After the Sunday scare induced by Italy came the calm of another week for USA, and it was a more routine victory to add to their 33-win streak at the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup against Czechia on Monday (7 September).
The streak – going back to 2006 – has had a common denominator for 23 of those games: Breanna Stewart.
A decade-long undefeated World Cup career remains for Stewart; with the 105-64 win in USA’s final Group D game in Berlin, she has gone level with former Latvian star Skaidrite Smildzina with an unbeaten streak of 23 games. Only one player in history has won more: the legendary Uljana Semjonova, on 27 wins.
“It’s just an honor for me to play USA basketball,” Stewart reacted to the media, including Olympics.com.
“There’s nothing I’d rather do. I want to come here for my fourth World Cup and take full advantage of it, but there’s a lot of people that have played before me and the game wouldn’t be what it is without them.”
Only the third USA player in history to make a fourth FIBA World Cup appearance, Stewart is on the hunt to tie with Sue Bird for the most World Cup gold medals with four, as well as to add to her two MVP awards.
In Berlin, she has been among the unchanged starting five that coach Kara Lawson has entrusted, favoring the experience at her disposal.
After a glistening start against the People’s Republic of China, followed by a tough evening against Italy, and a determined fight back to form against Czechia to close out the group, she’s hauled her nation over the line in various ways.
“I think (after the Italy game), we took accountability of what happened,” Stewart said.
“I wanted to make sure that everybody knew that today’s a new day. There’s an opportunity to really impact the game in a number of ways and this was our last learning opportunity and test before we go forward into the knockout rounds.”
