Paige Bueckers honored Team USA teammate Breanna Stewart with her comment on the New York Liberty star\u2019s recent Instagram post.<\/p>\n
Three-time FIBA Women\u2019s Basketball World Cup champion Stewart is spearheading Team USA\u2019s campaign in the 2026 edition of the quadrennial tournament in Berlin, Germany.<\/p>\n
Stewart, who was named team captain, played well in USA\u2019s tournament opener against China. She finished with seven points, seven rebounds, two assists and one steal in 16 minutes to help Team USA record a dominant 94-61 victory<\/a>.<\/p>\n Aside from the scoring output as a starter, her important contribution in the game was to help contain China\u2019s twin towers of Han Xu and Zhang Ziyu, who stand 6-foot-11 and 7-foot-3, respectively.<\/p>\n The three-time WNBA champion held her own against them and posted several of her best moments from the game on Instagram.<\/p>\n \u201cDub,\u201d Stewart wrote.<\/p>\n The 32-year-old is among the most decorated veterans on the roster, with three Olympic medals under her belt. <\/p>\n Stewart\u2019s leadership in the locker room has been felt by her teammates, particularly by Bueckers. The Dallas Wings guard left a one-word comment on her team captain\u2019s Instagram post.<\/p>\n \u201cCap \ud83e\udee1,\u201d Bueckers\u2019 comment read.<\/p>\n Stewart, Bueckers and the rest of the national squad improved to 2-0 on Sunday after a hard-fought 55-52 win over Italy. <\/p>\n Stewart logged five points and a game-high 11 rebounds, while Bueckers came off the bench for seven points, five rebounds, two assists, two steals and two blocks. <\/p>\n Team USA has now punched its ticket to the quarterfinals. They will close out their group stage play with a matchup against the Czech Republic on Monday. <\/p>\n Related: Indiana Fever Star Kelsey Mitchell Wasting No Time After Being Left Off Team USA<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n This story was originally published by Athlon Sports<\/a> on Sep 7, 2026, where it first appeared in the WNBA<\/a> section. Add Athlon Sports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paige Bueckers honored Team USA teammate Breanna Stewart with her comment on the New York Liberty star\u2019s recent…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1048418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[49],"tags":[62,67,132,68,232],"class_list":["post-1048417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-wnba"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117228566443460047","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1048417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1048417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1048417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1048418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1048417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1048417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1048417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}