Why The Minnesota Lynx’s Playoff Collapse Is So Historic

How much more "Minnesota sports" does it get than this?

Even one of Minnesota's few successful teams in recent years caught the "historic collapse" bug that fans in the Land of 10,000 Lakes keep watching our teams suffer from over and over again.

If you weren't following the Minnesota Lynx this season, they were a dominant team through the regular season. Minnesota's WNBA team earned the league's best regular-season record, going 33-11.

In that pretty dominant regular-season run, where they earned the #1 seed in this year's playoffs, they went on a stretch where they won 16 of 17 games.

As the regular season came to a close, they went 2-2, including falling to the New York Liberty at Target Center earlier this month, which turned out to be a sign of things to come in the playoffs.

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Drawing the 8-seed Liberty as their playoff opponent in the first round, New York put Minnesota on the ropes early in the playoffs, winning 91-75 over the Lynx at Target Center in Game 1 of the best-of-three series.

Tuesday night, Minnesota headed to the Big Apple, where the Liberty finished what they started, knocking the Lynx out of the playoffs with an 87-71 win.

While that's disappointingly "Minnesota sports" in itself, getting bounced out of the first round of the playoffs after an incredible season, it gets worse. Historically worse.

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Minnesota's collapse in this year's playoffs makes it the first time an 8 seed upset a 1 seed in a series in WNBA playoff history. Yep, first time ever in the league's 30-year history.

Minnesota's head coach, Cheryl Reeve, was candid in her response to getting ousted from the playoffs in historic fashion, saying, "Yeah, it sucks," and "We're not going to focus on (expletive) like that" when asked about what will now make the team a footnote in league history.

The Lynx have a history with the Liberty, also losing to them 3 games to 2 in 2024 during the WNBA Finals.

The current playoff format, which has been around for a couple of years now, is drawing some criticism from fans and commentators, arguing that the current best-of-three opening series format is too short.

Many who follow the WNBA argue that the playoff structure should be changed to a best-of-five series for the first and second rounds, followed by a best-of-seven series for the championship.

The current format is a best-of-three in the first round, best-of-five in the second round, and a best-of-seven for the WNBA Finals.

While there is some merit to the argument that a 3-game series is kind of short, Cheryl Reeve was also correct in her assessment that Minnesota just straight up got beaten.

As a top-seeded team, losing by 16 at home to open the series and then losing again by 16 on the road is a bad look for the one seed. While Minnesota's runway was certainly shorter in this current best-of-three series format, you have to find a way to win at least one of those games to get back home and (hopefully) finish strong at Target Center in Game 3 to advance.

Nonetheless, the Lynx's season is over, and Minnesota sports fans have yet another epic collapse on their hands. The Vikings are currently 3-0, and the Wild & Wolves' seasons get going soon. I'm bracing for more letdown, but hopeful that one of these days one of our teams breaks through to the promised land again.

Speaking of breaking through, here's a look at some breakout players with another one of Minnesota's teams, holding esteemed places in Minnesota Vikings history: