This week on The IX Sports Podcast Basketball Edition, hosts Jackie Powell and Howard Megdal are back with breaking news: the WNBA has opened an investigation into the reset timeout controversy involving the New York Liberty’s Breanna Stewart.
The incident took place at the end of the second game of the Liberty’s WNBA semifinal series against the Atlanta Dream Wednesday.
With 4.3 seconds to go in overtime of the second game, Angel Reese was at the foul line for the Dream.
“Even if she makes both free throws, the idea is the New York Liberty have a reset timeout and 4.3 seconds to go to half court to inbound the ball and take a shot,” Megdal said.
Stewart said that she asked the official whether the team had a reset timeout. She said the official, Kevin Fahy, said that the Liberty did not have a reset timeout.
But more than an hour after the game, a pool report from Alexa Philippou of ESPN said that officials said Stewart was not told that there was no reset timeout — that the Liberty did, in fact, have that reset timeout.
“Lindsay Colas, Breanna Stewart’s agent, and I spoke, and she said that obviously Stewart is focused on Game 3. Let’s just take a little step back here and say, of course, Breanna Stewart can — should be, focused on Game 3,” Megdal said. “The idea that she should spend time at the moment her team is facing elimination in the WNBA semifinals to have to defend her own reputation is egregious.”
Megdal said that based on his reporting, Fahy, the official involved in the dispute, issued a pool report earlier this year that “contained elements that were not accurate or truthful, and when asked further about it, Fahy doubled down on what was ultimately not accurate.”
Further, Megdal said he spoke to multiple current and former WNBA coaches across the league who all said the same thing when asked about the incident: “Stewie doesn’t lie.”
There are also questions about how Chris DeMarco and his coaching staff handled the incident. Powell said that when DeMarco, Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu appeared before the press after the game, there was not a clear plan of who would address the incident.
“In that press conference, there is not a moment where Chris DeMarco takes any accountability for it personally. He uses the collective we. But essentially, by saying — or by his lack of wanting to explain the situation, and letting Breanna Stewart do it herself, she put her own name on the line, and as a result, she was the one who then Kevin Fahy was challenging rather than the head coach,” Powell said.
Tune in to this week’s episode to hear more essential reporting on this issue as the Dream and the Liberty get ready to face off tonight at the Barclays Center.
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