Stewart scores 32 points, carries Mist to 80-74 win over Plum, Phantom in Unrivaled final

MEDLEY, Fla. (AP) — She was a two-time state champion in high school coming out of the Syracuse area. She then was a four-time NCAA champion at UConn. She’s won three WNBA titles, three World Cup gold medals, three Olympic gold medals, even two EuroLeague titles.

And now, add an Unrivaled title to the mix — a league that she co-founded.

Breanna Stewart has won it all.

Stewart and Mist are the queens of Unrivaled for 2026, topping Phantom 80-74 in the championship game Wednesday night to cap the league’s second season. Stewart scored 32 points, setting the tone by scoring Mist’s first 12 points of the second half and her team — which went 0-2 against Phantom in the regular season — wouldn’t trail again.

“What I’ll remember the most about this Mist team is we might not be the loudest, but we’re going to work the hardest,” said Stewart, who was picked as MVP of the final — and whose team will split a $600,000 winners’ pool.

It ended somewhat controversially: an offensive foul on Stewart was overturned to a block on review, giving her a free throw to win the title. Stewart swished the shot, and confetti fell from the roof in celebration.

“Just focused on doing it for my team,” Stewart said.

Kelsey Plum carried Phantom with 40 points on 14-for-21 shooting, along with six rebounds and five assists.

It was a brilliant effort — but Stewart and Mist had just a bit too much.

“It’s hard when it ends like this,” Plum said. “But overall, it was an amazing season.”

Arike Ogunbowale had 19 and Allisha Gray scored 12 for Mist, while Kiki Iriafen scored 13 and Tiffany Hayes had 12 for Phantom.

“There was complete faith in this group,” Mist coach Zach O’Brien said. “I’m just glad we got it done.”

Stewart and Napheesa Collier are credited as the co-founders of the league, one that if nothing else has filled a void on calendar for the women’s pro game.

“I think that there was a space that wasn’t kind of being used as far as what professional women’s basketball players were doing,” Stewart said. “We used to have a seven-month blackout period where you didn’t know what these professional basketball players were doing. And now you know.”

The question is what comes next.

The WNBA and its players do not have a labor agreement for next season, one that is slated — at this point — to start in about two months. The WNBA has told the players’ union that it needs to get a deal in place by this coming Tuesday to start the season on time.

And for now, there’s no indication that’ll happen. That means the Mist-Phantom final could be the last professional women’s game in the U.S. for a while.

Some will point to poor television ratings as a sign of trouble, while others can point to crowds drawn this season in Brooklyn and Philadelphia as signs of potential for Unrivaled. Players say it works, and there’s no plans to stop now.

“People probably doubt us, that we can sustain it,” Unrivaled CEO Alex Bazzell said. “That’s what drives us and that’s also what drives these players They’re all competitors and we are, too.”

Unrivaled — a 3-on-3, full-court game played on a 72-foot floor, shorter than an NBA or college court — sells itself on being fast-paced, with an 18-second shot clock, 7-minute quarters and plenty of open space for players to create.

The title game didn’t disappoint in that regard.

They were the top two seeds entering the playoffs — Phantom 1, Mist 2 — and Wednesday was back and forth. It was 24-24 after one quarter, 43-43 at the half, neither team having led by more than seven at any point.

Mist led 68-62 going to the fourth, an untimed final quarter where 11 points get added to the leading score as the end-of-game target.

To win the title: first team to 79 wins. Mist scored the first six points of the final quarter, going up by 12. Plum answered with five straight points, pushing her total to 35 for the night and getting Phantom within 74-67.

But Mist held the lead the rest of the way, and Stewart — as she has so many times — had a title to savor.

“It was our goal from Day One to be here, to be on this podium,” O’Brien said.

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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball