Olympic medalists are bringing their 3x3 experience and team chemistry to Unrivaled: 'It's just hooping'

When Unrivaled Basketball tips off for its inaugural season on Friday night, it will be a different kind of basketball than fans are used to. While women’s college basketball and the WNBA use a five-on-five format, Unrivaled will be three-on-three. But this brand of basketball won't be completely new to all the players.

FIBA’s version of 3x3 basketball has been around since 2007, but it wasn't introduced as an Olympic sport until Tokyo in 2020. Several Unrivaled players have played 3x3 at the highest level — Jackie Young, Stefanie Dolson and Allisha Gray won the first Olympic gold for the U.S. in 3x3 in Tokyo, while Dearica Hamby and Rhyne Howard were part of the team that won bronze in Paris last year. Tiffany Hayes represented Azerbaijan in Paris, while several other players have played in other high-level tournaments.

But there’s a big difference between FIBA’s game and the one we’ll see in Unrivaled: the court size will be a medium ground between the WNBA’s full-court and FIBA’s half-court, which is the same size used for the Olympics. Their games will be played on a 49.2-foot by 72-foot court with a three-on-three format. Hamby said she thinks the relative similarities will help, but her chemistry with Howard (they're both on Vinyl BC) will help more.

“I would say, just keeping the flow, the movement going, the play. I mean, 3-on-3 and Unrivaled is a little bit different, but concepts are a little bit the same on offense in the half court,” Hamby said. “Trying to keep the ball movement up. I've caught a couple plays that I remember from the Olympics that we've utilized, and obviously me and Rhyne have a little bit of chemistry from that.”

Like Hamby and Howard, Dolson and Young are also reuniting in Miami for Unrivaled. (Fellow 2020 gold medalist Kelsey Plum was also named to Laces BC, but backed out in November "to take some more time for myself this offseason.") As they play for Laces, that familiarity will be important.

“It's similar, but different in a lot of ways," Dolson said. "I think similarity, it's just a simpler form of basketball with just three people, and I think we have a really good squad for that in terms of, like, our IQs, how we play the game. The fact that I got to play with Jackie on 3-on-3 helps, but the fact that it's full court definitely changes it. It speeds it up a little bit more, less actions are going to be run, so it'll be a transition for all of us to play this game.”

The game will also feature a shorter shot clock of 18 seconds, and the scoring might take a minute for fans to get used to. At the end of the third quarter, add 11 to the leading team’s score — that’s the number the two teams will play to, so the first to get to that number wins.

But the court will be a change for the players. The biggest difference is the spacing. There’s more room to set offenses than in FIBA, but it also means players will have less help on defense. Phantom BC's Katie Lou Samuelson, who was named to the Tokyo 2020 3x3 team but had to miss the Olympics after a positive COVID test, said she is looking forward to the challenge of a different kind of court.

“It helps with spacing and the concepts of it. This is a very different game than the 3x3 I've played before," Samuelson said. "So full court just adds a different dimension to it. But yeah, the spacing and understanding, you know where to be, offensively and defensively, it's easier to pick up. And so, you know, hopefully, with that knowledge, my team can trust me and rely on me to be in the right spots and just be a valuable player to our team."

Gray, who won gold in Tokyo, will play for the Lunar Owls in Unrivaled. The team signed a multiyear deal with Cameron Brink, who played for the U.S. in the 2023 FIBA World Cup and was named to the 2024 Olympic team before tearing her ACL in her rookie season with the Sparks, but she won't play in 2025 as she recovers from surgery.

So while Gray won't have the same familiarity with her Unrivaled teammates as other experienced 3x3 players, she knows it's all just basketball.

“It's still kind of different. The pace of the game is different," she said. "But, I mean, it's just hooping. The court is shorter. Three players out there, but it's really no different from the five-on-five."

The 2025 Unrivaled season begins in Miami on Friday, as the Mist takes on the Lunar Owls at 7 p.m. ET, and Rose matches up with Vinyl at 8 p.m. ET. All games will be broadcast on TNT or truTV.