‘Something about her’: Stewart has U.S. rolling
SAITAMA, Japan — The robot designers went at it all wrong.
At Toyota, a team of technicians spent four years developing the breakout basketball sensation of the Tokyo Games. Dubbed CUE5, it’s a 7foot, animatronic metallicblack android that uses seven sensors and the computing power of a small nation to process air conditions and launch angles to swish shots from the freethrow line, from the 3point arc, and even from halfcourt.
In terms of attracting socialmedia attention, CUE5 is a resounding success. But if the goal is to achieve true basketball intelligence, the halftimeshow robot never will catch up with Breanna Stewart, the freakishly advanced American human who displays the capacity for hoops perfection without the need for complex calculations.
“To be honest,” Stewart said Wednesday about how her mind works during one of her masterpieces, “I don’t think I’m thinking at all.”
This is what Team USA women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley meant when she said her 6foot4 ponytailed cyborg was “unconscious” in leading the Americans to a 7955 rout of Australia in the Olympics quarterfinals. Her dominance, unlike CUE5’s, is built in.
In the first half Wednesday Stewart scored 20 points while the entire Australian team had 27. She scored on floaters, on pullup jumpers and on fastbreak layups with her body on one side of the backboard and her long arms stretching far enough to spin the ball through the hoop on the other.
Before halftime she missed only one shot, a 3point attempt that rimmed out, with the only flaw in her approach being that she made the game so onesided that Staley pulled her out of it early in the third quarter. Stewart finished with 23 points, but could have had twice that number if she
“Just cherish it. You want to take a snapshot and keep it in your mind, because it’s very, very special.”
Dan Hughes, Team USA assistant coach, on forward Breanna Stewart
wanted.
The Aussies, who’d somehow beaten the Americans in an exhibition in Las Vegas last month, were helpless this time, and they knew it.
As Sandy Brondello, the Australia coach, summarized the story: “The U.S. can say, ‘We have Breanna Stewart and you don’t.’ ”
That might wind up being the tale of the tournament. Even on what looks to be the best team in the world, surrounded by some of the most brilliant players the sport ever has seen, at a time when the competition is stiffer than ever, Stewart has no peer.
Yes, the legacies of Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird are secure. Yes, A’ja Wilson was named the WNBA’s most valuable player last year. But at the end of that season Stewart — coming back from a ruptured Achilles — carried her Seattle Storm to a sweep in the WNBA Finals. Since then, she’s been the MVP of both the EuroLeague Final Four and the Russian Premier League, and she hasn’t slowed down in Japan, where the Americans will play Serbia in the semifinals Friday.
“Just cherish it,” said Dan Hughes, the Team USA assistant who coached Stewart to two titles in Seattle. “You want to take a snapshot and keep it in your mind, because it’s very, very special.”
Sure, the hyperbole can seem a little over the top, and Taurasi jokingly tried to temper some of it Wednesday. “Ehh, she’s OK,” Taurasi said of Stewart, breaking into a smile. Then, in the next breath, Taurasi was pouring it on, like everybody else.
“Stewey’s a special player, and she’s a special person, which in turn gives her the ability to be one of the best players who ever played,” said Taurasi, who qualifies as one of the most preeminent members of that club. “There’s just something about her, the way she carries herself.”
For Toyota’s technicians to match that? They’re going to need a lot more than extra sensors.