{"id":69247,"date":"2025-07-17T06:55:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T06:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/69247\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T06:55:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T06:55:11","slug":"as-arike-ogunbowale-battles-shooting-slump-wings-maintain-strong-belief-in-veteran-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/69247\/","title":{"rendered":"As Arike Ogunbowale battles shooting slump, Wings maintain strong belief in veteran star"},"content":{"rendered":"

ARLINGTON \u2013 In pregame warmups ahead of a contest with the Las Vegas Aces on Wednesday night at College Park Center, Dallas Wings star Arike Ogunbowale<\/a> knocked down shot after shot.<\/p>\n

Ogunbowale looked locked in for the Wings\u2019 last game before the All-Star break, a 90-86 loss<\/a>,\u00a0and the first game since her 0-for-10 performance against the Indiana Fever on Sunday in Indianapolis. The 2024 WNBA All-Star game MVP scored just two points in the Wings\u2019 second meeting with the Fever, a 102-83 loss, and both came at the free-throw line.<\/p>\n

While the guard has struggled by her standards this season, averaging a career low points per game (16) and field goal percentage (35%), and Sunday was her first game back after suffering a left thumb injury, it was an especially uncharacteristic performance for the four-time All-Star and 2020 league scoring champion.<\/p>\n

That shooting drought ended on Wednesday in the Wings\u2019 first game back home after three straight road contests, with Ogunbowale sinking a three off an assist from rookie phenom Paige Bueckers<\/a> early in the first quarter. The drought ended, and the 28-year-old passed Maya Moore for 18th on the all-time 3-pointers list<\/a> with 531, but her shooting slump continued on a night when the team went 34-of-85 from the floor.<\/p>\n

Sports Roundup<\/p>\n

Get the latest D-FW sports news, analysis and opinion delivered straight to your inbox. Plus, Kevin Sherrington’s A La Carte.<\/p>\n

Related:Watch: Wings\u2019 Arike Ogunbowale passes Maya Moore on WNBA\u2019s all-time list of 3-pointers made<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a tough shooting night, and it\u2019s tough to win games when the ball is not going in the hoop,\u201d Wings coach Chris Koclanes said.<\/p>\n

While Ogunbowale recorded six assists, a rebound, a steal and a block, she scored nine points on 3-of-12 shooting and was the only starter to not score in double figures.<\/p>\n

Ogunbowale, who has been the face of the Wings since the organization drafted her in 2019, has come under criticism this season for her performance. Koclanes said pregame that the team is working to get Ogunbowale comfortable and affirmed her high standing in the franchise.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need Arike. The best version of Arike is just going to make us better,\u201d he said before the game. \u201cI believe in Arike and this organization believes in Arike. She is a superstar and she will be just fine. She\u2019s going to turn this thing around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Koclanes\u2019 praise for Ogunbowale came after a somewhat tense moment during the postgame press conference following the Wings\u2019 loss to the Fever on Sunday. After a\u00a0 reporter asked the coach about Ogunbowale\u2019s shooting struggles, he said one could tell \u201cshe hadn\u2019t played in a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWish some would have fell early for her,\u201d Koclanes said. \u201cIt\u2019s a balance. She\u2019s going to get people\u2019s best. They\u2019re going to be really physical with her. They\u2019re not going to allow her to move, so she\u2019s got to continue to find that balance of really working hard to get up the floor and get to spots and get off actions, and I\u2019ve got to continue to help her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bueckers chimed in to also answer the question, giving a different\u00a0take on her teammate\u2019s performance.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt might not have been her night shooting the ball, but the way she continued to stay in the game, not let it affect her effort on both ends of the floor, her being a leader of this team. That was huge for me to be able to see that,\u201d Bueckers said during what has become a viral moment. \u201cWe\u2019ve talked about it as individuals, just having one on one conversations, how we want to stay unaffected through the refs, through the missed calls, through missed defensive possessions. I just want to give a shout out to her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related:Paige Bueckers defends Arike Ogunbowale after vet\u2019s shooting woes against Indiana Fever <\/a><\/p>\n

When The Dallas Morning News asked Ogunbowale how she felt about Bueckers sticking up for her in pregame on Wednesday, she said \u201cThat\u2019s my rook. That\u2019s my girl.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bueckers explained her defense of Ogunbowale, telling reporters before the tip on Wednesday that there was more to the story than her teammate having a bad shooting night and that perfection shouldn\u2019t be an expectation of the seven-year veteran.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the attitudes and efforts that we have are much more important than any shooting night we could possibly have,\u201c said Bueckers, who had her own tough shooting night on Wednesday, when she finished\u00a0with 20 points on 9-of-24 shooting. \u201cYou can\u2019t control whether shots go in or not, but you can control your attitude and your effort, so those are things that I think should be more talked about than necessarily box scores.\u201d<\/p>\n

Battle of stars: See photos from Wednesday’s meeting between Dallas Wings’ Paige Bueckers, Las Vegas Aces’ A’ja Wilson<\/p>\n

\"DallasView Gallery<\/p>\n

Find more Wings coverage from <\/b>The Dallas Morning News<\/b> here<\/b><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ARLINGTON \u2013 In pregame warmups ahead of a contest with the Las Vegas Aces on Wednesday night at…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":69248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[2339,347,10478,2470,2471,62,67,132,68,14378,232],"class_list":{"0":"post-69247","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-arike-ogunbowale","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-chris-koclanes","11":"tag-dallas-wings","12":"tag-paige-bueckers","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-wings","18":"tag-wnba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114867268930537299","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}