On Thursday, news broke that South Carolina women’s basketball legend Aliyah Boston was joining a new league this winter. As many WNBA players do, Boston will spend her offseason playing in another professional league. This one, Unrivaled, was started by All-WNBA talents Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier and will begin its inaugural season this January.
Unrivaled has announced just 30 members of its 36-player league. Boston was No. 30. She joins fellow former Gamecock Allisha Gray among the WNBA stars who will compete this winter. Every player in the league will make a six-figure salary and will have a financial stake in the league.
Six teams will compete for the Unrivaled championship, though, the league has not announced official team rosters. The 3-on-3 games will happen on a smaller court (length-wise) and will take place over the course of eight weeks. There also will be a mid-season 1-on-1 tournament with a $250,000 prize for the winner.
Boston is one of the biggest names joining Unrivaled, along with Stewart, Collier, Angel Reese, Jewell Loyd, and Arike Ogunbowale.
It is unclear how Boston’s Unrivaled schedule might impact her television career. She spent much of last offseason working with ESPN and the BIG Ten network as a studio analyst.
[See the Gamecock discussion on The Insiders Forum!]
During her South Carolina women’s basketball career (2019-2020 through 2022-2023), Aliyah Boston was nothing short of spectacular. The Virgin Islands native accomplished everything that one can accomplish at the collegiate level.
Boston was a National Champion (2021-2022 season). Her team also finished No.1 in the country in the Covid-shortened year (2019-2020). She won the SEC regular season (2019-2020, 2021-2022, and 2022-2023) and SEC Tournament titles (2019-2020, 2020-2021, and 2022-2023) three times. She also was the National Player of the Year (2021-2022 season). No. 4 was the National Defensive Player of the Year twice (2021-2022 and 2022-2023 seasons). Two SEC Player of the Year honors belong to Boston (2021-2022 and 2022-2023) and so do four SEC Defensive Player of the Year trophies. The dominant post player won the Lisa Leslie Award as the nation’s top center all four years of her career. The Gamecock great made the All-American team four times and earned two Academic All-American nods.
Boston sits atop the South Carolina record books in rebounding (she leads the all-time list in both offensive and defensive boards), double-doubles, consecutive double-doubles, and triple-doubles.
Because of her dominance, Aliyah Boston is considered the second-best Gamecock ever (behind A’ja Wilson). The Indiana Fever took her with the top overall pick of the 2023 WNBA Draft, and she has made two WNBA All-Star Games in her first two seasons as a professional.
