'Best decision I ever made': Brondello reveals Opals turning point

• Sandy Brondello was recently announced as WNBA expansion franchise, the Toronto Tempo's inaugural coach
• Brondello is a two-time WNBA championship coach with Phoenix and New York
• She went to four Olympics as a player and has coached the Australian Opals at two more Olympic Games

Australian Opals coach Sandy Brondello has revealed the moment she believed turned the culture of the national team around to becoming bronze medallists at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.

The Opals, who are one of the country's most successful national teams, had won five straight Olympic medals starting in 1996 before missing out in 2016 under Brendan Joyce and at the 2020 Tokyo Games, where a disastrous lead up to the tournament threatened the very fabric the program was built on.

Knowing things needed to change, Brondello made a decision before the 2022 FIBA World Cup which would turn the program back into the world powerhouse it had been for two decades

"I think the best decision that I ever made was to name Tess Madgen as the captain," she said on the latest edition of 'Cut to the Jase'.

"(It was) because of the passion and pride that she takes in wearing the green and gold because that's what it's about. My fondest memories are playing for Australia, hands down, with the highs and the lows, and she just lives and breathes it.

"So you have someone leading that culture space and then you got Sami Whitcomb and Steph Talbot and the leadership group just kind of running it.

"But just the investment of of the connections, even when they're playing against each other and make them connect with each other, doing these zooms even when they're all around the world, it doesn't matter.

"Our lack of preparation has to be made up by our strong culture... We have to hang our hat on culture... So then we can grow when we do have adversity."

Those changes led to a FIBA World Cup bronze medal in Sydney in 2022 before their quest to break a 12-year Olympic medal drought appeared to be on the brink after a first-up loss to Nigeria in the group stages at the Paris Games.

Brondello said those times were when their culture was truly evident.

"We faced adversity when we lost the first game of the Olympics," she said.

"Really I mean before Paris, no one knows this but, we had one five-on-five practice because everyone was injured. (It was) really hard... but it's like OK we just got to get better game by game because we just got to learn by playing but they were able to stay connected.

"There's no like, OK, we can do it, it's let's do it, let's believe. You got to have that self-belief and belief in each other that you can do something special. That doesn't mean it always works out but the last four years, it's been great.

"It'd be nice to get a gold medal, but still getting on the podium is hard thing to do and we've done that and we want to continue to build on that."

The Opals well and truly turned it around, beating hosts France as well as Canada to progress through to the final stages of the tournament before beating Belgium to capture their first Olympic medal since London 2012.

And the future of the program is even brighter with leaders like Alanna Smith and Ezi Magbegor shining in the WNBA and plenty of young superstars coming through the ranks, showed by our Aussie Gems winning silver at the FIBA U19 World Cup earlier this year.