Women's Fastbreak On SI

Unrivaled Abruptly Cancels Game Citing 'Player Health and Safety' Prioritization

Unrivaled has canceled one of their February 8 games to "prioritize player health and safety".
Grant Young|
Jan 17, 2025; Miami, FL, USA; Players warm-up before the game between the Mist and the Lunar Owls of the Unrivaled women’s professional 3v3 basketball league at Wayfair Arena. Mandatory Credit: Jim Rassol-Imagn Images
Jan 17, 2025; Miami, FL, USA; Players warm-up before the game between the Mist and the Lunar Owls of the Unrivaled women’s professional 3v3 basketball league at Wayfair Arena. Mandatory Credit: Jim Rassol-Imagn Images | Jim Rassol-Imagn Images

The inaugural season of the Unrivaled women's basketball league has been flying by.

Each weekend's slate of games has provided a ton of excitement, and players are getting to showcase the hard work they've been putting in this WNBA offseason against the world's best female basketball players.

Thus far in the season, Lunar Owls BC has separated themselves from the pack, amassing a perfect 7-0 record to this point. Unrivaled cofounder Napheesa Collier is on Lunar Owls and has been the league's best player this season.

Collier is set to face off against Breanna Stewart, her co-founder, on February 8. However, their game has now been moved up to an earlier time slot because of an announcement that Unrivaled recently made.

“To prioritize player health and safety, Unrivaled will be canceling tonight’s matchup between Laces BC and Vinyl BC. The game between Mist BC and Lunar Owls BC will now tip off in the 6 p.m. ET window at Wayfair Arena, airing on truTV and Max," Unrivaled wrote in the graphic of a February 8 X post.

As of right now, there's no further explanation or details on why the Laces BC vs. Vinyl BC game has been canceled, nor what the statement saying, "prioritize player health and safety" might mean.

Surely there will be an update to come at some point. But given that the aforementioned Mist BC vs. Lunar Owls BC game is still taking place, one would imagine that this cancelation has something to do with one of the two teams who are no longer competing.

More is surely still to come from this story.

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Grant Young
GRANT YOUNG

Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.

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