As she and her teammates finished morning shootaround, Connecticut Sun Marina Mabrey boasted about her alma mater repeatedly.It has become a running joke considering that Mabrey played at Notre Dame and several of her Sun teammates played at the program’s rival (UConn). That moment showcased how Mabrey enjoys talking trash and getting a rise out of people. The episode also exposed Mabrey’s joy with her teammates, a much different demeanor she shows against her opponents.Ahead of the Sun’s eventual loss to the LA Sparks on Tuesday, Mabrey spoke with Sportskeeda about a number of topics related to the Sun’s season-long struggles, the Sun recently acquiring Aaliyah Edwards from Washington before the trade deadline and how she has still had a productive season despite missing nine games with a left knee injury. Mabrey also spoke candidly about her recent altercation with Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark, how she reacted to the Sun declining her trade request and her positive outlook on the team’s future.Editor’s note: The following one-on-one interview has been edited and condensed.How have you dealt with all the fluidity with this season's roster changes, the record and your injury? Mabrey: “It’s part of the job. Obviously, Jacy [Sheldon] is a good teammate and a great player. You hate to have someone like that go. But it’s a business. Hopefully, she will have a good situation for her and we’ll be able to incorporate Aaliyah in a way that can be useful for our team as it relates to winning. And then injuries happen. You go out there on the court, and it happens sometimes. You step out there every day knowing it’s a possibility so I’m okay stepping out there knowing it’s a possibility. Every time, I’ll work my way back.”What do you think of Aaliyah’s fit with the group?Mabrey: “I think she’s great. I think she’s a great player. She can run the floor. She can screen. She can dive. She’s creative around the rim. She’s working on her jump shot. It’s only her second season, so we’ll have her for a little while. She’s a great addition, and she’s really coming into herself. Watching her at Unrivaled, she worked really hard. I’ve seen her work ethic. So I know she’s going to be a great player in this league for a long time.”Even with your injury and the roster fluidity, what has enabled you to have a productive season? (14.4 points, second highest of career), 3.9 assists (third highest of career)Mabrey: “You don’t always know what to expect every night when you’re rebuilding and there are moving parts and moving pieces and a new coaching staff. It’s everything. But I try to know what I can expect from myself every night. I know that I’m going to go out there and be aggressive every night, try to get downhill and try to score. I try to put the ball in the basket. I try to help my teammates put the ball in the basket and just do my job.”Given that, how did it land with you that the team decided not to trade you after the request? Mabrey: “At the end of the day, people think about this as a sport. But it’s still a job. You think about corporate jobs. You come in and people get fired all the time. You don’t think twice. People leave. People take different jobs. But at the end of the day, you still have to sit down and do what you’re supposed to do. It’s the same thing. I’m still going to show up and try to do exactly what I can do to the best of my ability. Sometimes, I have off nights.Sometimes, I have to work my way back from an injury. I’m a little rusty. My feet are not under me. But I know I’m one of the best players in the world. So I’m going to come out there and do it every day. You ask for a different job, you don’t get it. So does that mean you’re going to stop working? Oh okay. Where are you going to live? Do you have a plan?”What has enabled you and Tina Charles to have such great chemistry?Mabrey: “I think it’s understanding that there’s 90 possessions in the game, give or take. We’re both going to get a chance to be ourselves. It’ll be easier to be ourselves when we work together. We screen for each other. I need to find her off-screen. She needs to find me off-cuts and stuff. I thought, as the course of the season went on, that we did a good job of learning from each other so we can build together.”What’s the Notre-Dame-UConn trash talk like with her? Mabrey: “We always laugh. We always give each other a hard time. But at the end of the day, there’s a certain type of player that goes to Connecticut and Notre Dame. Usually, when we come together, we play well together. There are a lot of the same standards. There are a lot of the same expectations. There are a lot of the same teaching points. We have strong personalities and strong IQ.”But you went to the better school, obviously? Mabrey: “Of course.”How much do you banter about that? Mabrey: “I was actually just screaming, “Go Irish” for the last five minutes. I tell them that I never lost when it mattered. That one hurts their soul a little bit.”What do you think of the Athletic players poll ranking you third in trash talking? Mabrey: “That’s crazy. I barely say anything. I don’t even talk sh--. I’ve never said anything to any players before, so I think it’s weird that they would say that.”What’s your theory on that?Mabrey: “I think they just want to knock me off my game and distract me. I don’t know. I don’t talk.”But you’re an intense competitor.Mabrey: “For sure. I compete with the refs (laughs).”What do you think your intensity and sticking up for teammates does for the group?Mabrey: “It’s honestly how I was taught. At Notre Dame, you back your teammates up. You don’t get punked. You go and be tougher than everybody. So I try to come up with those big rebounds and big stops at the end. I try to get big baskets at the end and have big energy. I don’t ever want a team to come into a game against the Connecticut Sun and think you’re just going to walk all over us and disrespect us. You’re going to land your ass on the ground at least if you’re going to do it. That probably comes a lot from Jersey, too, when you play outside. When anybody pulls up to those courts, you got to be ready to hold your own.”You had quite a funny viral moment when you confronted Alyssa Thomas when you covered her mouth. Mabrey: “Right, just shut her mouth! Then I was like, ‘Ref! Right here, tech!’” How did you come up with that idea, on the spur of the moment? Mabrey: “I just try to figure out what makes people tick. What makes people tick is AT seeing the reaction of people when she talks to them. So if she can’t get across what she’s trying to say, it doesn’t get to fuel that engine. So I was just trying to keep the engine off. I was just keeping it off.”You said, "damned if I do, damned if I don't" in regards to the league giving you a flagrant foul 2 on your shove on Caitlin Clark. What's your perspective on what led to that moment with Caitlin and how it was handled afterwards? Mabrey: “I thought it only got upgraded to a flagrant 2 because the way the fans reacted to it. They gave me a tech for it. I don’t care, honestly. I really don’t. Obviously, I’m not trying to hurt anybody. I’m not trying to go after certain players for certain sh--. Me and Caitlin were cool. Me and Caitlin have competed against each other in the playoffs. She threw me into the benches in the quarterfinals. We didn’t go after her for it. She’s competitive, and I was about to get the ball. I get it. Throw me out of bounds. We got back up and kept competing.So at the end of the day, it was a play on the ball when she did it. And I probably overreacted a little bit. But my teammate is getting hit, and I’m not okay with that. It wasn’t like, ‘I hate her! Here I go!’ I don’t do stuff like that. Everybody knows that I’ve never done that before.”Despite the record being what it is, what do you hope the group can do from now until the end of the season?Mabrey: “I think understanding that when you rebuild a team, it’s not going to happen overnight. So it’s about not wasting time this month and saying, ‘We’re not a good team, we’re not this, we’re not that.’ Instead, we should be saying, ‘Let’s spend the rest of the season developing the people that are going to be here, the core players and have them start to bond and start to create chemistry.’ If we continue to figure out how to win, it’s only going to set us up for when we come back to training camp.We know how to win. We just have to establish that consistency, that mental toughness and a little bit more skill work in the offseason. Then we come back, I can see us being at least a .500 team. That’s year two. Now you go to year three, all of a sudden, maybe we’re ready for a championship. But just washing this season up and saying, ‘We’re not a good team; we need to figure this out.’ Of course we need to figure this out. We’re new. It’s rebuilding. Everyone has to figure it out. So we’ll spend this month trying to figure it out and continue to build with our core.”Mark Medina is an NBA insider for Sportskeeda. Follow him on X, Blue Sky, Instagram, Facebook and Threads.