By: Sunnie Gao

Phoenix Mercury Coach Vanessa Nygaard and her coaching staff stood in the empty Mohegan Sun arena on Thursday puzzled, waiting for the players that had yet to show up for their normal pregame shoot-around.

The players had no intention of joining quite yet. Instead, they were in the locker room, eyes glued to a screen that showed their teammate and friend Brittney Griner’s conviction and sentencing on drug smuggling and possession charges earlier that day in a Russian court thousands of miles away.

As Griner pleaded for the Russians to not “end her life” over an “honest mistake,” many of her teammates’ eyes filled with tears. Griner was sentenced to nine years in a Russian penal colony and fined 1 million rubles, or about $16,000. This may have opened an opportunity for a prisoner swap for Griner to be returned to the U.S, but the news was still equally heartbreaking to hear.

“And we’re still supposed to play this game. Nobody even wanted to play today. How are we even supposed to approach the game and approach the court with a clear mind when the whole group is crying before the game,” Mercury guard Skylar Diggins-Smith said after the

game.

Griner has been detained in Russia since February 17, when customs officials said they found hashish oil, a cannabis derivative, in Griner’s luggage at an airport near Moscow. Griner claims that the hashish oil in a vape pen had been packed by mistake.

This sparked many professional athletes to campaign fiercely for her freedom. In fact, in May, the U.S. State Department said that it had determined that Griner was “wrongfully detained” and that its officials would work to free her.

In the meantime, Griner’s teammates and fans have started showing their support through public campaigns. Griner’s purple and orange No. 42 Mercury jerseys filled the stands along with other variations of clothing with messages calling for her freedom. Mercury players wore the “We are BG” shirts in pregame warm-ups, as did the Connecticut coaching staff and several Sun players.

Mercury lost the game 77-64. Mercury guard Skylar Diggins-Smith was the game’s leading scorer, with 16 points, and Jonquel Jones, the Sun forward, finished with 14. But for both sides, the numbers seemingly didn’t matter.

“We’ll wake up tomorrow, and B.G. will still be in a Russian jail,” Nygaard said. “It’s day 169 or something tomorrow, and the clock continues, and we just want her to come home.”