Liberty open WNBA season with high hopes and some missing players

The new coach with the four NBA championship rings stood in front of the bench, providing direction in his WNBA debut. The familiar face from the WNBA’s 2024 championship team was moving well after a year off. But the new fourth star in the constellation wasn’t able to play.

The same went for one of the other stars. It didn’t matter. The 30th season of Liberty basketball tipped off Friday night against Connecticut, and they posted a resounding 106-75 victory in front of the 17,615 fans filling the Barclays Center stands.

“This is us turning the page and turning the chapter a little bit and focusing on what we have now and making sure we start strong on the season,” Breanna Stewart said after delivering 31 points, including career No. 6,000, and 10 boards.

There are indeed few new elements in play for the Liberty. They hope that the end of this journey will be more like the one two seasons ago when the confetti fell as opposed to the ending last season when the team fell out of the playoffs in the opening round.

“We know that we got bounced out early last year and don’t want that to happen again,” Stewart said.

As part of an annual survey, the WNBA GMs picked the Liberty as the second-most likely team to claim the title behind defending champ Las Vegas.

The Liberty re-signed the Big Three of Stewart, Jonquel Jones and Sabrina Ionescu and added Satou Sabally as that fourth star. Ionescu is supposed to miss at least the first four games with a left foot injury. And Sabally missed the opener because of a cyst.

Sandy Brondello wasn’t in the mix, either. The coach was let go following last season and moved on to the expansion Toronto Tempo. It was a very good four-year run overall for her — 107-53 record, four playoff appearances, two trips to the title round and one parade. She’s the winningest coach in franchise history.

Enter Chris DeMarco.

His past 14 seasons were spent with Golden State, 11 as an assistant coach under Steve Kerr. The championships came in 2025, 2017, 2018 and 2022.

The new coach had to love a lot of what he saw in game one with the Liberty, including 26 assists on 35 makes. They led 36-13 after one quarter and created a night to remember for him.

“Just the pride I had of seeing the crowd going nuts; that first quarter when we were finding great shots; we were competing; we were defending — this is exactly why I love this game,” DeMarco said.

This game marked Betnijah Laney-Hamilton’s first that counted since Game 5 of the 2024 Finals. The 32-year-old guard/forward, who was the league leader in average plus-minus that season, sat out last season due to knee surgery. She showed off a killer crossover to get free for one jumper and finished with 12 points.

“It’s never easy to go through rehab and stuff, but I’ve had a lot of time off,” Laney-Hamilton said. “And so I’ve had the opportunity to really work on things, work on my body.”

Sabally will be a huge help when she returns.

“Adding Satou to a pretty loaded roster already is really exciting,” Stewart said.

Besides Sabally and Ionescu, the Liberty were missing Leonie Fiebich, a starter last season, and new reserve forward/center Raquel Carrera. They’re still with their Spanish team. Rebecca Allen, back for a third stint here, was also out with a leg injury.

So the Liberty started a backcourt of French imports, Marine Johannes and promising rookie point guard Pauline Astier. Johannes nailed five threes and scored 17. Astier had five points and four assists.

“I feel comfortable because of the team, because of the coaches,” Astier said.

Guard Julie Vanloo and forward Aubrey Griffin, who played for Ossining High in Westchester and then for UConn, were signed to hardship contracts earlier in the day so the Liberty could have nine players available. Vanloo contributed 12 points, 11 assists and seven rebounds. Griffin played the final 5:10 and drove for her first two WNBA points.

“I’ve been working for this my whole career,” Griffin said, “so I definitely will take advantage of the opportunity.”

All in all, it was a nice opening night for the home team.