Sabrina Ionescu has made her goals clear, and you can help her achieve them. When the best college basketball player of her generation announced that she would return for her final season at Oregon, she referred to those goals collectively as “unfinished business.”
Everyone knew that included a national championship trophy from New Orleans this spring. But as the season has unfolded, it’s become clear that her goals were loftier than winning the final game of the NCAA tournament.
Head Coach Kelly Graves recruited her to not just lead the team and win games. He needed her help to build the program here at the University of Oregon into a perennial winner. Stanford had been the gold standard on the West Coast since Sabrina was a toddler. UConn had gone half a decade without a defeat. Graves and Ionescu wanted Oregon to join that pantheon of powerhouses.
Ionescu has never lost a game at Stanford during her career. Last year, the Ducks handed legendary Stanford coach Tara Vanderveer her worst loss ever in Palo Alto. This year, the Ducks handed UConn coach Geno Auriemma his worst loss at home, as well. Unfinished business, indeed.
Graves told Sabrina and anyone else that he expected her to be the face of college basketball for her senior year. There is no bigger star in the college game right now, for men or women.
WNBA scouts have been watching her every move. That was expected. Seeing the NBA’s biggest stars watching from courtside seats or tweeting about her accomplishments wasn’t. Kobe Bryant’s tragic death only served to underscore how much she has captured the imagination of those who know her sport best.
When Ionescu spoke at Bryant’s memorial service on Monday morning, she shared a bit more of what she hoped to accomplish for her team, her school, her game, and her gender: “I wanted to be a part of the generation that changed basketball,” Ionescu said. “Where being born female didn’t mean being born behind. Where greatness wasn’t divided by gender.”
After speaking to a national audience and sharing the stage with some of the NBA’s all-time greats, she hopped a flight north to join her team. She scored her 26th triple-double, beat the No. 4 team in the country on national TV, and secured the Ducks’ third straight Pac-12 title. She also became the only college player ever with over a thousand career points, rebounds and assists. How was your Monday?
Who can say what lies ahead for Ionescu and the greatness she continues to redefine?
That’s all for tomorrow. What about today — tonight? There’s a line on the stat sheet that includes you and me. The Ducks’ average attendance is 10,619 this season, up from 7,148 last year and 4,255 the year before. The South Carolina Gamecocks lead the nation in attendance. Last year, they averaged 10,406 per game.
Let’s fill Matthew Knight Arena tonight and Sunday afternoon to its capacity of 12,364. If you can’t score a ticket, plan now to buy tickets to watch next year’s No. 1 recruiting class. Then more of Ionescu’s “unfinished business” will be accomplished.
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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Friday for The Register-Guard and blogs at www.dksez.com. Kahle and his son have had season tickets since 2017, behind the basket nearest the Ducks’ bench.
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