Sabrina Ionescu hopes to maintain inspiring, elevate girls’s basketball
WNBA star Sabrina Ionescu takes a selfie after conducting a basketball clinic at courtyard in Taguig as a part of her Manila Tour.–CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines—Decided to assist girls’s basketball attain higher heights globally, Sabrina Ionescu preached endurance and exhausting work to creating international locations just like the Philippines.
The WNBA champion shared her insights on find out how to develop girls’s basketball within the nation throughout a panel discuss to kick off her three-day go to in Manila on Monday at Nike Fort.
“It’s about not being happy and persevering with to [improve] daily—only one p.c each single day. It’s not going to occur in a single day; it gained’t be an immediate shift. Nevertheless it’s about persevering with to imagine within the product and in what these younger girls are doing on this space,” stated Ionescu.
READ: Sabrina Ionescu makes impression–not simply 3s–in Manila return
WNBA star Sabrina Ionescu talks concerning the development of ladies’s basketball. @INQUIRERSports pic.twitter.com/1ewERgcoy9
— Lance Agcaoili (@LanceAgcaoilINQ) March 10, 2025
The New York Liberty guard, one of many a number of WNBA gamers behind the league’s record-breaking crowd attendance and rankings within the earlier season, believes that girls’s basketball’s rise is all about trusting the method and benefiting from the chance.
“On the similar time, we, again within the States, firmly imagine that each location deserves the chance to develop, obtain funding, and assist younger women in attaining no matter they aspire to—whether or not it’s taking part in within the WNBA, competing abroad, or just turning into the perfect athletes they are often,” she stated.
“I feel it’s about understanding that progress will come. And when it does, everybody must be prepared for that second as a result of it’s going to be a giant one—one that would change the world.”
Girls’s basketball is on the rise within the nation. Gilas Pilipinas has been competing in Fiba Asia Cup Girls’s Division A since 2017 and promoted to the highest tier in all divisions since June 2024.
This system additionally gained its first two Southeast Asian Video games gold medals in 2019 and 2021 and just lately returned to the Asian Video games two years in the past.
READ: Sabrina Ionescu set for Manila go to
Sabrina Ionescu’s recommendation for PH girls’s basketball @INQUIRERSports pic.twitter.com/Zq1pKIPRRw
— Lance Agcaoili (@LanceAgcaoilINQ) March 10, 2025
The budding rivalry between NU and UST in UAAP girls’s basketball has additionally contributed to girls’s basketball’s reputation within the nation. NU and UST’s championship conflict final December even set a document in crowd attendance.
The Girls’s Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League (WMPBL) was additionally based final 12 months to supply one other path for feminine ballers within the nation.
Ionescu, a member of USA’s gold-medal successful staff within the Paris Olympics, is totally conscious that she has an enormous function in rising the game. That’s why she’s all the time ensuring to be at her finest to encourage others.
“It’s about being the perfect basketball participant, perfecting your craft, and by no means taking something with no consideration as a result of the ball goes to cease bouncing at some point. My ardour—what I get pleasure from doing—can also be about understanding that there’s a lot extra to you than simply being a basketball participant,” Ionescu stated.
“It’s about studying as you develop in your profession. You would possibly wish to go down one path, however as you grow old, you would possibly uncover a brand new ardour in one thing else. I feel it’s about being open-minded to no matter you get pleasure from at the moment whereas staying true to your self and your values, by no means diverting from that path.”
READ: Sabrina Ionescu 3-pointer is newest iconic shot in WNBA Finals historical past
Sabrina Ionescu on embracing her affect in girls’s basketball. @INQUIRERSports pic.twitter.com/PKzrZ8HK8d
— Lance Agcaoili (@LanceAgcaoilINQ) March 10, 2025
The 27-year-old Ionescu added it’s additionally necessary to encompass herself with a powerful assist group as she credited her coach for turning her right into a participant who’s all the time hungry for extra.
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“Coaches are big for that. I’ve had the identical coach once I was younger all over highschool and he was the one who actually instilled sort of that underdog mentality. I’ve all the time needed to be higher and by no means settle,” stated Ionescu. “From a extremely younger age, I really feel like I had that particularly being a lady in sport, you need to show your price and go show what you’re capable of do on the court docket. I proceed to do this now by way of my skilled profession as properly.”
That’s why Ionescu additionally established the SI20 Basis in 2023, giving children within the US entry to sports activities.
“It’s quite a bit greater than your self in taking part in the game and it’s about giving again to the following technology and having the ability to see smiles on children’ faces and so many communities that meant quite a bit to me by way of basketball and many alternative avenues,” stated the 5-foot-11 guard.
“You may change and have an effect on somebody’s lives whether or not they wanna develop into a basketball participant, they wanna develop into one thing else, I feel having the ability to instill the facility and confidence in themselves that they’ll exit and attain no matter they wanna do so long as they imagine in themselves and put a whole lot of exhausting work.”
