Stewie Undergoes Knife

UConn legend and WNBA superstar Breanna Stewart
of the Seattle Storm has undergone surgery to repar
a ruptured Achilles tendon suffered while playing
oversees and will miss the entire 2019 WNBA season.
(photo by Bill Harper)

By Bob Phillips

SEATTLE—UConn legend and reigning WNBA MVP Breanna Stewart has undergone surgery to repair her ruptured right Achilles tendon. The Seattle Storm reported Stewart had surgery Thursday morning (April 18) in Los Angeles. While Stewie will miss the entire 2019 WNBA season, she is expected to be fully recovered for the start of the 2020 campaign.

Stewart suffered the injury while playing for her EuroLeague club, Dynamo Kursk of Russia, on Sunday in the EuroLeague Women’s Championship Game in Hungary. She appeared to land awkwardly on the foot of fellow WNBA star Brittney Griner after attempting a jumper late in the first half against UMMC Ekaterinburg. The 24-year-old superstar from Syracuse, NY, immediately grabbed her lower right leg in obvious pain. She was attended to by trainers on the court before being helped to the locker room.

Stewart won four national titles at UConn and was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2016 WNBA draft by the Storm where she joined another UConn legend, Sue Bird. Last season Stewie was named MVP for both the regular season and the playoffs while leading the Storm to the franchise's third WNBA.

As do most WNBA players, Stewart has played overseas in the offseason since joining the league. 

Stewie expects to be fully recovered by the 2020 season.

Indeed, it has been suggested that the year-round nature of women’s professional basketball—the vast majority of WNBA players also play overseas because the compensation of WNBA players is so meager by comparison to what they receive from playing aborad—will be a factor in the upcoming Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations. A new agreement must be intact by the start of the 2020 season. And when you consider that another former UConn superstar and WNBA MVP, Maya Moore of the Minnesota Lynx, is taking a one-year sabbatical in 2019 to focus on her family and “some ministry dreams,” well, there’s a whole lot for the Players’ Association and the WNBA to talk about.

Meanwhile the Storm, whose roster still sports Bird, will visit Nutmeg State twice this season. The first time Seattle plays the Connecticut Sun at the Mohegan Sun Arena will be Sunday, June 16. Tip-off is at 3:30 p.m. (ET). Seattle will make a second visit to Connecticut on Friday, Aug. 16, with a 7:30 (ET) tip-off. The Sun will ten travel to Seattle to face the Storm on Wed., Aug. 21, at 10 p.m. (ET).

—Colleen White contributed to this report