Sabrina Ionescu says Oregon’s win over Ohio State motivated WNBA Finals Game 2 performance

Sabrina Ionescu used the Oregon football’s win over Ohio State for motivation in her finals series against the Minnesota Lynx.

An athlete like Sabrina Ionescu doesn’t need a lot of motivation to excel at her sport, especially since her New York Liberty are in the WNBA finals.

But watching her favorite college football team, the Oregon Ducks, win a big game like they did on Saturday, didn’t hurt either.

After the Liberty tied the series 1-1 with the Minnesota Lynx on Sunday — a game where Ionescu scored 15 points and five assists in the 80-66 win — she was asked about the Ducks’ win over Ohio State.

“After they won with the way they did, today I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m going to wear my Oregon shoes’,” she said. “I wanted to embody that tough, gritty win that they pulled off. A lot things didn’t go right for them and they continued to kind of fight and stay together and grind out a really big win and I was, ‘all right and I wanted to bring that energy with me today on the court.'”

Ionescu and the Liberty now travel to Minnesota for Game 3 of the series where they’ll try to take control and get one step closer for their first WNBA championship.

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