Washington Mystics at Chicago Sky
WNBA Pick for September 17, 2026
Yeah, sure, everyone’s excited about the start of the football season but that’s nothing compared to the excitement coming from fans who are excited to see the WNBA resume its season tonight! (<- yes, sarc.)
I really wish I was done with the WNBA but there’s an unusual situation tonight so I had to look to see if there’s an edge that we could take advantage of.
The teams have been off since August 29th, meaning they’re well rested today, after a 17 day break in the action.
So the obvious question is – how do well rested-legs tend to play, to the Over or Under?
We know from the B2B spot we’ve been using successfully all season that when teams play two nights in a row the defense seems incapable of playing tough the following night and the games overwhelmingly go Over.
The record on the B2B Game Two spot is 14-2.
(EVERY one of those spots was shared here at PredictEm. I hope you guys played some of them.)
To get an idea of how the league plays on rested legs I went back to look at the FIBA break last season, but it was only a few days off, not the 17th they have this season.
So I went to check the All-Star break.
During the season teams do not get 5 days off like they do for the All-Star Game.
I did a two year look back on the first night back after the All-Star break.
2025: 3-2 Ov/Un
2026: 5-0
Slight edge in 2025, huge edge in 2026 and overall 8-2.
That’s just two years though, not really enough to push me towards an Over tonight.
UNLESS . . . I had something else to go with it.
And I do.
My handicapping model T1 says this game stays Under tonight.
T1 on Unders has a record of 12-30.
That’s good for a 71% edge when Fading.
The Mystic’s are in a three-way tie for the final spot in the playoffs. All three teams are guaranteed to get in so they’re jockeying for positioning. Translation – they all want to avoid being eliminated by the first place Minnesota Lynx in the opening round.
So I know I’ll get a full-on, all out effort from a well-rested Mystic’s team.
But what about the Sky?
They’re eliminated from postseason play.
Will they show up tonight?
Will they care if they win or lose?
Let’s look at last season, when they were also eliminated before the final week of play.
Right now they have five games left on their schedule, playing as losers-about-to-go-home.
In their final five games last season, they went
1-4 SU.
Looks like they were okay with quitting on the season. Then again, maybe they just lost because of the same reason they didn’t make the playoffs – they stunk (stank?)
Their opponents played well averaging 85 PPG, but the quitters averaged 10 points fewer than that.
(The average loss was by 11 points, in case anyone’s looking at playing a side in this game tonight.)
More relevant to tonight’s play, only two of the five games went Over. Which means I’m going to need the Mystics to get most of the points I need to get the total Over tonight.
The game opened at 167′ and money’s coming in on the Under, it’s now at 164′.
I used Washington in an Over three times in August.
I nailed every one of them.
My play:
Wash/Chi Over (wait to buy, the line is dropping.)
Record: 30-26
