UNCASVILLE, Conn. --The WNBA is betting professional women's basketball will be successful in Connecticut, where UConn games routinely sell out.

The former Orlando Miracle, a team led by former UConn star Nykesha Sales, was purchased by the Mohegan Indian Tribe and became the Connecticut Sun, league commissioner Val Ackerman said Tuesday.

The Sun will be the first independently owned and operated team in the WNBA. Ackerman made her announcement in front of about 500 fans, many of them children, who screamed loudly at the sight of Sales and several former UConn stars attending the event.

Ackerman said that since the inception of the league she has been asked one question more than any other: "When will there be a team in Connecticut?''

"The answer is, we now have one,'' she said.

The team will be based at tribe's Mohegan Sun casino and play in its 10,000-seat arena. It will be one of seven teams in the Eastern Conference of the 14-team league. Neither league nor team officials would disclose the purchase price.

Besides Sales, the Sun includes 12 other players but no coach. Miracle coach Dee Brown remained with the Orlando Magic, which owned the women's team. Sun officials said a search for a new coach will begin immediately.

The league has said it will allow a casino to own a team as long as there is no sports betting at the facility. There is no sports book at the Mohegan Sun; the NBA has played exhibition games at the arena.

"It doesn't present a problem for us,'' Ackerman said. "What we felt we had here was an extraordinary package of amenities that included a wonderful arena, a great management team with experience in promoting sports events. We felt that women's professional basketball could very well thrive in the kind of setting that Mohegan Sun is providing for us.''

Officials said entrances will allow fans to bypass the gambling floor and send them directly to the arena.

"People tend to focus a little too much on what seeing a slot machine, what influence it would have on a youngster,'' Tribal Councilor Jayne Fawcett said. "You take children to a restaurant where people are having drinks and where people are smoking. These are far more injurious to children's health. I don't think there's any comparison.''

The league has been interested in placing a team in Connecticut because of the strong interest in women's basketball.

Sales was joined by former UConn players Sue Bird, Tamika Williams, Swin Cash, Rebecca Lobo and Kara Wolters. There are 11 former Huskies in the WNBA.

Bird, who plays for the Seattle Storm, grew up in New York and is eager for her first road game against the Sun.

"It's another game I can circle on my calendar where my friends and family don't have to visit me in Seattle,'' Bird said.

The league changed its business model in October, ending central ownership of teams and cutting ties that bound teams to NBA franchises. Orlando and the league's Miami franchise folded and the Utah franchise moved to San Antonio.

That was the break many Connecticut officials had been waiting for.

"When they actually changed the rules, we kept saying from the beginning, 'Let Connecticut be your first choice,''' Lieutenant Gov. M. Jodi Rell said. "We're just thrilled.''

UConn's women's teams have won three national championships in seven years -- the men have won a fourth -- and their games are sellouts at the 10,000-seat Gampel Pavilion on campus and the 16,000-seat Hartford Civic Center.

The Hartford-based New England Blizzard set attendance records in the now-defunct American Basketball League. That team, launched in 1996, tapped into the interest arising from UConn's 1995 national title and drafted three former Huskies -- Jennifer Rizzotti, Wolters and Carla Berube.

Of the 10 largest crowds in the league's 2½-year run, seven were logged at the Hartford Civic Center, including a record crowd of 15,418 on Jan. 23, 1997. The league folded just under a year later. Former Blizzard GM Chris Sienko will serve as an interim general manager for the Sun.

"No other state can compare with Connecticut in its love and enthusiasm for women's basketball, and we're happy to give fans the opportunity to see the game played at its highest level,'' said Mark Brown, the Mohegan Tribe's chairman.