Last season, Mist BC was one of the two teams that didn’t make the playoffs despite having a solid mix of veteran experience, young athleticism, and just overall talent. The roster featured Breanna Stewart, Jewell Loyd, Rickea Jackson, DiJonai Carrington, Courtney Vandersloot, and Aaliyah Edwards. One big reason for the team’s struggles was that Stewart played through an injury.
Just a year later, the revamped team looks like a legitimate contender, and there is one obvious reason for this change. Mist head coach Zach O’Brien nailed the draft in which most players were reallocated. He was able to protect Stewart and added Allisha Gray, Arike Ogunbowale, Veronica Burton, Alanna Smith, and Li Yueru.
The guard rotation, especially, has been excellent. Landing Gray, who finished the 2025 season sixth in points per game was an absolute steal.
Mist BC built a strong roster around Breanna Stewart this season
The Mist’s roster was bound to change. Jewell Loyd, DiJonai Carrington, and Courtney Vandersloot aren’t playing in Unrivaled this season. Replacing them with Burton, Gray, and Ogunbowale has been a success so far.
Allisha Gray is one of the best scorers in the league and complements Stewart well. She has only scored fewer than 20 points once. Not many players can contain Gray in a one-on-one setting, which can easily spell disaster with all of the spacing 3x3 basketball creates.
Veronica Burton may not be a big-time scorer like Gray, but she is a great role player to have next to her and Stewart. Burton is an excellent defender and leads Unrivaled in steals per game. She is also a good playmaker, who can run the offense and get Gray, Stewart, and Ogunbowale good looks they don’t have to create themselves.
Ogunbowale was limited to only eight games of action last season, and she often struggled to make shots. This year, she has been pretty efficient, shooting 42.2% from the field, and has provided a great scoring punch off the bench.
Stewart takes up a big chunk of the minutes the Mist have available for bigs, so the roster needed to feature backups who could impact winning without getting a ton of playing time. Li Yueru and Alanna Smith have shown the ability to do that. Yueru dropped 13 points in just four minutes of playing time against the Lunar Owls, and Smith recorded five blocks in just 11 minutes in the Mist’s season opener.
Nola Henry, who was able to retain four of the players from her championship roster, also had a great draft, and Noelle Quinn undoubtedly assembled the most intriguing team by selecting Paige Bueckers, Rickea Jackson, Dominique Malonga, and Cam Brink. Still, Mist might have won the draft.