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There was no championship hangover for Rose.
After their banner-raising ceremony, Unrivaled’s inaugural champions looked ready to repeat in their season opener, routing Lunar Owls 80-62. (Although, the state of Lunar Owls, certainly, presented Rose with a favorable first game.)
Rose won with such ease because Chelsea Gray was at the controls.
When she steps on the court in Sephora Arena, the Point Gawd seems to take her play to the highest possible level. She opened the season with 35 points, eight assists, five rebounds and three steals. Gray scored all 11 of Rose’s points in the untimed fourth quarter, securing her team’s dominant season-opening win. For the game, Rose outscored Owls by 18 points in Gray’s minutes, the best plus/minus earned by any player across the four opening day games.
Now, Vinyl has the privilege of playing against the Point Gawd, as Vinyl and Rose will open the second game night of the 2026 Unrivaled season (7:30 p.m. ET, TNT/truTV).
Vinyl, arguably, turned in the most disappointing opener.
While their 58-42 loss to Laces was not the worst defeat, they had a six-point halftime lead, a margin that they maintained until just over four minutes left in the third quarter. Laces then closed the period on an 8-2 run—and Vinyl didn’t score again. Laces reeled off 11 points to reach the target score before Vinyl mustered another basket.
A team that has electric offensive players in Rhyne Howard, Courtney Williams and Erica Wheeler shouldn’t suffer such scoring droughts. However, if those players elect to isolate for jumpers early in the shot clock, as they too often did in the second half against Laces, they will encounter unnecessary offensive issues.
Likewise, if Vinyl doesn’t bring consistent effort on every defensive possession, Gray will carve them up, whether by getting to her spots and draining jumpers, finding Azurá Stevens and Shakira Austin on beautiful rolls to the basket or diming up Lexie Hull or Sug Sutton for open 3-pointers.
On paper, Vinyl has more talent than Rose. But while Rose has Gray to help their players find near-perfect synchronicity, Vinyl looked far from making the kind of music that they should be able to produce.
Will Bueckers lead Breeze to a 2-0 start against Hive?
Friday night’s second game pits Unrivaled’s two newcomers against each other: Breeze vs. Hive (8:45 p.m. ET, TNT/truTV).
Both of the new clubs primarily feature players without Unrivaled experience, but Breeze’s roster appeared to acclimate much more quickly to the fullcourt 3×3 format.
That was especially true of Paige Bueckers. In Breeze’s opening win over Phantom, Bueckers scored 10 of her 24 points in the first quarter, demonstrating a freedom, comfort and aggression as a scorer. She also finished with six assists and five boards, with Breeze outpacing Phantom by 12 points in her almost 20 minutes played.
Dominique Malonga also instantly adjusted to Unrivaled, finishing with a 15-point and 14-rebound double-double.
Hive’s expected key contributors, in contrast, struggled to establish cohesion. The theoretical partnership between Kelsey Mitchell and Sonia Citron, where Citron’s 3-point shooting threat would provide space for Mitchell to attack the basket, didn’t materialize. Both players’ shots were wayward, as they combined to go 7-for-25 from the field.
Those two will need to be better for Hive to keep up with Breeze.
Possibly, Hive will extend more time to Monique Billings and Saniya Rivers, both of whom provided good energy in their off-the-bench minutes in Hive’s opener. The bouncy Billings will force Malonga and Cameron Brink to battle on the inside for boards, while Rivers can take on the challenge of trying to cause trouble for Bueckers or Rickea Jackson defensively.
