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Emma Meesseman is overwhelmed after winning the WNBA championship and Finals MVP award

The Washington Mystics forward wrote a column in FIBA’s EuroLeague Women site, stating that she only spent one week in Belgium before heading back to Russia for UMMC Ekaterinburg. And she’s still in disbelief over the past month!

By Albert Lee Updated
WNBA Finals Portraits
Emma Meesseman wrote a column on FIBA’s EuroLeague Women site on her journey since winning the WNBA championship and the Finals MVP.
Photo by Ned Dishman/NBAE via Getty Images

As you all know by now, the Washington Mystics weren’t able to hold a championship parade like the Washington Nationals did last Saturday. One of the reasons why is because their Finals MVP, Emma Meesseman hit the road to go home to Ieper, Belgium, just two days after winning the championship! And now, she’s already back to playing games for UMMC Ekaterinburg in Russia.

To this point, we haven’t heard much on how she’s reflected on the last month. Until now.

On Monday, Meesseman wrote a column on FIBA’s EuroLeague Women site. Click on the link below to read it.

Here are some of the main points in her column.

  • Meesseman really wanted to win the championship, so much to the point to where she’d play Candy Crush to sleep on her phone.
  • After going home to Ieper, Meesseman met fellow Ieperlings telling her that they started watching basketball because of her. Basketball is not that popular in Dutch-speaking countries like Belgium and the Netherlands, which partially explains why the Washington Wizards’ Dutch Wikipedia page was very out of date earlier this year. Still, at least women’s basketball is getting more love in Belgium with the national team reaching unprecedented heights.
  • Meesseman never expected to win the WNBA Finals MVP award. And she’s still in awe about that. Even though Europeans are winning NBA awards like the MVP and Defensive Player of the Year award left and right, European best women’s basketball players generally don’t play in the WNBA at all. So this is something that’s still quite extraordinary for her.
  • Don’t expect to see Meesseman take any rest, at least for Belgium. The Belgium women’s national basketball team has to play in 2021 Women’s EuroBasket qualifiers this winter, the 2020 Olympic pre-qualifying tournament in February on top of a season with UMMC.

The Mystics have a lot of decisions to make this offseason, one of which is whether to core Meesseman. I’m not sure if Meesseman will to return to the Mystics and the WNBA given how international schedules currently collide with things stateside. But I certainly hope she does.