OK, let's call it the best day (so far) in Washington Mystics' history. And their fans should thoroughly enjoy this. Because, goodness knows, there have been plenty of lousy days.
The franchise sometimes pejoratively nicknamed the "Mystakes" is not just going to the WNBA postseason, which begins Wednesday. Washington will be the Eastern Conference's No. 1 seed. And that has never happened before.
It came down to the final day of the regular season for everything to be set. The Mystics got their sixth consecutive victory, 90-81 in Atlanta, on Sunday to secure the top seed. In the highly competitive Eastern Conference, it won't be a surprise to see any of the four teams -- Washington, New York, Indiana and Atlanta -- end up in the WNBA finals. All have been in first place at some point this season.
However, in the mostly underachieving Western Conference, it will be considered a very big upset if Seattle doesn't make it to the best-of-five concluding series. The Storm, who went undefeated (17-0) at home this season, finished 28-6 and wrapped up their playoff berth seemingly eons ago.
Seattle is, in fact, the only West team to conclude the regular season with a winning record.
Defending champion Phoenix lost Cappie Pondexter, who requested, er, demanded a trade to New York in the offseason, a move that worked out very well for the Liberty. But as fabulous a player as Pondexter is -- she is an MVP candidate again this season -- it didn't seem like her absence should hurt the Mercury to the degree that they finished 15-19.
Especially considering they had another MVP-caliber season from Diana Taurasi -- who won that honor last year -- and strong individual performances from Penny Taylor and Candice Dupree. Taurasi, at 22.6 points per game, won her fourth league scoring title, with Dupree (16.2) and Taylor (15.9) finishing in the top 12 in scoring average.
Add in players such as Temeka Johnson, DeWanna Bonner, Tangela Smith and Kara Braxton -- acquired in late July in a trade with Tulsa -- and the Mercury might be the most perplexing team to have a losing record in WNBA history.
Taurasi talked early in the season about how important it was for Phoenix to avoid any letdown this season after winning the title, which is something she thought the Mercury did in 2008 after having winning the 2007 championship.
Phoenix's 16-18 record in 2008 didn't come close to earning the Mercury a playoff spot that year, as they finished in the West's cellar along with Minnesota. This year, though, the West has been so lackluster that 15-19 was good enough to put the Mercury in second place.
Meanwhile, the other two West teams in the postseason didn't nab their playoff spots until the final weekend, and both of them did so despite a missing Lady Vol.
Los Angeles, which secured its place Friday with a 98-91 victory over Minnesota, has played most of the season without 2008 league MVP Candace Parker. She has dealt with a shoulder problem going back to her days at Tennessee, and 10 games into this season she injured it again.
This time, it required surgery and left the Sparks without their top two scorers from last season: Lisa Leslie, who retired, and Parker. Thus, it took much of the season for Los Angeles to really come together.
The Sparks went 2-7 in June and almost appeared to be buried. But they crawled out of that. L.A. won seven of its last 12 games. That made for a 13-21 record, which tied the Sparks with the Lynx. L.A. got the tiebreaker, as Minnesota finished its sixth consecutive season out of the playoffs.
San Antonio lost former Tennessee star and WNBA veteran Chamique Holdsclaw to a torn Achilles tendon Aug. 15. Even without her, though, the Silver Stars won their last two games of the regular season, against fellow playoff teams Indiana and Phoenix.
Speaking of Holdsclaw that leads us back to the Mystics, the team that drafted her No. 1 in 1999. Holdsclaw won three NCAA titles at Tennessee, and her presence gave an instant lift to the Mystics after a particularly woeful inaugural season in 1998.
That first year, Washington had what remains the fewest-ever victories in a WNBA season, going 3-27. Holdsclaw then put up very good individual numbers in her six seasons in Washington, and helped the Mystics to two postseason appearances. In 2002, they won their only playoff series, beating Charlotte before falling to New York in the Eastern Conference finals.
Then during the 2004 season, Holdsclaw took a leave of absence from the team. The Mystics went to the playoffs without her, losing to Connecticut. Holdsclaw later acknowledged she was dealing with depression, and the team fulfilled her request of a trade to Los Angeles.
So while the Holdsclaw era was not a complete bust for the Mystics, it still was pretty unsatisfying. Add to that Washington's bleakly comical amount of coaching changes and things like the goofy "attendance champion" banners they had hung in the Verizon Center, and there was more punch line than punch in the Mystics' history.
But the whole atmosphere with the franchise seemed to change in 2009, when Angela Taylor took over as general manager and Julie Plank became head coach. The Mystics went 16-18 last season and made the playoffs, losing to eventual league runner-up Indiana.
They entered this summer, though, with an immediate big problem to solve. Alana Beard, the team's leading scorer the previous five years, was out for the season after ankle surgery.
But "Team ACC" -- so nicknamed for the seven former Atlantic Coast Conference players (including Beard) on the roster -- was able to make up for the loss of a star player. In part because another star emerged: Third-year pro Crystal Langhorne had an MVP-caliber season, averaging 16.3 points and 9.7 rebounds.
And also, the Mystics got a big lift from the free-agent pool. Katie Smith, who had won two titles with Detroit, opted not to accompany the Shock as that franchise moved to Tulsa. At 36, Smith has a limited number of seasons left and wanted a better chance at another championship than she felt like the relocated Shock would provide. (The last-place Shock ended this season 6-28 and saying, "Lottery, here we come," as they desperately hope to win the Maya Moore sweepstakes in 2011.)
Smith isn't scoring at the clip she once did earlier in her career, but that's not her role anymore. She can still have big scoring games, when needed. But every game, she's the glue player, the one who always provides tough defense, scrappiness and can either calm her teammates down or fire them up, whichever is called for.
Smith is joined in Washington's "That '70s Club" by two Bicentennial Babies, Nakia Sanford and Chasity Melvin, born a week apart in May 1976. The 30-somethings have been a grounded presence for the Mystics.
Two former Duke teammates, Monique Currie, 27, and Lindsey Harding, 26, are second and third on the team in scoring, both having had confidence-building seasons as they are in the prime years of their careers.
Washington, which opens with Atlanta on Wednesday (7 p.m. ET), will be trying to advance to the conference finals for the second time and to the WNBA finals for the first time.
And this feeling that the Mystics are past the days when observers mostly just shook their heads wondering what would go wrong next? That they're actually in the hunt now?
Well, there's no mistaking it. They really are.
Mechelle Voepel, a regular contributor to ESPN.com, can be reached at mvoepel123@yahoo.com. Read her blog at voepel.wordpress.com.