This past WNBA season may have been one of Breanna Stewart’s rockiest campaigns yet between her injuries, a shooting slump and the Liberty’s overall struggles.
But UConn coach Geno Auriemma is not worried about his former star Husky one bit.
“Whenever Stewie’s playing in a big game, I expect her to play great and that hasn’t changed one iota,” Auriemma said Tuesday at Big East media day. “And I hope they get a really good coach and I hope they put a really good team around her because I think she’s one of the great things in this city, for sure.”
This past season presented challenges for everyone within the Liberty organization.
Despite the team returning its core, the absences of Betnijah Laney-Hamilton (offseason knee surgery) and Kayla Thornton (expansion draft) loomed large.
The Liberty got off to a franchise record 9-0 start to their title defense, but injuries clouded their momentum and they ultimately got bounced in the first round of the playoffs.
Stewart, from an individual standpoint, had a down season by her standards, too.
She led the team in scoring with 18.3 points per game, but that was her lowest scoring mark since her 2016 rookie campaign.
She also shot a career-low 24.1 percent from deep — a five percent drop from 2024 — and attempted the fewest 3-pointers per game to date.
“She got to make a shot once in a while. That sucker missed more jump shots this year than I saw her miss in the last seven years,” Auriemma said. “And sometimes that happens. Sometimes you get a baseball player that’s hit .300 every year in their career and then they got two months and they hit .210 and you go, ‘What the hell happened?’ It happens. So it’s just part of the game, man.”
Despite the slump, Stewart was the Liberty’s steadiest, most impactful player. She was second in rebounds (6.5 per game) and third in assists (3.5.)
Stewart delivered for the Liberty time and time again, including in the playoffs.
In a winner-take-all Game 3 against Phoenix, Stewart poured in a team-high 30 points, grabbed nine rebounds and recorded two steals and two blocks all while playing with a bum knee. Unfortunately, though, it wasn’t enough as the Liberty were dismissed earlier than expected.
Auriemma knows better than anyone how difficult it is to win back-to-back titles. He said some of the Liberty’s shortcomings were out of their control.
“That’s the thing about people putting this huge emphasis on repeat, you have the same core, so repeating should be easy. It’s not,” Auriemma said. “It’s not because of how many things have to break right. So maybe if that roster had stayed injury-free the whole time, maybe it would have happened. But if Minnesota had stayed injury-free, maybe nobody would have beat them. So I think I got by every year you need to put yourself in the mix to where you have a chance and as long as you’re in the final four in the WNBA, you’ve put yourself where you have a chance. And that’s all anybody can expect really.”
Auriemma lauded Stewart’s heroics in the playoffs, despite having hurt her right knee in Game 1.
“Last year, I was shocked at how poorly Stewie played in the [2024 WNBA Finals] … because that’s the first time in her career I’ve ever seen her have a bad game in a game of that magnitude,” Auriemma said. “So this year, even though she was hurt and came back after that in the [first round]. … They weren’t sure she was going to play … and then she had like 30 or whatever. That’s really who she is. But to expect that every year, it’s still about the quality of talent, the amount of talent you have on the floor.”
