Only two forces can stop Minnesota center Vanessa Hayden this year: referees' whistles, and Margo Dydek of the Connecticut Sun. Yesterday Dydek reduced Hayden to miserable 1-10 shooting: the Lynx as a whole scored just 20 points in the paint. Dydek "bothered everybody," her coach said.

Connecticut won in a rout. Minnesota reduced a nine-point halftime deficit to seven behind rough defense from Amanda Lassiter and tight rebounding from Hayden, but when Hayden and Lassiter left the game Connecticut again became unstoppable, inflating their lead to 23 before 9,011 fans, many of them there to see Lindsay Whalen. Svetlana Abrosimova did not play (back spasms).

Coach McConnell Serio: "We haven't gotten any better than the last time we played them. It's disappointing we weren't able to compete and make it a better game."

Dydek scored 17, a season high. For the Lynx, Katie Smith scored 11 points early, then missed everything, ending up 3-14. It was the sixth consecutive game in which Smith has scored fewer than 13.