American Football
Unrivaled’s opening night will serve as a sort of WNBA Finals rematch
Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart will face off on January 17th, when Unrivaled’s season officially begins in Miami
The WNBA season is over, and the 2025 regular season is still nearly six months away. But, fans of women’s professional basketball don’t have to wait until May to watch their favorite players compete. WNBA diehards will be able to catch many (at least 34!) stars playing in the newly-formed Unrivaled Basketball League this winter.
Unrivaled, the new 3-on-3 professional women’s basketball league co-founded by Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart, is set to tip off on January 17th. The 9-week season will run through March 17th, and feature games on Friday, Saturday, and Monday on TNT and TruTV. The full league schedule was released last week.
Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart will face off on Opening Night
Unrivaled’s opening night will be must-watch television. No one knows exactly how 3-on-3 basketball will look on a compressed full-court. In addition, the newly constructed soundstage arena — which will seat around 1,000 fans — will also be a bit of a mystery.
Off the bat, there will be plenty of intrigue around how Unrivaled will look in real-time.
The opening night schedule will only fuel the anticipation. The first match-up of the season will feature the league’s two co-founders. Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier will battle as the Mist and the Lunar Owls face off at 7 m.
Not only will that be a match-up feature the league’s proprietors — and two perennial MVP candidates — it will also serve as somewhat of a WNBA Finals rematch.
Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images
Last month, Stewart’s New York Liberty defeated Collier’s Minnesota Lynx 3-2 in the WNBA Finals. The Liberty-Lynx Finals — one of the most back-and-forth series we’ve seen in WNBA history — saw the Liberty emerge victorious in overtime. Collier and Stewart were central to that series and served as their team’s best players all season.
Stewart is a three-time WNBA champion and two-time MVP, while Collier was named last year’s Defensive Player of the Year. In the 2024 WNBA postseason, Stewart averaged 19.4 points (38.2 FG%), 9.5 rebounds, and 3.6 assists, while Collier averaged 23.8 points (52.5 FG%), 7.9 rebounds, 3.9 assists, 1.7 steals, and 1.2 blocks.
Both stars will be front and center on opening night — but it won’t be a true Finals rematch most of their Lynx and Liberty teammates won’t be alongside them. We’ll have to wait a few more months for an actual postseason rematch
Still, Mist-Lunar Owls is as close as we’ll get for now.
The Mist Club includes Breanna Stewart, Jewell Loyd, DiJonai Carrington, Courtney Vandersloot, Rickea Jackson, and Aaliyah Edwards. (Vandersloot was also a member of the 2024 Liberty championship team.) Loyd (Seattle Storm) and Carrington (Connecticut Sun) both competed this past postseason, while Jackson (Los Angeles Sparks) and Edwards (Washington Mystics) both saw their seasons conclude in the regular season.
The Lunar Owls Club, meanwhile, includes Collier, Skylar Diggins-Smith, Allisha Gray, Natasha Cloud, and Shakira Austin. Diggins-Smith (Storm), Gray (Atlanta Dream), and Cloud (Phoenix Mercury) were all on playoff teams this past season, while Austin’s Mystics fell just one win short of a postseason berth.
Collier and Stewart will almost certainly guard each other, as they typically have throughout their professional careers. Carrington will probably get the primary defensive assignment on Gray or Diggins-Smith. The Mist and Lunar Owls collectively feature six players who were at one point All-Stars (Stewart, Loyd, Vandersloot, Collier, Diggins-Smith, and Gray), and four 2024 All-Defensive team players (Stewart, Carrington, Collier, and Cloud).
Angel Reese, Rose will then face Arike Ogunbowale, Vinyl
After the Mist and Lunar Owls square off, the second of Unrivaled’s opening two-game double-header will commence — a match-up between the Rose and Vinyl.
That game will be headlined by Chicago Sky rookie Angel Reese making her Unrivaled debut for the Rose Club — alongside Chelsea Gray, Kahleah Copper, Brittney Sykes, Lexie Hull, and Azurá Stevens. Gray, also known as the Point Gawd, is considered one of the best point guards in the WNBA, while Copper is a 4x All-Star in her own right.
Photo by Juan Ocampo/NBAE via Getty Images
The Vinyl Club includes Arike Ogunbowale, Rhyne Howard, Aliyah Boston, Jordin Canada, Rae Burrell, and Dearica Hamby. Ogunobwale is a two-time All-Star Game MVP, while Boston is last year’s unanimous Rookie of the Year. Howard and Hamby were All-Stars this season, while Burrell and Canada should serve as reliable, two-way role players.