Edward, born on December 6, 1997, is only 18 minutes older than his sister. She averaged 14.6 points, 6.6 rebounds and 5.5 assists per game, ranking second on the team in scoring and rebounding, and first in assists. [36] Ten days later in the Ducks' 7466 win at #4 Stanford, she became the first NCAA player ever with 2,000 points, 1,000 assists, and 1,000 rebounds in a career. Edited by Sam Nicodemo and Warren Wolcott. Ionescu garnered added attention on Sunday after she clinched her 18 th career triple-double as the Ducks blew out Indiana 91-68 in the NCAA tournament, the culmination of the college basketball . . Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Sabrina: I don't really think I grasped what it would be like. I would just have to find ways to impact the game other than shooting or scoring, and that was passing. She recalled, "My middle school said I should be playing with dolls. Playing people for money, for Slurpees, whatever it was. [51] She was close with Kobe Bryant, with whom she had one-on-one training sessions, and spoke at the Kobe & Gianna Bryant Celebration of Life at the Staples Center on February 24, 2020. She is just driven differently. And we lost the chance to watch her tear through March like she has torn through the record books. In a November exhibition game, she has 30 points, 7 assists and 4 rebounds to lead the Ducks to a stunning 93-86 victory over the U.S. women's national team, which features her heroes and soon-to-be WNBA peers like Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi. Sopak: I'm on the phone with her and she has 19 minutes to notify the WNBA [laughs] if she's going to declare for the draft, and we're seeing things on Twitter that she's going, she's not going, and we're laughing about it because she doesn't know. They were all riled up, and we got a steal, passed it to Sabrina, and she went up for a layup and the guy intentionally fouled her, just pushed her, two hands, in the back. Sabrina is 18 minutes older than Eddy. Seven years later, Ionescu and her twin brother, Eddy, were born. She takes to heart what people say, their comments. She posted a triple-double in the championship game loss to Chaminade with 24 points, 10 assists and 10 rebounds. 1 in W.N.B.A. She needs to be playing on that kind of a stage. Their warm-ups were elite, and so I think that just goes to show what they built there and what we're trying to build here. [33][34] Payton personally congratulated Ionescu on the achievement. At the time, she was the highest-ranked recruit ever to commit to Oregon basketball. They would compete against older men at the basketball court to win extra . [43][44] In the end, though, she did not play again for the remainder of her first professional season. But you see your parents just going to work every day, working hard. So Sabrina always kept her shoes with her when we went to Eddy's games. Sabrina has 24 hours after the conclusion of her season to decide whether to declare for the WNBA draft. Inhale, exhale. I was happy that she pushed back. . Also, people are curious to know more about her partner, parents and family. His sister, Sabrina, is a Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) professional). [16] Ionescu became NCAA women's all-time leader in triple-doubles,[17] trailing only former BYU men's player Kyle Collinsworth (with 12) among all NCAA players.[18]. I thought it was, like, freshman duties or something. Eddy: I remember we went straight to the gym afterward, just started throwing free throws for hours. According to a 2020 story in the university's web journal Around the O, more than 70 suggestions were provided, but the four top choices were Mariota, Steve Prefontaine, Phil Knight, and Ionescu. 4 overall player in the recruiting class of 2016. I gained a lot of experience playing on my brothers' 10-foot hoop. People were crying and just so sad. She becomes friends with Kobe, who mentors her, and with his daughter Gianna and her Mamba teammates. Parents Ethnicity And Girlfriend, Was Karl Malone Arrested For Rape Allegations? Sabrina: What we've been building these last couple of years goes to show women's basketball is valued. When I found out Sabrina had a twin brother, Eddy, I immediately knew I wanted to interview them together because they . They own and run the "Greco's New York Pizzeria," a pizza restaurant located on Hollywood Boulevard. We talked a lot about basketball and just how to not really change the program, just how to put our footprints on the program and just make it a better place. So then I was like, "All right, we're going to Eugene.". What she had done, as a 12-year-old member of the Toastmasters International Club, was write a speech titled "How My Basketball Dreams Began. In a 2019 interview with Ava Wallace of The Washington Post, Ionescu admitted to being a "natural scorer", but said that most of the rest of her skill set came from playing alongside both boys and older girls in her childhood:[7].mw-parser-output .templatequote{overflow:hidden;margin:1em 0;padding:0 40px}.mw-parser-output .templatequote .templatequotecite{line-height:1.5em;text-align:left;padding-left:1.6em;margin-top:0}. [7], Ionescu was four-year varsity basketball letter winner at Miramonte High School in Orinda, California under head coach Kelly Sopak.[8]. Ionescu also helped lead the Ducks to the Final Four in 2018-19. Children Age And Net Worth, Joki Octaviano Accident And Cause Of Death How Did He Die? Her soon-to-be favorite player entered the league in 2009, when the Warriors used the No. Ionescu also recorded her eighth triple-double of the season, tying her own NCAA single-season record from last season. At the end of the regular season, she was named Pac-12 Freshmen of the Year and unanimous First Team All-Pac-12 and Pac-12 All-Freshman Team selection. I took Washington, Oregon State, Oregon, Cal. ", Sabrina: They had posted something about Ja Morant getting one and said that there was only eight or seven people that ever got one in the NCAA tournament, and they listed all the men that had gotten a triple-double. In an interview with ESPN, the presumptive No. I think she has a chance to really change the game and the way the game is viewed by everybody. As a senior, Ionescu averaged 17.5 points per game, 9.1 assists, and 8.6 rebounds. Ionescu attended a middle school that did not have enough players to field a girls' team, and her school refused to allow her to play on the boys' team. Also Read:Tyrese Haliburton Sister, Who Are His Siblings? Id play P-I-G, collect the money, Slurpees.. Like [laughs], why's she yelling at open gym? [31][32] In the rivalry game against Oregon State on January 24, 2020, Ionescu had 24 points, 9 assists and 4 rebounds and broke Oregon State and NBA star Gary Payton's Pac-12 all-time record of 938 assists. And All-Star guard Sabrina Ionescu is feeling as healthy and energized as she has since she joined the Liberty as the No. Dan: She will not back down from anything, and he will not back down from anything. Ruthy Hebard, Sabrina's Oregon teammate and best friend: Right off the bat, she was a leader. Sabrina: Obviously that was tough. She has recorded 10-assist games 13 times this season, handing out a league season-high 14 twice. We were always so competitive, and I think it's 'cause we were the same age. I'm torn.". They broke down the game, and then. They came here, and they've worked for everything they've gotten and had to work super hard. The Ducks administer a historic walloping, beating the Huskies 74-56 for their worst loss ever at Gampel. Sabrina: I love having a relationship with [Curry], just being able to remember when I was little, watching him and kind of emulating my game after him, to now being able to call him or text him any time that I need help with something. He just eats, sleeps, loves everything about basketball, which is literally the same thing with her. The junior is a brilliant mentor in the University of Oregon community, a strong Christian, a . She received the 2019 John R. Wooden Award and both the 2018 and 2019 Nancy Lieberman Award. Shop ionescu t-shirts created by independent artists from around the globe. She wants to win a national championship. Her two brothers were a big help in developing her basketball skills. I do thorough research before writing and am always up-to-date on new technologies. Every time I stood up, everyone in unison would be like, "basketball." In her senior year, she led Miramonte to the CIF open division title game after averaging 25.3 points, 8.8 assists, 7.6 rebounds, 4.5 steals and 1.3 blocks per game. Forward Ruthy Hebard bought into her best friend's mission of changing the culture at Oregon. While everyone knows that Ionescu is a baller and can compete with the best of the best on the basketball court, some might not know that she actually has a twin brother who also plays basketball. Her mother is Liliana Blaj and she has a twin brother Edward ("Eddy"). Then he said, "That's really impressive, that hasn't been done a lot," and walked out. 706K followers. But everything comes to a halt when the NCAA announces a complete shutdown of winter and spring championships. 1 seed and a deep run in the postseason, the NCAA halted its tournaments amid the coronavirus pandemic, effectively ending Sabrina's collegiate career. . She broke the NCAA triple-double record for womens and mens basketball. It might have been 1 or 2 in the morning when Sabrina and I were on the phone when she had decided where she was going to go and just said, "I'll just surprise them when I get there." She has played in three games with the Liberty so far. We lost nine games while she was in high school. The twin brother Edward (Eddy) was born 18 minutes after her. She hadn't yet rewritten the standard for her peers while inspiring the generation to come. Eddy: It was always kind of on the basketball court when we fought. Death Cause And Mental HealthContinue, Katrina Gorry Partner Clara Markstedt is a Swedish football player who competes for Vittsjo GIK. With Oregon poised for a No. Like Ionescu - who used to hustle grown men for Slurpee money alongside her twin brother - Taurasi is deeply, almost scarily competitive. In the historic game against Stanford, Ionescu made NCAA history. Hebard: I was like, she's always yelling! Copyright 2023 Endgame360 Inc. All Rights Reserved. Dan: In middle school, they had no girls team to speak of, but they had a boys team. Sabrina: That could have been my last game, you know, in an Oregon uniform, and so I didn't have any idea, I just knew that, you know, I had let my team down. Nick Bosa teaming up with brother Joey would 'break' NFL as pass-rush . Ionescu finally committed to Oregon just before the school's 2016 summer term began, driving with her father for 8 hours from their Bay Area home to Eugene, making an unannounced visit to Matthew Knight Arena and telling head coach Kelly Graves that she would join the team. And then Kelly didn't say anything, he just handed me the papers with the stats on it and continued to have his postgame speech. Because they knew exactly how it was gonna start. One of the most electric basketball players in the world (man or woman) is the WNBA star, Sabrina Ionescu. Oregon guard Sabrina Ionescu has made a name for herself as one of the best college basketball players. Liliana Blaj calls her daughter "the hardest self-critic. He, Read More Rob Herring Wife: Who Is Nicola Herring? I'm kind of a procrastinator, so I let it get to like an hour before I had to decide. Dan: She would start, a minute here, minute there when a kid was not there. [14] Following her second season, she was named the Pac-12 Conference Women's Basketball Player of the Year, and was also named a first team All-American by ESPN. Posts. Eddy Ionescu, aka Edward 'Vortex' Ionescu, followed the same path as her sister and is a professional basketball player like her sister. She embarked on a historic career with the Ducks and eventually became the No. She was diagnosed the next day with a[42] grade 3 sprain, and was expected to miss about one month while recovering. It's like, we're in for something special tonight. Sopak: The biggest challenge she has now is overcoming losing. Sabrina: His mom came onto the court, and then they both got ejected. Sabrina Ionescu had 31 points, seven rebounds and eight assists Sunday to lead Oregon to an 88-84 win over Mississippi State in the Portland Regional final at Moda Center. The WNBA draft order is released in September, and the New York Liberty draw the top pick. [7] However, she had difficulty making a college choice, not signing a National Letter of Intent with any school during either the early signing period in November 2015 or the late period in April 2016. Her twin, Edward also played basketball at the City College of San Francisco and was solely a student in the 2018-19 school year, before walking on to the Ducks men's basketball team in 2019-20. She is clearly in a happy relationship with Grasu and is excited to take the next step in their journey together. In the season before she arrived, the average announced home attendance for the Ducks was 1,501. Sabrina Ionescu is an American personality who is a professional basketball player and is committed to the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) playing for the New York Liberty. During her first year, she participated in 14 games out of 29 games, scoring 13.8 points, 2.9 steals, and 3.9 assists per game during that season. 1 pick in the 2020 WNBA Draft taking place this Friday, April 17. Sabrina Ionescu gets nervous. I felt more alone. She has 21 points, 12 rebounds and 12 assists in the third-ranked Ducks' 74-66 win over No. [3] By that time, Dan owned a limousine service in Northern California, where he had chosen to settle because he had several extended family members in that area. It was tough being there and it was tough having to play a top-five matchup right after that. He scored six points per game as a freshman and 9.9 as a sophomore. Christie Hemm Klok for ESPN. Later that month, Ionescu, Auriemma and Taurasi are among the eight people to speak at the Los Angeles memorial honoring Kobe and Gigi Bryant. Just being able to, you know, have that platform now at Oregon is something that kind of sparks me to try to just voice my opinion on social media. Seven years later, Ionescu and her twin brother, Eddy, were born. He noted that attendance at Oregon women's games had dramatically increased during Ionescu's career at the school. In his redshirt junior season at Oregon in 2019-20, Eddy first appeared on Dec. 7, 2019 against Hawaii and had one assist. He and Sabrina stay connected through the Bay Area community and its youth basketball scene. Her talent hasn't gone. A lot of the Pac-12 schools, just 'cause I knew I kind of wanted to stay closer to home. No posts yet. Sabrina: He believed in me, and he knew that this is kind of what happens your freshman year, you just figure out how you're supposed to play, what works, what doesn't work. Sabrina: The fact that I had to fight for every rebound, because he wasn't going to give me anything easy, is kind of what I translate to my game now. November 11, 2022 New York Liberty guard, Sabrina Ionescu rejoins her alma mater as the director of athletic culture. At first he was a little skeptical. Why is she not starting?" It was definitely tough. His parents, tefan and Mariana Grasu, migrated from Romania to the USA in 1982. She then averaged 19.7 points per game in her sophomore season to go with 7.8 assists and 6.7 rebounds, and then 19.9 points per game, 8.2 assists, and 7.4 rebounds in her junior year. Hebard: She loves Steph Curry. Sabrina: We would stay in the park for hours while our parents worked. Graves: She commands and demands and deserves the respect that she's been given. Edward has also developed . Find out about youtube star Sabrina Ionescu: Age, What she did before fame, her family life Latest information about her on social networks Fun facts: before fame, family life, popularity rankings, and more She then joined the City College of San Francisco but later transferred to the University of Oregon. And now I use my left hand more than my right. So I figured that if I could rebound, I would be able to get the ball myself. 3 Stanford", "Sabrina Ionescu's career night leads Oregon past Stanford", "Ionescu Breaks Assist Record in Civil War Win, Ducks 76 Beavers 64", "Oregon Ducks women: Ionescu and Hebard reach milestones in lopsided victory", "Gary Payton congratulates Sabrina Ionescu on breaking his Pac-12 all-time assists record", "Sabrina Ionescu Adds Career Milestone in Win vs. UCLA", "Oregon's Sabrina Ionescu Named Honda Sport Award Winner for Basketball", "WNBA mock draft 2019: Predicting all three rounds", "Liberty Select Sabrina Ionescu No. [13], Ionescu rose to national prominence in her sophomore year, she led the Ducks to their third regular-season league crown all-time and first-ever No. I think that, you know, college, even high school girls, athletes, need to step up and say, "Hey, we deserve this," "Hey, do you see what I'm doing?" But if I did, they were only tears of joy. So I just remember, I said, "I'm going to stay." But when she was a kid, she and her twin brother, Eddy Ionescu, would channel the future Oregon Duck's on-court flair for a far less righteous end goal. Related Accounts. [50], * 2020 NCAA tournament canceled due to COVID-19 pandemic, Ionescu is a Christian. The couple recently got engaged on January 20, 2023, and Ionescu even shared a photo from their engagement on her Instagram account. What's next for the prodigious point guard with a penchant for pushing life-altering decisions to the last possible moment? After two years at the City College of San Francisco, Eddy transfers to Oregon, and he and Sabrina become roommates. , Read More Demetress Bell Wife Is He Married? She was born with her twin brother named Edward also called Eddy, who was born only 18 minutes after the birth of Sabrina. From here on out, really, everything's gonna be for him and what he taught me. She was an Oregon Ducks basketball player in college. I don't think his mom really appreciated that. Verified. I appreciated it. Her parents fled Romania during the 1989 revolution and sought political asylum in the U.S., raising Ionescu, her twin brother and older brother in Walnut Creek, California. She set an NCAA triple-double record instead", "Sabrina Ionescu, 'The Franchise,' accepts ALL-USA Girls Basketball Player of the Year trophy", "Miramonte High School standout named Gatorade California Girls Basketball Player of the Year", "ESPN Recruiting Profile of Sabrina Ionescu", "Oregon Ducks' Sabrina Ionescu is ESPNW's player of the week", "Ducks' Sabrina Ionescu, Ruthy Hebard among position award winners", "Oregon's Sabrina Ionescu, Oregon State's Marie Gulich named ESPN All-Americans", "Oregon vs. Alaska Fairbanks Game Summary November 6, 2018 ESPN", "Buffalo vs. Oregon Game Summary November 18, 2018 ESPN", "espnW on Twitter: "Oregon's @sabrina_i20 messed around and got her 13th career triple-double. In 2012, Sabrina and Eddy enroll at Miramonte High School, where Sopak coaches. Sabrina's like that to this day. Ionescu also shares her knowledge with boys and girls at camps and academies, including Bryant's Mamba Sports Academy. On Larkey Park's concrete court near their Walnut Creek, California, home, Sabrina and Eddy Ionescu took on unsuspecting marks in games of two-on-two. Eddy: The little dirty plays that some basketball players do, tugging on your shorts, whispering in your ear some trash talk, tripping you while you walk by I would just get under Sabrina's skin, just because I didn't feel like she had enough experience with that yet. After all, Ive never met another Romanian basketball player on the floor., twin brother Eddy Ionescu gave us tv gold last night with a Romanian breakdown of the game of his sis @sabrina_i20 @OregonWBB #WNCAA pic.twitter.com/YFuCJ2BUDo, Many NBA Players Supported the WNBA in a Big Way. We just started in a park, you know? Ionescu also played for the University of Oregons womens basketball team. Sabrina is expected to be the No. He once played at the City College of San Francisco before moving to Oregon, where he joined the Ducks men's team in 2019-20. Small and stubborn, she willed her game to improve. "There won't be another group like this ever.". Sabrina: Everything that I'm going to do, I'm going to make sure that he stays close. Carlos Serrao for ESPN. Her two brothers are. [41], On August 1, 2020, Ionescu injured her left ankle in the second quarter against the Atlanta Dream. Eddy: Whether she would bust my lip, or I hit her in the nose on accident, or whatever it was, we would absolutely play through the blood. On the morning of Jan. 26, 2020, the sports world stands still when news breaks that Kobe and Gigi Bryant are among the nine passengers killed in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California. 1 in the WNBA Draft a year later.. That was in May 2020, a time in which she sat atop the basketball world as the NCAA's . There, she achieved an impressive milestone, becoming the first college basketball player to collect 1,000 assists, 2,000 points, and 1,000 rebounds in a career. It motivates her to go back and practice more from learning from her mistakes. 336 following. [42], The next season, on May 18, 2021, Ionescu recorded her first professional triple-double. We didn't really talk about the game for a little while. Sabrina Ionescu is one of the most highly touted college players to ever get drafted into the WNBA. Id sit there and try and act like I had no idea how to play, and so they had betted money, and then it was game on, Sabrina told ESPNW. It's the Ducks' first trip to Storrs, where 11 national championship banners hang in the legendary arena. Sabrina's ancestry is Romanian-Caucasian and has a twin brother, Edward. Bryant narrates a Detail episode praising her physicality, court awareness and midrange game. If we didnt want somebody else knowing what I wanted to do like a pick-and-pop, or watch me in the corner, or drive to the left wed say it to each other in Romanian, Eddy said, according to The Oregonian. It's crazy to see everything come full circle and see how young I was and the dreams that I had and Eddy just finished his redshirt junior season at Oregon. One of those struggles comes in the playoffs later that season, in a semifinal game against Saint Mary's. Additionally, she was awarded the USBWA National Freshman of the Year presented by the United States Basketball Writers Association. National Signing Day passes, and as the only undeclared player in the McDonald's All American game;, she is named MVP after making seven 3-pointers en route to 25 points and 10 rebounds. Sabrina Ionescu. Her twin, Edward also played basketball at the City College of San Francisco and was solely a student in the 2018-19 school year, before walking on to the Ducks men's basketball team in 2019-20. She is the daughter of Romanian-American parents. We print the highest quality ionescu t-shirts on the internet He played basketball at City College of San Francisco. She finished at Miramonte High School in Orinda, California. I figured out ways to write poems about basketball the entire year. There is no related content available. Sabrina: I could tell Eddy was really nervous. He was always super supportive and was like, "Don't worry, keep getting in the gym, keep getting extra shots.". Sabrina: I just don't really like to be out there like that. Wife And Net Worth Revealed. Eddy: We didn't have these crazy expensive trainers, or these really nice exquisite gyms to go to, with the shooting machines and all this. You just walk away, you mind your own business. Eddy: Kobe's just wired different is what she told me. Liliana: I still feel like I'm just living in dreams, especially at the bigger games, and when I know that next year she's going to join a professional team, it's something that I never thought was going to happen. [Her parents] never questioned anything. In late April 2018, Ionescu and Oregon teammates Erin Boley, Otiona Gildon, and Ruthy Hebard entered the USA Basketball women's national 3x3 championship tournament at the United States Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. I mean, we still called each other every night and he knew all about what I was going through. Dan, Sabrina's father: [The twins] always felt comfort with each other. Sabrina Ionescu is the first NCAA player EVER with 2,000 points, 1,000 assists and 1,000 rebounds! Playing basketball with her older brother, Andrei, and her twin brother, Eddy, had taught her the joy of clawing for every rebound, every point. NBA stars like Steph Curry and Kobe Bryant take notice of Sabrina's game. Sagittarius . Your email address will not be published. That was the only thing he said, and I was like, "All right." But we were all like, "OK, we got here, we know what we can do.". She debuted for Oregon in November 2016, scoring 11 points in a win over Lamar. We would get hungry, we'd want some money. I applaud her. Sabrina Ionescu's resume is long and exceptional: Two-time Pac-12 Conference player of the year; back-to-back First-Team All-American; National Player of the Year candidate; NCAA career triple-double record holder (18); probable No. Sabrina Ionescu Net Worth. His son and wife were unable to relocate to the United States until 1995. Sopak: The car was packed and they didn't know which direction they were going. Sabrina Ionescu is a professional basketball player holding American nationality who plays professionally with the (WNBA) which stands for Women's National Basketball Association located in New York Liberty. She is the NCAA all-time leader in career triple-doubles, the Pac-12 Conference all-time leader in assists, and the only NCAA Division I basketball player to record 2,000 . [52] Ionescu is also very close friends with former teammate Ruthy Hebard. On November 6, 2018, Ionescu recorded her 11th triple-double in a victory against Alaska-Fairbanks. [49] At the World Cup, they were the youngest team in the field, but swept their pool, defeating Cup holders Russia along the way. And I was like, "I'm by the hotel here." Graves: We had a chance. Ionescus stellar play in college led to her becoming the No. She was really small, but you could just tell she had a good skill set with her left hand. Her first language was Romanian, which she used when playing with her brother in basketball games. Kelly Sopak, Sabrina's AAU and high school coach: She eventually just showed up at tryouts. Sabrina is a basketball player now engaged with the former American football player Hroniss Grasu. I was crying, my family was upset. The Ionescus have certainly made a name for themselves in the basketball world. 6 Oregon women's basketball past No. These are things that kids can acquire; they don't have to be born with those things. [1], Because Ionescu turned 22 in December 2019 she was eligible to declare for the 2019 WNBA draft. 7 overall pick to draft sharp-shooter Stephen Curry from Davidson College. [Laughs], Seattle or Eugene? Like. !#GoDucks . She was born to proud and supportive parents, Dan Ionescu and Liliana Blaj. After the NCAA made the extraordinary decision last week to cancel its tournaments in an effort to slow the coronavirus pandemic, Ionescu lost the opportunity to win the championship that has eluded her and her Oregon Ducks, the one for which she delayed entry to the WNBA to try to claim. The Ducks make the NCAA tournament for the first time in 12 years, as a 10-seed. We were the best shooting team in the country. She had 16 double-doubles this season and 14 20-point games. . Major is general social science. Kobe was helping her with that because he saw it in her. Blog . [39] However, Ionescu announced in an open letter published in The Players' Tribune on April 6, 2019, the day after Oregon's loss to Baylor in the Final Four and four days before the draft, that she would return to Oregon for her senior season. In addition to the career record, Ionescu also held the Miramonte top three single season scoring records with 598 (201314), 760 (201415) and 834 (201516). [3] Sabrina was around three years old when she first picked up a basketball. New York Liberty's Sabrina Ionescu Sets Multiple WNBA Records in Historic Game Among the first was her friend Vanessa. Dan: Here's one thing that I've learned through the years with Sabrina. Not only were they difficult to guard while growing up, but they also, at times, communicated in fluent Romanian, according to The Oregonian. Sabrina was only three years old when she chose basketball for her free time. The Ducks lead by a point after the first half, but strong post play propels the Bears, who hold Ionescu scoreless in the fourth quarter to win 72-67.
