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Nobody else is packing 12,000 people into Matthew Knight Arena on a May Monday.
EUGENE — The last time Sabrina Ionescu wore a jersey in this building, time seemed endless.
The Ducks had just defeated Washington 92-56 on senior night, a game that saw Oregon’s star score 13 points with 11 assists, then take the mic during post-game celebrations to not-so-jokingly call Matthew Knight Arena the “House that we built.”
But riding a 16-game winning streak with the Pac-12 Tournament and the NCAA Tournament on the horizon, the end was nowhere in sight for a team that looked destined to compete for another month.
“I think it would be a little tough if I knew this truly was their last game here,” Oregon coach Kelly Graves said on March 1, 2020. “But I’m fairly certain we’re guaranteed at least one more here in the next few weeks. This is a group that left quite the legacy. We have some iconic players that we’re losing, and it will be tough to recover at some point. We’re going to miss them so bad. But I think the future is really, really bright.”
Nearly 2,000 days later, Ionescu stood at the center of a new Matthew Knight Arena floor — right in the middle of the O — and took the mic once more. Her jersey was different this time. So was her resume and tax bracket. In the five years since the pandemic took away Ionescu’s chance to pen a final chapter with the Ducks, the now-27-year-old was taken as the WNBA’s No. 1 overall pick, lent her name to one of the best selling shoes in all of basketball, overcame injury, married Marcus Mariota’s college center and, most recently, did the one thing bad luck prevented her from accomplishing back when the jersey she wore was green: she won a championship.
“It’s great to be back home,” said Ionescu moments before the New York Liberty’s preseason tipoff against Japan’s Toyota Antelopes. “And as always, go Ducks.”
So much had changed — but that sound, oh, was that familiar. From the moment Ionescu took the floor in an eventual 84-61 New York victory, a sold-out Monday night crowd cheered her every move.
They erupted during player introductions, exploded after Ionescu hit her first three and lived vicariously through the video board highlights during a timeout showing Ionescu and the Liberty winning the 2024 WNBA title.
Throughout the weekend, it became clear what Eugene meant to Ionescu. It’s why she invited fans out to Rennie’s Landing on Saturday night. It’s why she held a youth clinic on Sunday and participated in so many media sessions it was impossible not to understand that this town, 500 miles north of where she grew up in the Bay Area, has become a special place.
Simply, there’s no college town outside of Iowa that would pack an arena for a Monday night WNBA preseason team from the other side of the country.
“To me it’s going to feel like I got an Oregon jersey on,” Ionescu said on Sunday. “I’m gonna just enjoy that last feeling of what it would have been like to be able to close that chapter of my college career here that I never got the opportunity to do. Knowing Matt Knight is going to be rocking, I’m super excited to have the entire community behind us and supporting my team — they’re going to feel all the love — it’s not just me but it’s everyone here.”
That was true to an extent. Oregon fans gave a healthy ovation for Nyara Sabally, who played three seasons for the Ducks, was the fifth pick of the 2023 WNBA Draft, and scored 7 points on Monday. The crowd also seemed delighted to see other league stars, such as two-time MVP Breanna Stewart.
But neither of those players are on billboards outside of Matthew Knight Arena. Neither of those players scored 30 points to beat Team USA on this floor, or set the NCAA record for most career triple-doubles, or transformed a program from a Pac-12 also-ran into a legitimate national championship threat like Ionescu did here.
No one else can lay claim to cultivating a basketball fever that saw attendance rise from an average of 1,629 fans per game in the year before Ionescu got here to 10,852 by the time she left.
So yes, Eugene and Oregon mean a lot to Ionescu. But by the end of the Liberty’s win, it became clear for the 12,364 in attendance, Oregon’s former star means more to them.
To be clear, Ionescu has no unfinished business left in Eugene. She was the best basketball player this school has ever seen, took this school to heights it had never reached and has since represented the Oregon program as a professional as well as any #ProDuck before her.
By the time Ionescu hit her third three-pointer of the fourth quarter, ran down the court with her arms wide open and was subsequently taken out with 6:03 to play and a game-high 25 points in hand, the Oregon crowd was left wanting more but knew it was owed nothing.
So the fans rose into an ovation and loudly sent Ionescu off to the bench, wishing her well as she embarks on her sixth year as a professional when the regular season begins on Saturday.
“I got emotional [before the opening tip.] I just started looking around at the arena and saw every single seat taken,” Ionescu said. “I was looking at all the areas that I used to when I was there getting ready for an Oregon game and I got kinda teary-eyed. I was like, ‘All right, I got to lock back in,’ because the game was about to start, but this is something in my career that I’ll never forget is being able to come back and play a game at the University of Oregon.”
Maybe Ionescu and the Liberty return next preseason. Maybe they end up on the new Portland WNBA team’s schedule in 2026. Or, maybe if they’re smart, the Portland franchise looks at Monday night in Eugene, sees an Ionescu contract that expires after this season, and puts two and two together.
We’ve seen that Ionescu’s magic travels across the country. One would assume it could be translated 100 miles north from here, too.
Hypotheticals, of course, are meaningless. People can talk all they want about what might happen with Ionescu in the future. But more than anyone, Oregon fans know better than to take the present for granted. On Monday, they didn’t just spend two hours waxing nostalgia, they watched as a full-grown Ionescu put on a display of parking lot threes, passes and star power which few in the world rival.
And while, yes, Ionescu may be New York’s now, the last three days have shown that nobody holds the heart of this town quite like Sabrina.
— Tyson Alger, The I-5 Corridor
