Liberty Coach Sandy Brondello Earns Historic Victory
New York Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello kept it 100 in the finest way possible on Friday night.
With the Liberty's 88-77 victory over the Dallas Wings at College Park Arena, Brondello earned the 100th of her metropolitan career. That ties Richie Adubato for the most in franchise history, the first sign of movement at the top since Adubato succeeded original seafoam boss Nancy Darsch in 2000.
Tying Adubato is the latest metropolitan accomplishment for Brondello, who is in the midst of her fourth season at the seafoam helm.
The Liberty has gone to the WNBA Finals in each of her last two seasons of supervising, with that tally including a five-game victory over the Minnesota Lynx in last fall's edition.
That epic win allowed Brondello, who also won the 2014 WNBA title with the Phoenix Mercury, to finish what Adubato started, as the Liberty finally earned a postseason championship after over two decades of trying. Adubato had guided the Liberty to their prior Finals showings in 1999, 2000, and 2002.
Brondello, who also leads the Australian women's national basketball team, has been reluctant to accept credit for what has transpired in New York but her players have expressed pride in being the ones to push her into this historic position.
"Obviously it means that, she's at a level of sustained excellence since she's been here, and that we've had a really good squad as well," forward Jonquel Jones said earlier this month. "She's just a really good coach. I think she does a really good job of mixing and being a really personable coach, but also knowing when to change gears and be really serious. She has the respect to be able to do both with us. It's a thing that takes a little bit of nuance and for her to be able to do that just shows the type of person that she is, the respect that that she has from all of us."
"I think she just knew me as a person and a player and just has put me in positions to really succeed," fellow forward Isabelle Harrison, who was drafted by Brondello in Phoenix before rejoining her as a free agent this season, told Liberty on SI this week. "I don't care how good the group is, she has done a great job of just giving everybody their role in that starting five, and just pushing them to really good heights. It's just standards, standards of a culture, standards of leadership. I'm sure she saw that being in Phoenix with all those all stars and Olympians. So for her to translate that coming into New York, she just built something really, really special here."
Brondello's first chance to take the mark for herself lands on Sunday afternoon when the Liberty host the Lynx in the second of four WNBA Finals rematches (12:30 p.m. ET, ABC).
Geoff Magliocchetti is a veteran sportswriter who contributes to a variety of sites on the "On SI" network. In addition to the Yankees/Mets, Geoff also covers the New York Knicks, New York Liberty, and New York Giants and has previously written about the New York Jets, Buffalo Bills, Staten Island Yankees, and NASCAR.