About a year and a half ago, I started seeing edits of Paige Bueckers on my TikTok For You Page. They brought me into the world of women’s basketball, especially Buecker’s career. Back in December 2025, I learned about Unrivaled Basketball when I saw that she was part of the Breeze Basketball Club.
Unrivaled is a three-on-three women’s basketball league, co-founded by Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart in 2023. The league plays in the off-season of the WNBA, from January to March. They utilize top players, allowing them to compete in the United States, rather than going overseas. One of Unrivaled’s strong selling points is that its average salary is higher than the WNBA’s.
The league just completed its second season, with a total of eight clubs that contain six players per club. Each club plays 14 games in the regular season before the top six teams are selected for playoffs in a single-elimination format. Nearly all games are played near Miami in Sephora Arena.
Game format
Unrivaled operates through a unique game format, where each game is divided into quarters. The first three last only seven minutes, and the fourth and final quarter is played towards a winning score. To determine the winning score, 11 points are added to the leading team’s score following the first three quarters. This prevents a game from requiring overtime and makes the game more exciting.
They play on a 49.2-by-72-foot condensed full court, which is different from the half court used at the Olympics for three by three. Fouls are also done differently; if a player is fouled, she only gets one free throw worth two points on a two-point field goal or worth three points on a three-point attempt.
Bonus opportunities
The league is also filled with additional events and opportunities for the players. This includes a one-on-one tournament with 32 players to compete for the $300,000 total prize pool. The champion receives $200,000, the runner-up earns $50,000, and all semifinalists receive $25,000. Chelsea Gray was the champion this year, beating Allisha Gray in the championship.
Another opportunity was the Xfinity Free Throw Challenge, which awarded the winner $50,000. Bueckers won the first challenge of the season, while Allisha Gray won the second challenge.
The winner is the Unrivaled player who records the highest percentage of free throws from her club’s first five games of the season. Fans are also able to vote on who they think will win and how, with the winner getting courtside seats for a game.
The playoffs
To determine the schedule of the playoffs, each team is ranked one through eight. The bottom two teams won’t qualify for the playoffs, while the remaining six go on to play in the tournament. The top two seeded teams each get a buy for the first round and automatically qualify for the semi-finals.
In the first round, the teams seeded third and sixth play against each other, while the teams seeded fourth and fifth face off. Of the two teams that win, they advance to the semifinals.
The higher-seeded team will play the team seeded second, while the lower-seeded team will play the team seeded first. The two winning teams will face off in the finals. The champion for this season was Mist BC.
Unrivaled is an innovative aspect in women’s basketball that has become increasingly popular. Despite only having completed its second season, it has already become extremely well-known.
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