Determined to re-tool after a disappointing first-round exit from the 2007 playoffs, Thibault brought in 10 new players to start the 2008 season. Offseason trades for Tamika Whitmore, Barbara Turner and Tamika Raymond gave the Sun a new core of veterans while six rookies also made the roster.

The Sun were the third youngest team in the league when the season began. That youth, combined with the offseason departure of veteran All Stars Katie Douglas, Nykesha Sales and Margo Dydek led to predictions that the Sun would struggle in 2008.

Instead, Connecticut jumped out to an 8-1 start, matching their best record over the first nine games of a season in franchise history. Connecticut was the last team in the league to lose on the road, the last to lose two games in a row, and the first to qualify for the playoffs, earning a spot in the postseason with a win at Atlanta on August 29th.

Despite starting two rookies in 28 of 34 games, the Sun established new records for total points (2,690), scoring average (79.1 ppg.), made threes (221) and three-point shooting percentage (33.0) while becoming the third team in franchise history to win more than 20 games in a season.

Eleven different players, including five rookies, started at least one game for the Sun in 2008. A total of 14 players – Connecticut added Erin Phillips and Svetlana Abrosimova to the roster following the Olympic Break – logged minutes this season for the Sun.

Thibault’s accomplishments this season are particularly impressive considering he spent much of the past nine months balancing his WNBA coaching duties with his work as an assistant to Ann Donovan on the staff of U.S. Olympic Women’s Basketball Team. From the time the 2007 season ended, Thibault spent roughly three months traveling with Team USA to various tournaments around the world, making key contributions to what was ultimately a Gold Medal effort in Beijing.

Taking over the team after it relocated to Connecticut from Orlando prior to the 2003 season, Thibault inherited a squad that had never finished above .500. He guided that first Sun team to an 18-16 record and a first-round playoff series sweep of the favored Charlotte Sting.

Since 2003, Connecticut has had five straight winning seasons. Only the Sacramento Monarchs and Seattle Storm can make that same claim. In the last five seasons, the Sun have won more regular season games than any team in the WNBA, achieving an overall mark of 106-64. Detroit, Sacramento and Los Angeles are the only other teams that have won as many as 100 games in that same span.

During the 2005 and 2006 seasons, Connecticut posted consecutive 26-8 records. No other Eastern Conference team has ever won 26 games in a regular season.

On June 22, 2007, Thibault became the third-fastest coach in league history to reach 100 career regular season wins, achieving that milestone in just 159 games with a victory over Houston. Thibault owns a regular season winning percentage of .623, second best among active coaches.

During the 2007 WNBA season, Connecticut became the first team in WNBA history to score 100 or more points in back-to-back games, at Phoenix (7/6) and Los Angeles (7/7). The Sun, which also scored 102 points at Chicago (5/31), had just one triple-figure game in franchise history prior to last year. The 2007 season was capped with a fifth straight trip to the playoffs. Sacramento and Detroit are the only other WNBA teams that have also qualified for the playoffs in every year since 2003.

In 2006, Thibault led Connecticut to its second straight 26-8 record, its third straight first place finish in the Eastern Conference regular season standings, and its fourth straight trip to the Eastern Conference Finals. Connecticut put together the third longest winning streak in league history in 2006, reeling off 12 straight victories from July 16th to August 9th. Ten of the victories in that run came without Nykesha Sales, who missed 12 games with a sore Achilles tendon. The Sun were 13-1 overall when playing without either Sales or starting power forward Taj McWilliams-Franklin.

For those accomplishments, Thibault was named 2006 WNBA Coach of the Year. In 2005, Thibault guided the Sun to a 26-8 mark that included a 13-1 record against the Western Conference and what was then a franchise-record eight game winning streak. Connecticut’s 12-2 start over 14 games was among the quickest in WNBA history, topped only by Houston’s 13-1 start in 1998. Not since 2001 had a WNBA team won as many regular season games as the Sun did in 2005. The Sun advanced to the WNBA Finals for the second straight year with victories over Detroit and Indiana, but fell to Sacramento in four games.

During the 2004 WNBA season, Thibault led a team picked almost unanimously to finish last before the start of the season to within one shot of a WNBA championship. After finishing first in the Eastern Conference during the regular season for the first time in franchise history, the Sun beat Washington and New York to reach the WNBA Finals before losing to Seattle in three games.

Connecticut’s accomplishments in 2004 were particularly impressive considering Thibault rebuilt the team following a 2003 run to the Eastern Conference Finals. Concluding that the Sun needed to get younger and more athletic, Thibault risked taking a temporary step back to get better. He carried five rookies on the 2004 roster, lowering the average age of his team from 28.4 to 24.2. Among those rookies was point guard Lindsay Whalen, who averaged more than 30 minutes per game running the team.

The Sun also flourished despite losing starting forward Brooke Wyckoff to a season-ending knee injury on May 3, 2004. Wyckoff and the five other veterans who did not return to the team averaged a combined 30 points, 13.5 rebounds and 7.6 assists per game in 2003.

In 2004, Connecticut set then single-season franchise records for total assists (572), assist average per game (16.8) and 20-assist games (nine). The Sun also set a franchise record with six straight wins from June 20th to July 6th, and the team reeled off eight straight Eastern Conference victories at one point. Four of those eight conference wins were on the road.

In 2003 – following a four-year stint with the Milwaukee Bucks – Thibault led the Connecticut Sun to the first playoff series victory in franchise history, a 2-0 sweep of the second-seeded Charlotte Sting. Although Connecticut would succumb to the eventual WNBA champion Detroit Shock in the Eastern Conference Finals, Thibault guided the team to what was then the best season in the history of the franchise.

Under Thibault, Connecticut has been one of the most aggressive teams in the league in the offseason, not hesitating to make deals that improve the roster. Eight of the 10 trades in franchise history have occurred since the team relocated from Orlando to Connecticut before the 2003 season. Among the players acquired by Thibault as a result of these trades are Lindsay Whalen, Asjha Jones, Margo Dydek and Tamika Whitmore.

Thibault entered the NBA ranks in 1978 as a scout for the Los Angeles Lakers, and was promoted to director of scouting and assistant coach in 1980. The Lakers won two World Championships (1980, 1982) during his tenure. From 1982-1986, he was an assistant coach and director of scouting for the Chicago Bulls during a period when the franchise drafted Michael Jordan and Charles Oakley, while also acquiring John Paxson.

From 1987-88 Thibault was the general manager and head coach of the Calgary 88’s of the World Basketball League (WBL), earning WBL Coach of the Year honors in 1988.

In 1989, Thibault began a remarkable eight-year run as general manager and head coach of CBA’s Omaha Racers. The Racers made the playoffs each season (1989-97) under his watch, bringing home a CBA title in 1993, and a return to the finals in 1994. Thibault was named 1993 Sportsman of the Year by the Omaha sportscasters, and ranks sixth on the CBA all-time coaching victory list (236).

In March of 1995, he coached the silver medal winning USA National Team at the Pan American Games, and in August of 1993, he served as head coach of the gold medal-winning USA National Team at the World Championship Qualifying Tournament in Puerto Rico.

He spent the 1997-98 season as a scout for the Seattle Sonics.

Mike and his wife Nanci are active participants in the community, and have been staunch supporters of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation since Mike’s days with the Omaha Racers. In 2007, the Thibaults served as co-chairs of GREAT STRIDES, the primary fundraiser of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation’s Connecticut Chapter.

Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, Thibault was raised in Saratoga, Calif. Mike and Nanci have two children, Eric and Carly.