INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Humid air snuck into Indiana on Sunday and will remain here over the next few days before rain arrives late Tuesday.

TODAY: After morning fog in some areas, expect partly sunny skies today. High clouds will filter in from the west as muggy conditions remain. High temperatures in the mid to upper 80s.

TONIGHT: Partly cloudy skies remain. Winds will only be out of the south at about 5 mph. With that said, some very patchy fog could be possible. Low temperatures in the mid-60s.

TOMORROW: The bulk of the daytime hours will be dry. Mostly sunny skies will be in place for the morning to the afternoon before showers and a few rumbles of thunder make it to western Indiana. More areas of central Indiana will see rain in the last few hours of daylight with increasing coverage of showers Tuesday night. High temperatures in the mid-80s.

8-DAY FORECAST: A cold front will cross Indiana on Wednesday which will bring much-needed relief to the region later this week. Isolated showers may linger around Thursday, but that rain chance will be pretty low. Rainfall amounts aren’t looking too impressive with this entire system, most will likely check in under 0.5″. Nice weather will also kick off the weekend.

The Indiana Fever have not had it easy to start the season. Sunday night’s matchup with the New York Liberty marked their 11th game in 20 days, the previous ten giving them a 2-8 record and a whole, whole lot of scrutiny and media attention, much of it directed toward a player you may have heard of: Caitlin Clark.

Sunday night even marked a back-to-back for the Fever, 24 hours after securing their second win of the season, a game that was overshadowed by the reaction to a hard foul by Chennedy Carter on Clark.

Everything about their season — injuries, their subpar pay, the media circus around Clark and its inability to prevent itself from turning into said circus — has been exhausting.

But before they could enjoy four precious off days before their next game on Friday evening, they had to face the Libs at the Barclays Center. And the WNBA is not a league that prizes sympathy.

New York took the lead four seconds into the game after Jonquel Jones directed the opening tip-off to Breanna Stewart in the front-court, igniting a one-woman fast-break. That was it. With 39 minutes and 56 seconds of game to play, the Liberty scored the game-winning bucket, refusing to let the score approach even.

Sandy Brondello’s team had taken early double-digit leads in their last two victories as well, but unlike those games, the Libs didn’t take their foot off the gas pedal in quarters 2 and 3. Indiana’s Kelsey Mitchell and NaLyssa Smith, whose respective seasons have been choppy thus far, combined for 38 points and made some nice plays to cut their deficit from 21 points to 14, but their efforts were ultimately a speed-bump.

The Liberty were completely locked in on defense, and held Caitlin Clark to just three points, five assists, and three turnovers on 1-of-10 shooting. They switched pick-and-rolls, trapped them, hedged them, and everything in between for 40 minutes, with Jones executing whatever was asked of her…

Jones posted a monster 18/13/4/2/1 stat-line, but was merely the centerpiece of a defense that got contributions from everybody wearing sea foam. Betnijah Laney-Hamilton took the Clark assignment and aced it, while getting help from a flurry of limbs every time the ball entered the paint…

“I think it’s our job to help B out,” explained Jones. “She has a tough responsibility every night to guard the best perimeter players, and she does a great job of that. Teams are definitely going to try to do what they can to get her away from those players, to make the game a little bit easier for them … as much as she’s doing a great job, we have to make sure that we’re backing her up.”

New York recorded more blocks and steals than Indiana, but the turnovers were even at 13 apiece, and there was hardly a difference in transition offense. But Indiana just couldn’t get clean looks in the half-court while the Liberty stumbled into them by accident, ending the game shooting 57.6% from the floor to Indiana’s 37%,

Laney-Hamilton led the way with 20 points on a hyper-efficient 7-of-9 performance, while Sabrina Ionescu added 16/6/6 (though her turnover problems continued with four) and Stewart contributed a calm 13/6/5 on 5-of-11 shooting. The only starter who didn’t crack double-digits was Courtney Vandersloot, who returned after a one-game absence with back tightness, and she still put up nine points and seven assists on 4-of-4 shooting.

Nobody had more than 11 shot attempts, and yet, the Liberty recorded 30 assists on their 38 made baskets, passing up good looks at the rim for great ones…

Brondello described the team’s offensive philosophy after the game: “How do we get the best looks every single time? When we’re sharing it and playing selfless like that, that’s beautiful basketball. It’s fun to watch, it’s fun to play. But then, just making sure we have good inside-outside attack. I think that’s critical for us. We established B, we established JJ early in the game and that kind of opens up the outside.”

Their domination on Sunday wasn’t about any one player, and even the bench turned in their best performance of the season to date. They combined for 28 points — a season-high — despite Nyara Sabally’s absence with a back injury.

“I thought we had great production from the bench,” said Brondello. “We created for each other, I thought we played poised and we got two feet in the paint, we got some open looks near the end, too. It was fun to watch them play that way, and we’re getting there.”

Without Sabally to rely on, the Libs turned to Kennedy Burke in an extended role, and she delivered: ten points on 2-of-2 from three, in addition to three steals and three blocks.

“I felt like today, I had I had more time on the court, so I was able to get in the flow of everything,” said Burke of her performance.”

Along with Leonie Fiebich and Kayla Thornton, she was part of a trio of wings off the bench that kept the Liberty’s 5-out spacing principles flowing while bringing the length and defensive versatility the team envisioned in the preseason.

Burke credited the group’s success to “the trust that we have with each other. There were some lapses where it was a miscommunication, but I feel like throughout the season, it’s gonna get better, it’s gonna get stronger. We just got to keep building off each other and trusting each other.”

No, the Fever were not the most fearsome opponent, especially not on the second half of a back-to-back. But if the Liberty can keep building off this type of performance and indeed get stronger, as Burke predicts, the whole league has to watch out.

After two grind-it-out wins that had the Liberty talking about winning ugly, their Sunday night beatdown of the Fever was a two-hour celebration in front of a sold-out Barclays Center that opened up the entire second deck for Clark’s second trip to NYC.

And, if nothing else, it was a reminder to the 17,401 fans in attendance that New York can still put teams in the dirt.

Final score: New York Liberty 104, Indiana Fever 68

Commissioner’s Cup begins with a bang

Sunday marked the first day of Commissioner’s Cup play for the Liberty, who now sit in a tie with the still-undefeated Connecticut Sun in the Eastern Conference Cup standings.

As a reminder, each team will play the other five teams in its conference once. The team in each conference with the best record in those five games (with point differential as a tie-break) will advance to the championship game on June 25.

New York is the defending Cup champion after their win over the Las Vegas Aces last season, in which they took home the $500,000 prize pool. This season, they will be playing for Women Creating Change, an organization that would receive more money from the W based on how well the Libs do.

Next Up

The New York Liberty begin a three-game road trip on Tuesday, seeking revenge against the Chicago Sky, who handed them their first loss of the season on May 23. Tip-off is scheduled for 8:00 p.m. ET from the Windy City.

SCOTTSBURG – Indiana came out on top in both Junior All-Star games in Scottsburg’s Meyer Gymnasium on Sunday afternoon. The week of All-Stars festivities in both states got going with the Hoosier side of the Kentuckiana border walking away victorious.

Indiana girls Junior All-Stars dominate Kentucky

Indiana’s girls thrashed Kentucky, 111-76. Indiana made 52.5% of its field goals as it controlled the game.

HSE’s Maya Makalusky led Indiana in scoring with 25 points. The most exciting stretch of the game came when Makalusky drilled four 3-pointers in 2:14 to begin the fourth quarter. The IU commit had 11 points after three quarters, and she exceeded that mark just a few minutes into the fourth period.

“I think it was the girls, they continued to motivate me and find me the ball,” Makalusky said. “They were like, ‘Come on, you got it. Keep going.’ And I think I was doing other things too. Once I started rebounding and kind of putting myself in the game rather than just trying to shoot, that definitely helped.”

Before Makalusky’s avalanche, the tone was set by Lawrence Central’s Jaylah Lampley and Noblesville’s Meredith Tippner. Lampley and Tippner combined for 19 first-half points to give Indiana a 21-point halftime advantage. Lampley finished with 23, while Tippner had 18. Their play helped a group of girls who aren’t typically teammates pass the century mark on the scoreboard.

“We have great chemistry with each other and it’s fun creating new bonds,” Lampley said. “We’re still able to win with a different room, a different group of people. And it will help us at the collegiate level because it’s going to be the same way.” 

Lampley — who won this year’s 4A state championship at LC — did a little bit of everything Sunday. She added five rebounds and four assists to the stat sheet while scoring effectively from all three levels of the floor. That scoring versatility is something she hopes to bring to her senior year.

“After winning state, I think I just have a chip on my shoulder that I just want to continue to stay aggressive and show the state of Indiana that I am a top player in the state of Indiana,” said Lampley, who holds offers from IU, Purdue and a bevy of other power conference schools.

As always, the juniors are excited for Wednesday night, when they’ll face the senior All-Stars in Kokomo’s Memorial Gym at 6 p.m. It’ll be another chance to play together, and an opportunity to see what they can do against the older girls.

“It’s such an honor to be an Indiana kid and to play Indiana basketball,” Makalusky said. “And I think it’s so good for girls basketball, too. The showout was great, and it’s just a fun time. You play against girls that you’ve been competing against since you were little so it’s super fun.”

Indiana Junior Boys All-Stars dominate, too

Indiana won the boys game in similar fashion, a 130-103 takedown of Kentucky. 

New Palestine guard Julius Gizzi had the hot hand, scoring 27 points on 10-of-11 shooting. Gizzi drilled four 3s and consistently got to his spots inside the arc. 

“The guys were finding me,” Gizzi said. “I hit that first 3 and I saw it go down and I was like, ‘Just go have some fun, it’s an All-Star game.’”

Indiana won due to a well-rounded effort that saw six different players score double-digit points, with two others finishing with nine points. All 11 active players scored at least five points.

“I think everybody on the team plays the right way,” Heritage Hills’ Trent Sisley said. “Everybody was passing, sharing the ball. So it made for a good day for all of us.” 

Sisley was the second-half star of the boys game. The 6-8 forward — who has offers from IU, Purdue and Notre Dame — scored 15 of his 20 points in the second half to extend Indiana’s lead.

“Just getting some easy ones going in the second half and I hit a 3 and just got everything going. People were sharing the ball, it was good,” Sisley said.

Both of Indiana’s Junior All-Stars teams won in dominating fashion over their Kentucky counterparts on Sunday. Now, they’ll have a shot to beat their in-state upperclassmen before diving fully into their last summer of high school.