After Tuesday night’s victory in Los Angeles, Sandy Brondello sat at the postgame podium drenched in water with a white towel draped over her shoulders.
It looked as if the coach was celebrating back-to-back WNBA titles. But obviously, it’s only August — not October. And it was just a regular-season road win over a rebuilding Sparks team.
The win, though, cemented Brondello in Liberty record books.
BIGS DUBS IN THE CHAT 👐
Congrats to Coach @SBrondello on becoming the winningest coach in franchise history 👏🗽 pic.twitter.com/zTIK8zxvXJ
— New York Liberty (@nyliberty) August 13, 2025
The 105-97 victory over the Sparks gave Brondello her 101st win as Liberty head coach, surpassing Richie Adubato for first place in franchise history.
“We heard about it before she came in, obviously. And so we were like ‘OK, when she comes in, everybody get a water.’” Jonquel Jones said.
Brondello, whom the Liberty hired before the 2022 WNBA season, took four seasons to rise to the top. Adubato, who coached the Liberty from 1999-2004, totaled his wins over six seasons.
“Obviously, it means a lot,” Brondello said after her record-breaking win. “It’s a privilege to be the head coach of the New York Liberty, an original franchise with the best owners in the league. But it just means I’ve had a really good team for the four years I’ve been in New York, and a lot of credit just goes to the team and just buying in the way that we want to play.”
After five WNBA seasons as a player and nine seasons on the San Antonio Silver Stars and Sparks staffs, Brondello became head coach of the Phoenix Mercury in November 2013. Ten months later, she led the No. 1 seeded Mercury to a WNBA title after sweeping the Chicago Sky, 3-0.
She spent eight seasons (2014-21) with the Mercury, drawing up plays for some of the WNBA’s greatest hoopers: Diana Taurasi, Brittney Griner, DeWanna Bonner, Candice Dupree and Skylar Diggins.
Before her Phoenix departure, she also crossed paths with a young Isabelle Harrison, who Brondello coaches once again in New York.
“I just feel like Sandy is a real player-coach,” Harrison said. “Obviously, she played before, and she was my coach my rookie year so like I see a lot of the same stuff but a completely different Sandy, it’s crazy.”
“She’s way more assertive now,” Harrison, who joined the Liberty during the 2025 offseason, added. “She’s very vocal and she knows when to plug people in when we need it and I know she’s been heavily relying on me so obviously like, I’m here because of Sandy.”
That assertiveness comes with success and heightened confidence, per Olaf Lange — Brondello’s husband and assistant with both the Liberty and Australian national team.
The forceful personality was on full display on a July night when her team turned in its worst performance of the 2025 season.
The Liberty trailed by as many as 30 points to a rebuilding Dallas Wings squad in what turned into a 92-82 defeat at College Park Center on July 28. Brondello was without Breanna Stewart, Kennedy Burke and Nyara Sabally, however, it wasn’t a good enough excuse for what transpired: zero point of attack resistance, a litany of settled three-point attempts, no paint protection and pick-and-roll defense that made the Liberty look like a college team.
It was the Wings who looked like defending champs. The Liberty were awful that night.
Brondello lit into her team during timeouts and at halftime. She then held the entire team for a postgame meeting that lasted over 30 minutes.
“If you had the success you had, you grow as a coach,” Lange told the Daily News. “You’ve grown your confidence, you found your voice, and you know also when you can be a little more assertive.”
Fortunately for the Liberty, they got revenge in the following two matchups, including last Friday’s victory that gave Brondello her record-tying 100th Liberty win.
Exactly 1,193 days separate Brondello’s first Liberty win to her 101st.
While leaning on her playing and coaching experience, Brondello “developed all areas of her coaching,” which helped bring home the Liberty’s first-ever WNBA title last October.
“She has a great sense for the situation, for what happens on the floor, with what the players need, reading the game,” Lange told The News. “These come from her playing days.
“She played, and she’s never lost that connection.”
The very first Liberty victory came on May 7, 2022 — a comeback two-point win against the Connecticut Sun. The win came after her offseason arrival following the end of her tenure in Phoenix. After winning the 2014 title, Brondello reached the WNBA Finals again in 2021, but were eliminated, 3-1, by the Sky.
The Mercury announced they weren’t renewing Brondello’s contract two months after the Finals appearance. That gave Liberty general manager Jonathan Kolb — who already regarded Brondello as a “coaching legend” — a clear pathway to sign the Aussie.
She replaced Walt Hopkins in New York after going 150-108 in Phoenix and inherited a roster that included former No. 1 pick Sabrina Ionescu, All-Stars Betnijah Laney-Hamilton and Natasha Howard and a mix of young and veteran players.
“There was a lot of excitement when Sandy came in, obviously her winning culture,” ex-Liberty guard Sami Whitcomb told The News.
“I think in particular, she’s always been really great at drawing up stuff, I think for sure,” Whitcomb said. “So I think [After Timeout plays], but just knowing how to get the best out of players offensively. She knows the game. She knows how to kind of manipulate defenses to get players stuff.
“And then I think she’s always been good at the culture stuff. She, I think, gets that players drive that, but that it does have to come from the top too.”
Lange, who joined the Liberty staff alongside Brondello in 2022, acknowledged the pressure of coming to a big market. However, that just fueled the head coach.
“I mean, when you come to coach in New York, there’s always pressure right,” Lange told The News. “This is one of the biggest markets, the biggest interest in sports and any sports, especially basketball, there’s always pressure, but Sandy’s always been very good in dealing with pressure and finding ways to make it motivate, fuel her and deal with it in a very, very positive way. So I never thought that would be a big issue.”
Brondello led the Liberty to a 16-20 regular-season record in her first season, but is 85-27 since then.
The inflated win percentage (75.9) is thanks to Kolb’s 2023 roster overhaul that landed Stewart and Jones in Brooklyn. Leonie Fiebich and Emma Meesseman joined as well, making the Liberty a potent super-team.
Kolb, though, believes it’s the head coach that deserves all the credit.
“A big misconception about having so much talent is that it just automatically wins, but it really takes a head coach that knows how to nurture that talent and bring it along and create a culture of sacrifice for us to achieve our ultimate goal,” he told The News. “And that’s all credit to Sandy in terms of being able to guide the ship in that way. What she’s done is very impressive.”
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