Learning is a huge part of any sport. And the New York Liberty has shown that they have indeed learned from their past mistakes. When the Liberty clashed with the Las Vegas Aces in the 2023 WNBA Championship Finale series in Game 4, Breanna Stewart, with 8.8 seconds left in the fourth quarter, decided to make a pass instead of taking the shot that could have turned the tables. Thus, this time around, when the Lynx were tied with the Liberty at 77 points in Game 3, Sandy Brondello decided to give the ball to their guard Sabrina Ionescu. And that made all the difference. But according to an ESPN analyst, there’s more to the story of the phenomenal No. 20 guard.

On Friday’s episode of the podcast Good Game with Sarah Spain, Cindy Brunson shared her take on Ionescu’s last-minute brilliance. “If the pandemic hadn’t taken over lives and canceled the 2020 NCAA tournament, Oregon would have cut down the nets. They had three first-round draft picks on that roster led by Sabrina. That team was built to win a championship and this is the chip that Sabrina has been chasing ever since COVID denied her in 2020,” Brunson stated.

The Oregon Ducks had three first-round draftees in the 2020 WNBA draft. While Ionescu was drafted as the first overall pick, Sabally went in as the second pick. Meanwhile, Hebard was the eighth overall pick. Thus, the Ducks had a formidable team.

During the regular season, the Ducks lost only 2 games, finishing with 28-2 in the 2019-20 season. As for their Pac-12 tournament, the Ionescu-led team won all three games to get the conference title. But as destiny would have it, the No. 2 ranked team in the AP rankings, couldn’t play in March Madness since COVID-19 forced the tournament to be canceled.

Hence, Brunson recollects that Ionescu’s desire to win the Championship stems from her failure to secure the National title that year. And a lot of analysts voice in the Ducks’ favor as they too believe that that year, the Pac-12 team could have clinched the hardware. However, the tournament’s cancelation had an impact on Ionescu.

Sabrina Ionescu has come close to fulfilling her dream twice

The California-born, after not being able to go past the Final Four in 2019, had all her hopes pinned onto the next season. Though a lot of media channels had projected Ionescu as the first overall pick already, she decided to stay one more year in college, exclaiming that “I won’t predict exactly how far we’re going to go … but I’ll just say this… We have unfinished business.”

Unfortunately, things didn’t end up in their favor. The NCAA season could not be played due to COVID-19. Since then, the 26-year-old has been hunting for a title win and came really close last year when the Liberty advanced to the Championship Finale series. Unfortunately, the guard again had to leave with a defeat as the Aces won the series by a 3-1 margin. However, a determined Ionescu decided to take lessons from her loss.

The Aces “made us a better team,” Ionescu stated previously. And this season, they have won all their regular season series easily except against the Minnesota Lynx. But the way the Liberty are progressing makes it highly probable for them to win the clash in a few hours from now, and secure their maiden title.