New York Liberty part ways with championship-winning coach Sandy Brondello

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New York Liberty part ways with championship-winning coach Sandy Brondello

2025-09-24 09:28 Last Updated At：09:30

NEW YORK (AP) — The New York Liberty will not renew coach Sandy Brondello’s contract for next season, the organization announced Tuesday.

Brondello led the Liberty to its first WNBA championship in 2024, but the team struggled with injuries to star players Breanna Stewart, Jonquel Jones and Sabrina Ionescu this year. New York earned the No. 5 seed in the playoffs and lost in the first round to the Phoenix Mercury.

“It has been a privilege to have coached the NY Liberty these last four years. Bringing the first ever championship to New York will always be the most amazing feeling. I wish the team and organization more success moving forward,” Brondello said to The Associated Press in a text message.

Brondello went 107-53 in her four seasons with the team, giving her the most wins in franchise history. The Liberty got off to a franchise-best start, winning nine straight games, only to stumble over the next few months as injuries took their toll.

“We would like to thank Sandy Brondello for her everlasting impact on the New York Liberty,” Liberty GM Jonathan Kolb said. “Sandy finishes her tenure in New York as the winningest coach in franchise history, and she took us to never-before-seen heights as the first head coach to lead the Liberty to a championship. We wish Sandy the very best in her next chapter.”

She had her players' support after the team lost in the playoffs last week.

“To anybody that kind of questions Sandy being here, this is a resilient group,” Stewart said after the Game 3 loss to Phoenix last week. “And she has our back and we have hers. The way that she continued to kind of deal with the cards she was dealt was incredible. It wasn’t easy for anybody but she came in every day with a positive attitude and a mindset to put us in our best positions possible and best foot forward.”

Before coming to New York, Brondello led the Phoenix Mercury to a championship in her eight seasons with that team. She was hired before the 2022 season by the Liberty after she helped the Mercury reach the WNBA Finals in 2021.

“I think Sandy’s done a great job. It’s an unfortunate part of our business,” Indiana coach Stephanie White said. “She does it not only from a great standpoint in terms of wins and losses, but in a way that leads with grace and leads with dignity and values the game and players in this game.”

New York lost in the finals to Las Vegas in 2023 before winning the championship last year in a decisive Game 5 overtime victory over Minnesota.

“I didn’t love it for Sandy, I’m gonna have to be honest,” Las Vegas Aces coach Becky Hammon said Tuesday. “She’s just won a championship. She’s won in other places, and I know her to be a quality coach and a quality person. Those are rare sometimes to get that mixture of qualities as a head coach.”

Brondello will be a top target for other head coaching vacancies throughout the league. Seattle just let go of Noelle Quinn on Sunday. Portland and Toronto both enter the league next year and haven't named a coach yet.

“As we’ve seen the business grow, we’ve seen the stakes grow higher. I think Sandy’s a heck of a coach, and Sandy will land on her feet like she always does," Minnesota coach Cheryl Reeve said. "I think I am absolutely thrilled if I am Seattle, Toronto and Portland that I was just gifted a championship-level coach. Though we’re competitors, I think a lot of Sandy personally and professionally.”

AP Sports Writers Mark Anderson in Las Vegas and Dave Campbell in Minneapolis contributed to this report.

AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball

Trump issues fiery new threat against Iran as details of US aviator's rescue emerge

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday made expletive-laden new threats to escalate strikes on Iran and its infrastructure if it doesn't open the Strait of Hormuz by his deadline, after American forces rescued an aviator whose Iran-downed plane fell behind enemy lines.

A defiant Iran struck infrastructure targets in neighboring Gulf Arab countries, challenged the U.S. account of the rescue and threatened to restrict another heavily used waterway in the region, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait off the Arabian Peninsula.

In a social media post, Trump vowed to hit Iran’s power plants and bridges and said the country would be “living in Hell” if the Strait of Hormuz, crucial for global trade, isn’t opened by Tuesday. He ended with “Praise be to Allah.”

Trump has issued such deadlines before but extended them when mediators have claimed progress toward ending the war, which has killed thousands, shaken global markets and spiked fuel prices in just over five weeks.

“It seems Trump has become a phenomenon that neither Iranians nor Americans are able to fully analyze,” Iranian Culture Minister Sayed Reza Salihi-Amiri told visiting Associated Press journalists in an interview in Tehran, adding that the president “constantly shifts between contradictory positions.”

Both sides have threatened and hit civilian targets like oil fields and desalination plants critical for drinking water. Iran’s U.N. mission called Trump’s threat “clear evidence of intent to commit war crime.”

Iran’s military joint command warned of stepped-up attacks on regional oil and civilian infrastructure if the U.S. and Israel attack such targets there, according to state television.

The laws of armed conflict allow attacks on civilian infrastructure only if the military advantage outweighs the civilian harm, legal scholars say. It’s considered a high bar to clear, and causing excessive suffering to civilians can constitute a war crime.

An intense search followed Friday's crash of the F-15E Strike Eagle, while Iran promised a reward for the “enemy pilot.” It was the first known American aircraft to crash in Iranian territory since the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Feb. 28.

Trump said that the service member was “seriously wounded and really brave” and rescued from “deep inside the mountains" in an operation involving dozens of armed aircraft. He said a second crew member was rescued in “broad daylight” within hours of the crash.

A senior U.S. administration official said that prior to locating the pilot, the CIA spread word inside Iran that U.S. forces had found him and were moving him for exfiltration, confusing Iranian officials. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details not yet made public.

Iran also shot down another U.S. military plane, demonstrating both the perils of the bombing campaign and the ability of Iran's degraded military to hit back. Neither the status of the A-10 attack aircraft's crew nor where it crashed is known.

On Sunday, Iran’s state television aired a video showing what it claimed were parts of U.S. aircraft — a transport plane and two helicopters — shot down by Iranian forces during the rescue operation.

However, a regional intelligence official briefed on the mission told the AP that the U.S. military blew up two transport planes because of a technical malfunction and brought in additional aircraft to complete the rescue. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the covert mission.

Two Black Hawk helicopters were hit but navigated to safe airspace, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive information.

Trump's deadline centers on growing alarm over Iran's grip on the Strait of Hormuz, critical for shipments of oil and gas from the Persian Gulf to Europe and Asia as well as humanitarian supplies. Some ships have paid Iran for passage.

An Iranian presidential spokesperson, Seyyed Mohammad Mehdi Tabatabaei, said on social media that the strait can reopen only if some transit revenues compensate Iran for war damages.

A top Iranian adviser, Ali Akbar Velayati, warned on social media that Tehran also could disrupt trade on the Bab el-Mandeb, a key waterway to and from the Suez Canal.

Diplomatic efforts continued. Oman's Foreign Ministry said that deputy foreign ministers and experts from Iran and Oman met to discuss proposals to ensure “smooth transit” through the strait. Oman has often served as a mediator between the U.S. and Iran.

Egypt said that Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty had spoken with U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, and with Turkish and Pakistani counterparts. Russia said that Araghchi also spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

In the United Arab Emirates, authorities said that four people — one Nepali and three Pakistani — were hurt in fires caused by debris from the interception of an Iranian projectile at Khor Fakkan port, and intercepted debris caused fires at a petrochemical plant in Ruwais, halting operations.

In Kuwait, Iranian drone attacks caused significant damage to power plants and a petrochemical plant. They also put a water desalination station out of service, according to the Ministry of Electricity.

In Bahrain, a drone attack caused a fire at one of the national oil company’s storage facilities and a state-run petrochemical plant, the kingdom’s official news agency said.

In Israel, rescue authorities said that they were searching for three people in the northern city of Haifa after an apartment building was hit. It wasn't immediately clear what struck it.

Meanwhile, more than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran since the war began.

In Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, more than two dozen people have died, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel and 13 U.S. service members have been killed. In Lebanon, more than 1,400 people have been killed and more than 1 million people have been displaced. Eleven Israeli soldiers have died there.

Bassem Mroue reported from Tehran, Iran, Sam Metz from Jerusalem and Samy Magdy from Cairo. Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Lisa Mascaro and Seung Min Kim in Washington; Munir Ahmed in Islamabad; and Farnoush Amiri in New York; contributed to this report.