Brianna Turner knew something was up when her bedroom door flew open around 7 a.m. CT Thursday and her mom rushed in, waking her up.
It wasn’t bad news, however.
“BG’s free! BG’s free!” Turner’s mom yelled.
Still in bed and hardly awake, Turner wasn’t sure what she was hearing.
“Am I dreaming?” she asked.
Then the Phoenix Mercury forward opened Twitter and saw national outlets confirming the news that teammate Brittney Griner had been freed from Russian custody after 294 days in a high-profile U.S.-Russia prisoner exchange.
“I honestly thought I was dreaming still,” said Turner, who’s staying with her parents in Texas while she’s back from playing overseas in Turkey. “I was confused. Like, it was utter shock.
“I hopped on social media, we turned on the TV and, yeah, all the news stations were like, ‘Breaking news, Breaking news.'”
Turner’s grandmother actually saw it first, calling as soon as she saw Griner had been released. “So, thank God my grandma was up early watching the news,” Turner said.
She quickly took a screenshot of a reporter’s tweet confirming Griner’s release and sent it in a group chat to fellow teammates Kia Nurse and Shey Peddy with the message: “Oh my gosh guys.” As word broke and eventually spread throughout the day, many members of the Mercury franchise had…
