Grace Berger Has To Prove She Can Make It In WNBA And Fever Have To Prove Drafting Her Was Not A Stunt To Increase Ticket Sales
Berger Does Not Appear In First Ever WNBA Game
Recent IU star Grace Berger did not make it into her opener with the Indiana Fever.
While this is no one’s fault it looks bad for all parties involved. As a rookie still trying to get up to speed with the professional league, she is likely not ready to see the court now if ever. With that said the way the Fever has promoted for IU fans to buy tickets they have created an unfortunate situation.
As a struggling franchise that has had a hard time selling seats, from a business perspective it makes perfect sense to hype up Berger to increase interest. Many partisans decked in IU gear came solely to see the former Hoosier star and walked away disappointed. Indeed, chants of “We want Grace” and “Grace, Grace, Grace” broke out in the second half. A group of Berger supporters behind press row who started the chant confirmed to me their future attendance will be in question if her playing time does not increase. They also said they brought their young daughter solely to watch the former Indiana star play and were all disappointed in her lack of participation.
Fever coach Christie Sides had this to say about Berger’s lack of playing time.
“I hate that (she didn’t get in the game),” Sides said. “Grace is going to be a good player one day and I don’t want to throw her into the fire right now. She will get there I promise and we are lucky to have Grace Berger on our team.”
Berger herself said she hopes her supporters stick with her new team as she grows.
“I hope they keep coming back to support our team,” Berger said. “I am glad IU and my roots from that got them into the stands and hopefully they saw how much potential our team has and they keep coming back.”
Whether Berger can still make it in WNBA remains to be seen. That fact that she made the final roster shows they have hope for her to contribute in some manner eventually as Sides said. This is assuming she is not on the team for the sole purpose of placing butts in Gainbridge Fieldhouse. However, it seems questionable that a professional organization would stoop to those levels for attention. On the outside chance that is the case though, then it is a bad move for the Fever long term and very shortsighted.
With all that said, there were also some loose connections to Teri Moren and the Indiana program in Berger’s first game that were less obvious. The first is Fever star Kelsey Mitchell was the best player on the Oho State Buckeyes and often torched the Hoosiers in Moren’s early days. The second was the opposing Connecticut Sun inserted Olivia Nelson-Ododa into the game at times. Nelson-Ododa, like Berger, was a local star on the UConn Huskies and was one of the top players on the squad that knocked IU out of the NCAA Tournament in 2022 in the Sweet 16. The final connection to Berger and IU was the introduction of former Hoosier player Leah Enterline during a timeout as part of her participation in Girls and Women in Sports.
How much action Berger eventually sees is still to be determined. However, for a struggling Fever franchise that hyped her up as part of the team and could not insert her in a nail-biting loss down the stretch, it looks bad for all involved even if there is no culpability for the situation.
On the other hand, Aliyah Boston, their other first-round pick is going to be a superstar and was a monster inside on opening night as a rookie. While this is of little solace to Hoosier fans, it is good to see the franchise appears to have finally hit a home run in the draft with their top pick after many misses there.
For both Berger and the Fever though, they need each other and to have this work out for her eventually. On opening night everyone may have expected more than she was capable of at the moment.