Winning championships has been a habit for Breanna Stewart. After winning four straight NCAA titles, she seized two rings in the WNBA. But there is an achievement that she cherishes more than her championships.
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Before the NBA Finals, the New Liberty Forward and her teammate Sabrina Ionescu sat down with 2x Super Bowl champion Eli Manning. Manning asked Stewart what she would rank higher, a WNBA championship or an Olympic gold medal.
Stewie who has won three gold medals with USA women’s basketball team instantly replied that a gold medal takes the cake for her. She loves beating the top-most talent across the world on the global stage.
Additionally, winning the medal alongside the top talents of USA basketball, especially her Liberty teammate Ionescu, made it even sweeter. Stewart told the Giants legend,
“For me, gold medal is the cream of the crop. That’s the highest of the high, especially because you’re playing against the other best countries in the world, with the best players in the world, and with USA basketball. The standard is gold and to be able to share it with Sab, this summer was a lot and a little bit stressful, but we came home with another gold.”
Ionescu concurred with her teammate and revealed that she carries her gold medal wherever she goes. She said,
“It’s traveled everywhere with me… Families have all seen it, It comes through TSA security, gets stopped, I have traveled with it everywhere.”
While the Liberty one-two punch played a huge role in Team USA’s gold medal journey, they currently have a huge task at hand. They are expected to break Liberty’s three decades old championships drought.
Will the Liberty’s championship quest be delayed further?
Since the WNBA’s inception in 1997, the Liberty has made it to 5 finals. However, they are yet to convert their appearance into a championship. Last season, Stewart and Co suffered a 1-3 at the hands of A’ja Wilson and her Las Vegas Aces.
Meanwhile, during the 2024 WNBA Finals Game 1, they let a golden chance slip away. They had built a 15-point lead early in the game, but the Lynx kept chipping away.
The Liberty had maintained a 7-point lead before the deciding quarter but then the Lynx unlocked their best two-way game and took a one-point lead with less than five seconds in Regulation.
Stewie did a terrific job of drawing a foul and could have iced the game with two free throws. She is a career 83.6% Free Throw shooter and made the first one but missed the second FT, sending the game to Overtime.
The Overtime was hotly contested but with less than 9 seconds left, Napheesa Collier made a game-winning turnaround fadeaway jumper from mid-range. Meanwhile, Stewart missed the game-tying lineup, which has once again complicated Liberty’s chances to win a WNBA title.
