Gabby Williams Wows Women's Basketball World in France Jersey Once Again
While Gabby Williams' skill has been known within the women's basketball community for years, she burst into the sporting world's mainstream during her performance at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Williams averaged 15.5 points, 4.7 rebounds, and 4.8 assists per game in six Paris Olympics contests, leading Team France to the Gold Medal match against Team USA — where they came up agonizingly short after Williams made a buzzer-beater shot that would have sent the game to overtime if she had been behind the three-point line instead of standing on it.
After that performance, Williams re-signed with the Seattle Storm and was a key part of their playoff run in the second half of the 2024 WNBA season.
Once Seattle's season ended, Williams (who was a former standout at UConn) returned overseas to play with the Istanbul, Turkey-based professional basketball team, Fenerbahçe S.K.
Although her time playing for Team France is far from over. She is already back wearing a France jersey this weekend, as her home country takes part in the 2025 FIBA Women's Eurobasket Qualifier tournament.
Williams and Team France are playing Latvia on Sunday. And Williams is putting together an extremely impressive performance that included her scoring a whopping 16 points in 5 minutes of action to start the game.
Gabby Williams has 16 points in the first 5 minutes. 🤯
— FIBA Women's EuroBasket (@EuroBasketWomen) November 10, 2024
SIXTEEN POINTS
FIVE MINUTES.#EuroBasketWomen | @FRABasketball x @gabbywilliams15 pic.twitter.com/dutyLYyC1u
Through three quarters, France is beating Latvia by a score of 61-34. Williams is leading the way on offense with 21 points, 7 assists, and 4 rebounds. She also has a behemoth blocked shot that occurred in the third quarter.
Gabby Williams did it again vs Latvia 🚫 https://t.co/XmJ5wZ7lk2 pic.twitter.com/uQexucI2tt
— Alford Corriette (@alfcorriette) November 10, 2024
While Williams is a great WNBA player, her form appears to ascend to a whole new level when playing for France.
Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.