Final score: Storm 62 – Fever 90 (L) (4-4)

Submitted by BrrringIt

Conseco Fieldhouse is the best arena I've been in. It is enough to give Clay a serious case of arena envy. Large but none of the seats seemed all that far away. Better than the Verizon Center in DC, even.

LJ and Tully came out and hugged each other. Izzy looked at me so I waved. Another 1000-watt smile. KB stopped by to chat. She sat at the press table with headphones on the whole game. Adia and Alan were way up high on the other side of the arena in a booth with the TV people.

We were in the 3rd row behind the bench and press table area. There was a row of 4 Sue Bird fans from Dayton, Ohio, in front of us and a row of Katie Gearlds fans behind us (Purdue is just up the road). We felt very safe, but we were in Indiana, where the fans are as polite as those in Chicago or Minneapolis. And they rival Storm fans in supporting their team. Katie's family was there, in the friends and family section.

Anthem: A kids choir. Cute.

We worried about blocking people's view by standing for the first basket, but no need. Sue hit the first one 8 seconds into the game. We took an early lead, 16-8, but the Fever came roaring back. With 3:08 left in the first quarter, Tully landed on the floor behind the Storm bench. Mini and I looked at each other and said, "It's a game." We held on to the lead to close out the quarter.

2nd Qtr: 26-21, Storm

I forget how good Tamika Catchings is until I see her play. Yikes. Our shooting disappeared. They called Betty's number way too many times and nothing was falling. When Sheri Sam was taking free throws, I joked that we should put a life-size cutout of Nykesha Sales over in the corner to rattle her.

The ushers all wear green sweater vests and are very nice and polite. They stand at the bottom of each stairway and smile. The security people stand facing the crowd wearing black blazers and black ties. They do not smile.

The Fever had 2nd, even 3rd chance points. We had JB missing easy chippies.

Box out!

Halftime: 50-20, Fever

The Fever has 3 dance squads, all really good. A sort of rock & roll/disco group, a hip-hop squad, (the Fever Inferno), and some girls in mermaid suits dancing to Donna Summer.

A cute little boy behind us (Katie fan) got a t-shirt and was soooo happy.

The third quarter was not much better than the 2nd. Tully's fake tooth came out and freaked out the old ladies next to us.

Box out!

3rd Qtr: 69-43, Fever

The fourth qtr. saw more play from the bench, once AD gave up and sat Sue and LJ.

Looking for the good: Ely had a sweet basket coming off a quick pass from the other side of the court.

Can't ignore the bad: How many times did KG stand in front of the bench wide open and never get the pass from T? She wouldn't even look at her. She seemed to prefer throwing it into a crowd of white jerseys.

Final Score: 90-62, Fever

A bright spot when we were getting ready to go and a Fever staffer came up and handed Mini and me copies of the Storm media guide. SFiCL had previously tipped me off that there was a particularly cool pic on page 38.

Flying back tomorrow and will be at the Key on Friday.

Go Storm.

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