Sixteen words. Four groups. One hidden thread.
Each morning, a small ritual renews itself: sixteen words appear, and the mind is asked to find the hidden order beneath them. The New York Times and The Athletic have built a daily sports puzzle — Connections Sports Edition — that sits at the intersection of athletic knowledge and wordplay, asking players to sort the language of games into four groups of four. Puzzle 345, arriving on September 3, 2025, moved through the architecture of competitive levels, the grammar of basketball positions, the legacy of Notre Dame's women, and the newest names chosen first in professional drafts. It is, in the end, a small meditation on how much we carry inside us about the sports we love.
- The puzzle arrives daily at midnight, quietly resetting the challenge and pulling word-game devotees back into a sports-specific test of memory and association.
- The tension lives in the gap between recognition and certainty — words like POINT, SMALL, and SHOOTING feel familiar until you must commit to a category and risk one of only four attempts.
- The blue and purple categories raise the stakes highest, demanding either genuine sports literacy or a willingness to guess at surnames like OGUNBOWALE, BUECKERS, and FLAGG.
- Today's four answers — competitive levels, basketball position prefixes, Notre Dame WNBA alumni, and 2025 first overall draft picks — reward those who live inside sports culture and gently challenge those who don't.
- The game lands as both a deepening of the morning puzzle ritual for word enthusiasts and an unexpected entry point for sports fans who have never sorted sixteen words before breakfast.
The New York Times has a talent for extending the morning routine, and Connections Sports Edition — built in collaboration with The Athletic — is its latest addition. The format mirrors the original Connections: sixteen words, four hidden categories, four groups of four, and only four chances to get it right before the game closes. Puzzle 345 landed on Wednesday, September 3, 2025, and offered four distinct tests of sports knowledge.
The yellow category was structural — COLLEGE, HIGH SCHOOL, PRO, and REC, the levels at which competitive sports are organized. It feels self-evident in hindsight, but requires thinking past the everyday meanings of those words. The green category rewarded basketball fluency: POINT, POWER, SHOOTING, and SMALL are the opening words of the sport's five classic positions, and knowing that requires more than casual familiarity with the game.
The blue category turned toward a single institution. Notre Dame has sent several women to the WNBA, and the puzzle named four of them — CITRON, DIGGINS, MCBRIDE, and OGUNBOWALE. The purple category looked at the very edge of the present: BUECKERS, FLAGG, SCHAEFER, and WARD, the players selected first overall across 2025's professional basketball drafts, names still accumulating the weight of expectation.
What makes Connections Sports Edition interesting is the space it occupies. It asks more of its players than the original — general knowledge won't carry you far here. But for those who already speak the language of sports, it offers something the standard puzzle cannot: the pleasure of recognition, the small satisfaction of knowing exactly why those four words belong together.
If you're the kind of person who starts your morning by opening Wordle, then Connections, then Strands, then the Mini Crossword, The New York Times has found a way to make your routine even longer. Connections Sports Edition arrived as a collaboration between the Times and The Athletic, and it works exactly like the original puzzle game—except every clue, every answer, every thread of connection runs through sports.
The format is familiar. Sixteen words appear on your screen. Your job is to sort them into four groups of four, where each group shares a hidden category. You get four attempts before the game ends. The puzzle resets at midnight Eastern time, which means there's always a fresh one waiting when you wake up. For Wednesday, September 3, 2025, puzzle number 345 arrived with four distinct challenges.
The yellow category asked you to think about the structure of competitive sports itself—the different levels at which games are played, from the neighborhood rec league all the way up to professional franchises. The words were COLLEGE, HIGH SCHOOL, PRO, and REC. It's the kind of category that feels obvious once you see it, but requires you to think past the surface of what these words typically mean.
The green category took you into basketball terminology. If you know the sport, you know that positions have two-word names: point guard, shooting guard, small forward, power forward, center. The puzzle isolated the first word of each. So the answers were POINT, POWER, SHOOTING, and SMALL. It's a category that rewards basketball literacy—you need to know not just that these words exist, but that they're the opening syllables of something larger.
The blue category shifted to a specific institution. Notre Dame has produced several women who went on to play in the WNBA, and the puzzle asked you to name them. The answers were CITRON, DIGGINS, MCBRIDE, and OGUNBOWALE. This is the kind of category that requires either deep sports knowledge or the willingness to make educated guesses based on what sounds like a surname.
The purple category looked at the most recent professional basketball draft. In 2025, four players were selected first overall across different leagues or draft classes. The answers were BUECKERS, FLAGG, SCHAEFER, and WARD. These are the freshest names in professional basketball, the ones chosen before anyone else, the ones carrying the weight of expectation that comes with being first.
Connections Sports Edition sits in an interesting space. It's not quite as accessible as the original Connections, which draws from general knowledge and wordplay. It demands that you either know sports or are willing to learn. For the people who already spend their mornings on word puzzles, it's another layer of daily ritual. For sports fans who've never tried Connections, it's an entry point. Either way, the game resets tomorrow at midnight, and there will be sixteen new words waiting.
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
So this is just Connections, but for sports fans?
It's Connections with a sports lens, yes—but that changes what you need to know. In regular Connections, you might solve a category about homophones or words that follow a certain word. Here, you need to know basketball positions, or which players were drafted first this year, or which college produced WNBA talent.
Does that make it harder?
It depends on who's playing. If you follow sports closely, some categories feel obvious. If you don't, you're either learning or guessing. The puzzle doesn't care which.
Why would The New York Times partner with The Athletic on this?
The Athletic is owned by the Times now. It's a sports journalism outfit. So this is the Times extending its puzzle empire into a space where The Athletic already has an audience—people who care about sports enough to pay for coverage.
Is it just another way to get people to spend more time on their site?
Sure. But it's also a genuine product. If you like word games and you like sports, this is made for you. It's not cynical—it's just efficient.
What happens if you don't know who these WNBA players are?
You either skip that category, or you make guesses based on what sounds plausible as a name. That's part of the game. Some days you'll know everything. Some days you'll know nothing. Most days you'll be somewhere in between.