contact, getting downhill.
“Defensively, I thought she did a great job on Paige. She has that physical strength, she can get over screens, she has high IQ. We think the world of Kiki, and we are going to keep developing her.”
It was also a big night for Kia Nurse, who scored 16 points off the bench and shot 50 per cent from three-point range. It was her second-highest scoring game of the season, only behind her 23-point night against the Minnesota Lynx on May 21.
Despite all of this, the Tempo still lost their 23rd game of the season. They sit in 13th place in the league standings, 9.5 games outside of the playoff picture. That could be seen as a bad thing… or a not-so-bad thing, for some.
Toronto currently has the third-best odds in the 2027 WNBA draft lottery, and every loss could inch them a little closer to having top odds going in. Ahead of them are the Connecticut Sun and the Chicago Sky, whose chances are being weighed between their two-year records.
Both teams are in precarious situations, with the Sun preparing to move to Houston and the Sky not owning their pick in the draft.
The presumed top pick in the 2027 WNBA Draft is USC’s JuJu Watkins (assuming she declares instead of playing her final NCAA year). That level of talent for a new team like Toronto would change the trajectory of their franchise.
That’s a future issue, though, as the Tempo wrap up their five-game road trip and head back to Toronto. They now have five days to rest and recover before their next game, Caitlin Clark’s first journey to the north on August 18. That game will be the team’s final at Scotiabank Arena this season.
It has the potential to be a memorable one, with Clark’s Fever heating up, the Tempo set to reveal their mascot, and the potential return of Sykes to the court.
