Ex-Liberty coach Sandy Brondello expected to get love from home crowd

Sandy Brondello will return to Barclays Center on Wednesday for the first time this season with her new team and a new logo emblazoned on her quarter-zip.She’ll give a pregame speech in the visitors’ locker room and head to the opposing team’s bench.It’ll be different.

Join Post Sports+ for exciting subscriber-only features, including real-time texting with Madeline Kenney about all things Liberty and WNBA.But some of her former players believe she deserves a heroine’s welcome — an immediate, loud ovation booming with unmistakable gratitude.“It’s going to be great,” Breanna Stewart predicted Monday.

“It’s going to be really welcoming for her.I think that the fans obviously love [her] and will always show respect to her anytime she comes back.”Brondello deserves applause not because nostalgia demands it or because sports fans are obligated to cheer for former coaches who’ve moved on.

But because Brondello helped establish a standard of excellence that turned the Liberty from a league basement dweller into a constant contender.Brondello left an indelible mark on the franchise.She’s the first and only coach who guided the Liberty to a WNBA championship.

She arrived in New York in 2022, inheriting a team that won 14 games combined over the two previous seasons and was in search of consistency and identity.The front office formed a superteam one year later, with the arrivals of Stewart and Jonquel Jones.Under Brondello’s leadership, New York went to back-to-back WNBA Finals for the first time since President Bill Clinton was in office.On the franchise’s sixth trip to the Finals in 2024, the Liberty finally broke through.The Liberty, with Brondello’s help, became exactly what they had hoped for — a trendsetter and league leader in more ways than one.

Winning became an expectation rather than an aspiration.Yet, some felt that Brondello never fully maximized the talent on the roster.Brondello didn’t get the perfect storybook end...