By Frank Della Femina, WNBA.com

The Connecticut Sun took on a new look this past season not only with big additions from the draft, but also with some offseason acquisitions as well. One of those additions was Renee Montgomery, who came over to the Sun after a January trade in exchange for Lindsay Whalen and the No. 2 pick in the 2010 WNBA Draft.

Montgomery recently sat with WNBA.com to discuss Connecticut’s start, where they sat at the midway point and what it’s going to take to close out strong.

WNBA.com: What’s your take on Connecticut’s start to the season?

Renee Montgomery: Our first half of the season was really good. We surprisingly gelled kind of quick in the beginning but then we had a couple of players that were injured and we had to ‘re-gel,’ and we’re still working on that right now.

WNBA.com: That was the one thing at the start of the season that everyone was wondering: How soon could the players get it all together? At this point, would you say it’s going well?

Montgomery: It is. We still have a lot of work to do. It’s hard to figure out. We pretty much have a whole new team. It’s hard to figure out what combinations work well together, who doesn’t. All the things you figure out during the season. Usually you have a core of players. It’s easy because you just have to fill in a few pieces. But right now we pretty much remodeled our whole team and we have to figure out everything.

WNBA.com: Well you pretty much took on a whole new core…

Montgomery: We did. I think it’s going to pay off once we start gelling and clicking and understand where each other is going to be.

WNBA.com: Coach Thibault said a few weeks ago that he expected everyone to be on the same page after the break. Do you think that’s accurate?

Montgomery: I do. I think sometimes you have to get it wrong to get it right, and we’ve gotten it wrong enough times to try to figure things out. We’ve been in situations where we’ve said, “OK, we can’t do that anymore we have to do this.” We’re getting enough experience now to realize what’s kind of working for us and what’s not.

WNBA.com: Plus, you’re playing in a conference where getting it wrong can drop a team a few spots in the standings.

Montgomery: That’s the thing. We were higher than we are now. We were winning a lot games in a row and then we lost, I think, three out of five. How quickly things can change in the East it just shows you. And in the West it’s a lot different. Although we aren’t at the bottom, we still want to be at the top.

WNBA.com: Where do you go from here? Is it just a matter of taking what worked and improving on it?

Montgomery: It is. It’s taking what worked and keeping it, [taking] what didn’t work, throwing it out and trying again. We still haven’t figured it all out. I think we’re still going to get it wrong sometimes but we’re still taking steps to make it better.

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The Skills Challenge is a test of a player’s speed, dribbling, passing and shooting ability in a race against the clock. Each contestant begins the obstacle course on the baseline. The player start the event with a layup before dribbling down the court around pylons shaped as WNBA players. Next comes the first passing station, where they have five attempts to pass the ball through the cylinder about 10 feet away.

Once the pass is complete, the player heads to the top of the key for a straight on three-point shot. Again, you have five attempts to make the shot. Once it is made, the player grabs a ball and its time to execute another pass, this one from about 18 feet away.

When the pass is successful, there are more pylons to manage and then it’s a race home as the player must complete a shot – a jumper or layup – to complete the course. The fastest time wins.

The contest opens with six players running the course and the fastest three times moving on to the final round to crown a champion. Today’s contestants were Atlanta’s Iziane Castro Marques and Angel McCoughtry, Washington’s Lindsey Harding, New York’s Cappie Pondexter, Minnesota’s Lindsay Whalen and Connecticut’s Montgomery.

The first round saw a number of players struggle with the three-point shot, which ate up a lot of time for Castro Marques, McCoughtry and Harding and ended up knocking players out of the competition.

“The hardest part was the three-point shot,” said Montgomery. “That was giving players a lot of problems, so I kept telling myself, ‘make the shot, make the shot.’

“The long pass was hard too, but it’s the three-point shot that really gets you. You have to calm down because you in a rush to get to the three-point line, so you have to slow it down and hit the shot.”

The final three contestants posted the fastest times of the round, with Pondexter at 31.3 seconds, Whalen with a perfect run of 26.6 seconds and Montgomery with a solid run at 29.4 seconds.

Cappie got things started in the second round, but a pair of missed passes put her over the 30-second mark, which would not be good enough on this day. She finished the course in 32.1 seconds to finish second.

Next up was Montgomery, who raced out of the gates and never looked back. She was crisp through the pylons, her passes were clean and her shot from downtown hit nothing but net. As she completed her final layup, the clock read 25.0 and put too much pressure on Whalen to post another perfect round. Whalen finished the course in 34.2 seconds.

Considering that Montgomery (a current Sun) and Whalen (a former Sun that spent the first six seasons of her career playing at Mohegan Sun), could there have been a home-court advantage in play here?

“I hope people don’t say that, but maybe I did have a little home-court advantage. I practice here every day,” said Montgomery. “Maybe there is a point to that, I didn’t even think about it. I don’t know, I think it’s about who hit the shots the quickest had success.”

“My dad would make me dribble the two balls at once and he’d hit me, tap me,” Sun guard Renee Montgomery says. “I was young and I was mad and I’m going, ‘They’ll call a foul every time!’ He’d go, ‘Sometimes they don’t.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, right.’

“When you’re young, sometimes you don’t know why your parents do things.”

We know why Ron Montgomery did this drill back in West Virginia. We’ve seen his daughter dismantle full-court pressure, fast-break UConn to a national title. We’ve seen her 5-foot-7, 140-pound body get jostled by much bigger WNBA bodies — often without a whistle — and still her dribble remains unaffected.

And while it would be an exaggeration to say this is the drill that made Renee Montgomery famous, it wouldn’t be hyperbole to say the dad/coach who barked out those orders during her nascent AAU days played a vital role in the development of one of the world’s top young guards.

“No way would I be where I am without him,” says Montgomery, 23. “Not even close.”

This is why Montgomery is excited for the chance to publicly tell Diddy — that’s her nickname for Ron —how much she loves him on this Father’s Day. For all the sacrifices he made as an AAU coach? For the homemade hoop he made and the driveway he paved? Of course. But also for the defensive slides that went on and on and, even for the reaction drill where she had to turn her back, he’d yell “Go!” then throw a tennis ball and she’d have to sprint to catch it.

Montgomery may be a one-in-a-million success story, but she also is only one of a million stories on this Father’s Day. So consider this a tribute to the coach who is Dad, the dad who is coach and together is able to strike a harmony. This is one for Diddy and for Daddy, Pop and Papi. This is for the fathers who roll up their sleeves, who break their backs every day only to come home and roll up their sleeves a little higher, break out the bats and show the kids a good level swing. This is for the dads whose white collars are tight and their stress level high enough for a stroke, who can still take a deep breath when they pull into the driveway and teach the kids a nice stroke on their jump shot.

John Wooden, one of the great teachers of the past century, said the two most important words in the English language are love and balance. He would also say parenting is the most important profession and a coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment. It’s easy to coddle. It’s easy to find fault. Finding and respecting the line where love meets demand and demand meets rejection, that’s the balance the father/coach must find and seek to maintain. Is it easy? Of course not.

So let’s raise a glass of resolve and patience, to knowing when to push and when to back off. A toast to yin and yang, to knowing when to sing your kids’ praises, when to yank their chains a little and always to love them.

Sun rookie Allison Hightower played for her dad, David, for three-four years in youth leagues in Arlington, Texas. Only 22, Hightower already has an award named after her at LSU. It goes to the player who works hardest daily at practice. That’s how supreme her work habits are, but she remembers a time when she was only 8 and David, who played at Sam Houston State, was harder on her than everybody else.

“He was trying to make me tough, but I didn’t understand it at the time. I just wanted to play and have fun,” she says. “Later on, he’d yell and coach me from the stands. That had to stop.”

She shows no scars.

“We’ve always been close,” Hightower says. “I’ve always been a daddy’s girl.”

Ron Montgomery played high school basketball, college football at West Virginia State and coached Renee in AAU from when she was 10 to 14.

“At first I was uncomfortable,” Renee says. “I’d be so embarrassed if I got yelled at during practice. If I was going to get into trouble I wanted it to be at home. After a while, I found it an advantage. I got to take the coach home with me, practice things I might not otherwise.

“He’s not Bobby Knight where he’ll throw a chair, but he gets fired up. Him and my Snook [that's mom] sometimes can’t be in the same room watching games. She’s like, ‘I love you, Renee, whether you air-ball every shot and turn the ball over 200 times.’ My dad’s the opposite. He’s like, ‘You know better than that!”’

Montgomery is known to bring up her parents during interviews. She says does it in appreciation of all the sacrifices they made. Shoes, AAU travel, the days off from work, she saw all the money spent and effort made and she’ll never forget any of it.

“When I was little, I’d play at my neighbor’s rim every day,” she says. “Diddy asked me if I wanted to play basketball. I said yeah. The next day he’s making me a backboard, rim, the pole, the whole thing with this big rectangular backboard that stood vertically, so I wouldn’t have to chase the ball all over the yard. Two months later he paved our driveway. That’s the thing with my parents. As soon as I tell them I want to do something they go all out to give me the opportunity.”

Montgomery senses her own Diddy Day opportunity.

“He hates you to cause a fuss about him,” she said. “Birthday, Father’s Day, even Christmas, it’s such a struggle on holidays. In his head we should never waste our money on something for him. He loves it when I just call him and say, ‘I love you.’ For me to say I love him in a newspaper article will mean the most to him. It’ll be a great Father’s Day present for him, although we’ll spend money on him anyway.”

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Montgomery made a 3-pointer and two free throws during a 15-5 run in the final 3:08 that helped the Sun (6-2) seal the victory.

“This was a playoff atmosphere,” Montgomery said. “I was glad I could contribute.”

She made a career-high five 3-pointers.

“Renee Montgomery torched us,” Indiana coach Lin Dunn said. “She was a huge difference in the game.”

Tina Charles added 12 points and 12 rebounds for Connecticut, while Sandrine Gruda scored 12 points and Tan White had 10. The Sun made a season-high 10 3-point field goals.

Jessica Davenport scored a career-high 18 points for the Fever (5-4). Katie Douglas added 15 points for Indiana, while Ebony Hoffman scored 13 and Tamika Catchings had 12 points and eight rebounds.

Douglas hit a 3-pointer with 3:08 remaining to give Indiana a 72-71 lead. Montgomery’s 3 with two minutes left put Connecticut ahead 77-72.

“I was very proud of the way we played in the fourth quarter. One turnover,” Connecticut coach Mike Thibault said. “We’re not all the way there yet, but boy, this was a good step.”

Connecticut had a 45-39 lead at halftime, but the Fever outscored the Sun 23-12 in the third period to take a 62-57 lead heading to the fourth.

Indiana made three straight 3-pointers midway through the second period— two from Hoffman—that helped cut into an 11-point deficit.

Montgomery made a 3-pointer at the first-quarter horn to give the Sun a 26-16 lead.

Tina Charles had 19 points and 11 rebounds and DeMya Walker added a season-high 12 points for the Sun (5-2), who improved to 5-0 at home.

Sophia Young scored 21 points to lead San Antonio (2-6). Chamique Holdsclaw had 14 points and Roneeka Hodges added 10.

MOHEGAN — As shot after shot of hers fell Thursday, Renee Montgomery had every opportunity to sneak a glance at the Minnesota Lynx bench and smile that smile that says, “See what you’re missing?”

Montgomery was smiling all right, but she felt no need to flash one toward her former employers.

“Wow, whoa. I feel trouble coming,” Montgomery said jokingly when a reporter suggested that rubbing the Lynx’s nose in it is something most people would do.

“We are not the same,” she said. “I am a Martian.”

(Cue reporters going blank.)

“That’s a song,” Montgomery explained. “You guys don’t know that song.”

(That’s Lil’ Wayne’s “Phone Home.” Thank you, Google.)

“So you think I’m crazy for not thinking that?” Montgomery continued, getting back on topic. “When I stuck that (shot) in there, I was like, ‘Yes,’ because when you get open looks and you’re missing it, you’re like, ‘OK, I’m going to keep shooting it.’ So when one goes down, you’re like, ‘Oh good. I was waiting on that.’”

For some Connecticut fans who watched Montgomery do what she did Thursday (23 points on 8-of-11 shooting, six assists) for four years at UConn, the wait may have seemed like a long one.

Through the Sun’s first three games, Montgomery didn’t seem much like … well, Montgomery. Acquired in the trade that sent Lindsay Whalen back home to Minnesota, Montgomery entered Thursday averaging 6.3 points and shooting less than 40 percent. Her five turnovers numbered more than half her nine assists.

But Montgomery didn’t feel like herself either. She had been playing on a sprained ankle for weeks and a tweaked hamstring for roughly the last 10 days.

She said Thursday was the first time she actually felt healthy this season. Aside from a little pull in her left hamstring during the first quarter — “this dumb thing right here,” she called it — she moved with confidence and unmatched quickness, propelling the Sun to most of their 19 fastbreak points.

“My mobility is the main thing,” Montgomery said. “I never really worry about shooting because I know if you keep shooting, at a certain point, it’s going to go in. It was just my mobility that was bothering me the most.”

Still learning

But Montgomery’s ‘slow’ start also served as a reminder that as a second-year pro, she’s still growing. She’s comfortable within coach Mike Thibault’s system, and her ability to push the ball makes the Sun dynamic when they’re in transition.

But it’s taken several conversations with Thibault for her to get a better grip on what he wants from his point guard, and as the season progresses, it’ll naturally take even more.

“I think people here have seen her for so long, they feel like she’s like a senior and she’s experienced,” said Kara Lawson, Montgomery’s veteran backcourt-mate. “But on this level, she’s still learning and she still has growth and she still can mature. That’s what maybe people forget here. Last year, she was a rookie, and she didn’t play a lot. Now she’s a starter, she’s running the team.

“We’ve got to help her see what she needs to do for us, but games like (Thursday’s), it’s there,” Lawson continued. “She can do it, she can run our team, and that’s exciting for us. I think you’re going to see her continually (get better) this season because of the confidence she knows that we have in her and the coaching staff has in her.”

Thibault’s encouraged Montgomery to be more aggressive offensively, not only in finding her own shot but in putting “the defense on their heels a little bit so she could make decisions in open space,” he said. She found a lot of it Thursday against an undermanned Lynx team that without Candice Wiggins had no one who could match Montgomery’s speed from end to end.

“That’s the pace we would like to play at more often,” Thibault said.

That’s the pace Montgomery’s used to.

“That’s how it was at UConn,” said Tina Charles, who with Montgomery helped lead the Huskies to the first of back-to-back undefeated campaigns in the 2008-09 season. “When Renee was on, we knew there was no chance that anybody could beat us that year. So that’s what I’m used to always seeing.”

Minnesota certainly got the reminder. Montgomery, the good sport, just didn’t feel the need to double-check.

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Tan White contributed 22 points for Connecticut, which improved to 3-1 on the young season. Kelsey Griffin added 10 points in the victory.

Rashanda McCants and Charde Houston both scored 16 points for the Lynx, who have now dropped four straight following a season-opening victory at Tulsa. Rebekkah Brunson posted 14 points and Monica Wright notched 11 points in the losing effort.

The Sun held a slim 22-20 lead after the first quarter but used a dominating effort in both the second and third stanzas to blow the game open. Connecticut took a 55-41 lead into the locker room and then outscored the visitors 29-17 in the third period.

Connecticut shot 50.7 percent from the field overall, including a 9-for-24 effort from behind the arc. Minnesota ended with a 40.3 shooting percentage from the floor (29-for-72).

Despite the loss, the Lynx won the battle on the glass, 39-30.

Renee Montgomery scored 4 points and added 4 assist and 2 rebounds. Kara Lawson and Kelsey Griffin had 11 points each and Tina Charles finished with 10 points and eight rebounds for the Sun (2-1), who used a 25-5 run during an 8-minute span of the second half to pull away.

Crystal Langhorne had 16 points to lead Washington (3-1), which was denied its first 4-0 start in franchise history. Marisa Coleman scored 11 points and Katie Smith had 10. Connecticut held Monique Currie, who entered the game scoring a team-best 22 points per game, to six points before fouling out.