It’s been just over nine months since Sopron Basket won the 2022 EuroLeague Women championship with an improbable title run. Gabby Williams, who won Final Four MVP honors, embodied Sopron’s defense-first approach, alongside similarly hard-nosed players such as Briann January and Bernadett Határ.
Sopron looks much different this season. None of Williams, January or Határ remain with the club, and prized offseason signing Brittney Sykes transferred to Spanish club and EuroLeague Women rival Spar Girona four games into the competition’s group play phase.
None of that has stopped Sopron from remaining one of the teams to beat in EuroLeague Women, though. A patchwork core of Ezi Magbegor, Yvonne Turner and Jelena Brooks has actually yielded even better results through nine weeks of group play than Sopron’s previous iteration; the club currently sits alone atop the Group B standings with a 7-2 record, winners of four-straight games. The team’s most recent victory came last week against CBK Mersin Yenişehir Bld, and the result was typical Sopron: A slow-paced, grind-it-out game that held a star-studded Mersin lineup (featuring Chelsea Gray and DeWanna Bonner) in check and to a season-low 44 points.
This week, Sopron will have an opportunity to extend its lead in…
