After the most-watched and most hyped season in WNBA history, every fan deserves to watch Game 5 of the WNBA Finals.
No Caitlin Clark. There isn’t. angel lease . The rookies participating in Game 5 are Liberty’s Jaylon Sherrod, Markesha Davis and Leonie Fibich. and the Lynx’s Olivia Epoupa and Alyssa Pili.
Few people outside of women’s college basketball and WNBA fans know about these players.
Still, there are many famous and familiar faces among them.
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At the Lynx, head coach Cheryl Reeve just led Team USA to a women’s basketball gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics. This was the eighth consecutive gold medal for the United States in this event.
Reeve recently won an award He won both the WNBA Coach of the Year and Executive of the Year awards. Her wife, Carly Knox, is also an executive on the team. Reeve and Knox will both be named to the 2024 OutSport Power 100 later this week.
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While it may have seemed to some casual observers that Team USA’s gold medal was a foregone conclusion, that was not the case. As the men’s game witnessed a few years ago, the rest of the world is catching up. And it took some heroic acts for Reeve, her staff, athletes like Carlea Copper and Team USA to bring home a historic gold medal.
The team was proud of several of the players who took the court in Game 5, one of whom was gay.
Nafeesa Collier is a gold medalist who plays for the Lynx. And Sabrina Ionescu plays for Liberty. Both are 2024 Olympic gold medalists.
However, the gay star of Game 5 of the WNBA Finals is Brianna Stewart, who also won gold at the Paris Games. She previously won two WNBA titles with Seattle. She won WNBA Finals MVP in both the 2018 and 2020 seasons, and also won WNBA Finals MVP last year and in the 2018 season.
Other LGBTQ players from the Lynx include: Cecilia Zandalasinicourtney williams Natisha Hedeman; and from Liberty, in addition to Stewart, there are Courtney Vandersloot and Jonquel Jones.
Some players have been reported by other media outlets to be LGBTQ. However, as far as we know, their reported “outs” do not meet the criteria for an outsport.
The Lynx are seeking their fifth WNBA title, while the Liberty are seeking their first.
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Source: Outsports – www.outsports.com
