'Only up from here': Tempo's off-court success offers optimism after injury-ravaged inaugural campaign

It had been a long and trying season for the head coach of the Toronto Tempo and Sandy Brondello looked more exhausted than energized.

One of the WNBA’s premier tacticians with two championships and two additional Finals appearances on her resume, Brondello had never missed the WNBA playoffs as a head coach over 13 seasons prior to this year.

But the post-season had been gone for many months and here she was 10 minutes after a 14-point loss to the woeful Connecticut Sun acutely aware of the reality in front of her — an 11-33 season that included losing 22 of their last 24 games.

The last two months of the season for Toronto’s WNBA franchise was a gruelling, slow-motion march simply trying to navigate an injury-depleted roster.

How bad did it get for the Tempo? The team ranked first overall in the WNBA in games lost to in-season injuries (121 games). You want another telling statistic that encapsulated the year? The quartet of Brittany Sykes, Marina Mabrey, Nyara Sabally, and Kiki Rice — the team’s most talented players— played a total of just 78 minutes together this season. That’s 95 minutes less than the running time of the hit film, The Odyssey.

“I told them after the game about how special it is being the first team in Canada and how our fans still supported us, even though we weren't winning many games,” Brondello said on a folding chair, flanked by Rice and Isabelle Harrison.

“Losing didn't take us away from being the best team that we could be given what we were facing. I don't think any other team in the history of the league had had so many in-season injuries. … Character is shown in face of adversity and I think we handled it as well as we could. But now it's remembering — we don't want to go through this shit