The Phoenix Mercury are hoping to improve their playoff positioning when they visit the San Antonio Stars on the final day of the regular season on Sunday at AT&T Center in San Antonio.Phoenix (15-18) and the Seattle Storm are tied for third in the WNBAs Western Conference, four games ahead of the fifth-place Dallas Wings. Phoenix and Seattle have clinched playoff berths and both have one game remaining. One will enter the playoffs as the No. 7 seed, the other as the No. 8 seed.Seattle won the season series against Phoenix and would hold the tiebreaker if the teams finish with identical records. Neither can move past the Atlanta Dream or Indiana Fever for the fifth or sixth seeds because the Dream and Fever won their respective season series against Seattle and Phoenix.San Antonio (7-26) is last in the Western Conference and has the worst record in the WNBA. The Stars have lost seven of their last eight games and 13 of their last 15.Phoenix secured the final playoff berth with a resounding 86-62 victory over Seattle on Thursday. Brittney Griner scored 21 points, Diana Taurasi had 15 points and Candice Dupree added 14 points and seven rebounds for the Mercury.Penny Taylor, a three-time WNBA All-Star who announced in July that she will retire at the end of the season, had eight points and four steals in her final regular-season home game.San Antonio is coming off a 71-65 loss to the Los Angeles Sparks. The Stars were down by 14 in the third quarter and trailed by 11 in the fourth but stormed back to take a momentary lead before fading in the final minutes.Moriah Jefferson scored 18 points and Monique Currie had 17 for the Stars.Taurasi leads Phoenix in scoring, averaging 17.8 points per game. DeWanna Bonner averages 14.6 points, Griner 14.5 and Taylor 12.6.Jefferson averages 13.8 points per game and Currie 10.5 for San Antonio. Balenciaga Shoes Wholesale Canada . -- Chicago Bears cornerback Tim Jennings was selected Monday to his second straight Pro Bowl, while guard Kyle Long made it after a solid rookie season. Balenciaga Shoes Sale . -- Jakob Silfverberg is making himself right at home with the Anaheim Ducks, scoring four goals in his first four games. http://www.cheapbalenciagacanada.com/ . -- Damian Lillard and LaMarcus Alrdridge were again the go-to duo for the Trail Blazers against the Kings. Balenciaga Shoes Cheap . -- Vincent Lecavalier got everything but the desired result in his return to Tampa Bay. Cheap Balenciaga Shoes .com) - The Montreal Canadiens embark on their first road trip of the season as they head out west to battle the Calgary Flames on Wednesday night. On Monday night at Madison Square Garden, a UConn Huskies team that had attracted a great deal of early-season, negative attention, made positive headlines by defeating Syracuse, 52-50. This was easily their best victory of the young season -- their first when not favored by Basketball Power Index (BPI) -- and evened their record at 4-4. The win gave Huskies fans hope that their team has turned the corner after a rough opening stretch. ?As if the season-opening loss to Wagner on their home court wasnt embarrassing enough for the preseason No. 18 team in the country, UConn followed that performance by losing to Northeastern for the first time since Jim Calhoun was the coach of the Huskies -- the Northeastern Huskies. In fact, Connecticut underperformed their predicted point spread according to the BPI in six of their first seven games, and by an average of 7 points per game, which ranked No. 324 in the country.Now, with the positive momentum of the Syracuse win, can we expect to see UConn in the field of 68 come March? The Huskies projected strength of record may offer a clue.ESPNs Strength of Record (SOR) is a metric that explains how difficult a given won-loss record is to achieve. It can be thought of as a combination of wins and losses versus schedule strength, and helps answer the question of who deserves to be in the tournament. While it doesnt necessarily predict who will get in, over the last nine seasons, 91 percent of at-large NCAA Tournament teams were deemed deserving of an at-large bid by SOR. Since 2008, the worst SOR rank to get an at-large bid was VCU in 2011, which had the 71st best SOR on Selection Sunday (and famously justified their inclusion by making a run to the Final Four).dddddddddddd In an average year, the lowest SOR rank that deserves to be in the tournament is 48.If we make the assumption that name recognition would help UConns case if it could achieve an SOR rank of 50 or better, we can perform simulations to determine how likely it is that the Huskies can get to that number.Unfortunately for Huskies fans, the simulations still tell a bleak story. Strength-of-record simulations show that UConn has only about a 3 percent chance of having a strong enough résumé to be considered for an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. Even if they are as fortunate as VCU in 2011, there is only a 12.3 percent chance of having a résumé at least as strong as the Rams that year.The Huskies have been known to redeem weak regular seasons with strong conference tournament (and NCAA) runs in the past, including last season when an improbable AAC Tournament victory got them in the NCAA field despite a subpar regular season résumé. Our numbers say theyll likely need a repeat of that scenario. Although beating Syracuse has them trending in the right direction, that Husky March magic may just be their best shot of reaching the field of 68.For more from ESPN Analytics, visit the ESPN Analytics Index.? ' ' '
