From European glory to Connecticut chaos: Rachid Meziane’s turbulent WNBA baptism | Connecticut Sun

After making three of his greatest career achievements in eight months, Rachid Meziane crossed the Atlantic to make personal history.

The native of the south of France joined the Connecticut Sun of the WNBA in December as the first head coach of European origin of the League. Four months earlier, Meziane guided Belgium in their best finish in Olympic women’s basketball: fourth place at the Paris Games. Four months before that, he led the French Club Esb-Villeneuve in Sosq to their first national women’s championship since 2017 and their first final of the Euroleague ever.

“I knew it was a new challenge, a new story to write,” said Meziane about the decision. “When you are a coach, you want to compete with the highest level in the world. I think the” W “is the best league in the world, with the best players in the world, the best coaches in the world. It was a great opportunity. I could not go to this opportunity.”

Meziane, who led Belgium to the Women’s Championship Eurobasket 2023, described her hiring a dream of becoming reality during her introductory press conference. But this dream quickly turned into a living nightmare.

Meziane’s new team will finish the worst record in their history and one of the poorest in the WNBA this season. Mix serious criticism on the social networks of a former player with continuous uncertainty surrounding the future of the sun, and the ingredients are in place for an exasperating season.

However, management provided for exasperation. The sun has chosen to rebuild after six consecutive appearances in the WNBA semi-finals, including two trips to the final. The five beginners of last year left through trades or free agencies. There are only two members of the 2024 list left, five recruits joining them.

“It’s a complete 180,” explains the Solar Guard Marina Mabrey, one of the two return players. “Last year, there was a lot of experienced experience, the veterinarians sniffing a championship year after year, trying to take a ring. This year, they are younger players adapting to the League and trying to find their feet. It is a very different generation.”

Director General Morgan Tuck, also in her first year, thinks that Meziane has the right qualities to supervise the reconstruction.

“We knew that our list was really going to turn back before we even hire Rashid,” said Tuck, who gave Meziane a four -year contract. “I think he had the right characteristics that we were looking for. I think he is a very coherent guy. When you have a lot of losses and not much success in the field, it is sometimes easy to hit the panic button, to try everything and to move away from the plan. So, the only thing that I am very proud of is that it sticks to the plan.”

This plan consists in merging the physical game of WNBA with the European accent on tactics and teamwork.

“My style plays the tempo and is very aggressive on the defensive level,” explains Meziane. “I try to join my style of coaching and my skills to teach my team to play with a team mentality, to share the ball, to play with a lot of ball movement.”

But the first results showed the combination as stable as a mixture of Perrier and Pennzoil.

The Sun lost its first five games, then won two of its next three before undergoing a sequence of 10 consecutive defeats which gave them a 2-16 file on July 6. Upon entering this week, the team ranked last in points per game, as a percentage of three points, assists and defensive rebounds, and shared the last place in total victories and rebounds. With about two weeks, the sun could exceed the WNBA record for most losses, established last year by Los Angeles Sparks at 32.

“The physical is the most different thing in this league,” says Meziane. “The game is played with more rhythm here, more rhythm. To play consecutive and play every two days, it’s something new for me. Everyone has a lot of talent. You can see in this league that the best teams can lose against each team. Each match is their own story. Sometimes in Europe, you can win all the games by 20, 30 or 50 points.”

Towards the end of this 10-game sequence, one of the former Meziane players displayed spicy criticism on June 29. Kelsey Bone, who played on the ASC Town-Villeneuve championship team, called him “by far the worst trainer for which I have ever played” because “it lacks the assault and the necessary assertion for Rally and leading a room.”

Meziane’s response?

“She’s not my enemy,” he says. “I helped her a lot when she came to France because she had terrible things to leave. I allowed him to arrive very late when we started our training camp. So, if she is the only one to think of me, I don’t care. I can look at myself in the mirror. I hope she can do the same. “

Meziane’s response reflects a calm and targeted perspective in the middle of chaos, whether on social networks or for reports indicating a possible sale. One of the two potential property groups would move the team to Hartford, Connecticut. The other, led by the former owner of the Celtic minority, Steve Pagliuca, would move the sun to Boston, where they played a regular season match this year and last year. But the WNBA has not yet approved sale and could buy the team itself.

“He is simply listening to him,” said Mabrey about these reports. “It really doesn’t happen emotionally. He does not give his energy to social media. I think it’s a bit cool from the point of view of the United States because [we’re] Great on status, ego, things like that. But he blocked this and did it like, if you make hoops, you make hoops. If you are not, you are not.

Although he is engaged in his system, Meziane seeks to give players the opportunity to create.

“He likes to give people the freedom to play, how they play offensively in particular,” said goalkeeper Sun Haley Peters, who played under Meziane for two seasons in France. “He will let the players do what they can do and I think it’s a strength of his strength. We have a system to which we want to stay, but we have good offensive players and we want them to be aggressive.”

Although he is engaged in his system, Meziane seeks not to force the players in a preconceived model.

“There are a lot of people who want to change me, want me to be different emotionally, this and that,” said Mabrey. “He let me be myself and helped me channel him, criticize and move on.”

While his players adapt to him, Meziane faces her own cultural challenges.

“English is not my mother tongue,” he says. “Sometimes, when you want to express your emotion, it is not easy to do it whenever it is not your natural language. The biggest challenge for me is to try to be natural, to make sure that my players understand what I try to express them and try to teach them.”

Sun Center Tina Charles, a 16 -year -old WNBA veteran and the most precious player in the League in 2012, sympathizes.

“I played abroad for 11 years,” said Charles, who won three Olympic gold medals for the United States. “All that is uncomfortable is growth, even for us as players and for him as a coach. It is just being patient, having grace and helping him along the way.”

As the sun reproduces, patience and grace become the most important tools in Meziane.

“Even if the reflection of our results is not good, I am always optimistic about the way my team can play in the future,” he said. “I think many of our new players are developing. I can get my hands on this reconstruction process, but I have no magic tricks to change everything overnight. ”