{"id":409557,"date":"2026-01-15T21:44:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T21:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/409557\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T21:44:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T21:44:13","slug":"athletes-unlimited-unveils-star-studded-womens-basketball-roster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/409557\/","title":{"rendered":"Athletes Unlimited unveils star-studded women&#8217;s basketball roster"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jan 15, 2026, 02:05 PM ET<\/p>\n<p>NASHVILLE, Tenn. &#8212; Athletes Unlimited announced a final roster Thursday featuring 20 returning players and 20 newcomers for its fifth season of women&#8217;s basketball starting Feb. 4 in Nashville.<\/p>\n<p>Among the returners are <a data-player-guid=\"ae8d4185-5dc2-d522-e8ed-fb219a1130d4\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/player\/_\/id\/918\/tina-charles\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tina Charles<\/a>, the WNBA&#8217;s all-time leader in rebounds and made field goals, with other WNBA veterans like <a data-player-guid=\"3bcbeadc-7ef5-ea77-1b70-2392df149627\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/player\/_\/id\/3146151\/ariel-atkins\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ariel Atkins<\/a>, <a data-player-guid=\"09609790-79bb-81d4-522b-7a036e404c50\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/player\/_\/id\/924\/alysha-clark\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Alysha Clark<\/a>, three-time Olympian <a data-player-guid=\"01ff0298-57dc-dfde-af86-c862df599b40\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/player\/_\/id\/3142327\/kia-nurse\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kia Nurse<\/a>, <a data-player-guid=\"35267a55-d166-d26f-f64a-cd78632f4e70\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/player\/_\/id\/2529047\/odyssey-sims\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Odyssey Sims<\/a>, <a data-player-guid=\"c673e938-b68c-7787-3f36-7c3ca34ee5cc\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/player\/_\/id\/2999035\/aerial-powers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Aerial Powers<\/a>, <a data-player-guid=\"ff02b428-605d-3fb0-7683-98ff75fa0329\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/player\/_\/id\/2590093\/kiah-stokes\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kiah Stokes<\/a>, <a data-player-guid=\"1ff615cd-0bc6-eff1-8207-e36689c0672c\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/player\/_\/id\/3142086\/brianna-turner\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brianna Turner<\/a>, <a data-player-guid=\"7bce1add-eedb-11c2-3284-1351968dabf2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/player\/_\/id\/2566453\/isabelle-harrison\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Isabelle Harrison<\/a> and <a data-player-guid=\"db6815c3-4df0-d31e-d1ea-aa56cfd8a13c\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/player\/_\/id\/2529185\/bria-hartley\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bria Hartley<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a data-player-guid=\"c4d8f47b-e9d5-16b6-d1d0-9d9f39fdb679\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/player\/_\/id\/3058892\/lexie-brown\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lexie Brown<\/a>, chair of the AU Pro Basketball Player executive committee, also will have her father, former Celtics star Dee Brown, on hand. His title is player enhancement specialist. He will be working with Danielle Viglione helping coaches Zak Buncik, <a data-player-guid=\"ceb0f86f-82e3-72f1-0215-2097b1c7c64c\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/player\/_\/id\/147\/edniesha-curry\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Edniesha Curry<\/a>, Chaz Franklin and Kia Vaughn.<\/p>\n<p>Other players competing include <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/player\/_\/id\/4684384\/aneesah-morrow\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Aneesah Morrow<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/player\/_\/id\/4398776\/nalyssa-smith\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NaLyssa Smith<\/a>, <a data-player-guid=\"5d2a7a9d-9110-3d82-b373-0e795cb29fc2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/player\/_\/id\/4432865\/jacy-sheldon\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jacy Sheldon<\/a>, <a data-player-guid=\"7ebfa5fa-40e4-3bb5-a3a3-91984fc47b8a\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/player\/_\/id\/4433431\/te-hina-paopao\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Te-Hina Paopao<\/a>, <a data-player-guid=\"23b8092f-e8e4-37c9-bda1-0a39591da854\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/player\/_\/id\/4432832\/zia-cooke\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Zia Cooke<\/a>, Deja Kelly, <a data-player-guid=\"29fe074b-4d7f-392e-b8e5-e5e44e035f0d\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/player\/_\/id\/4899328\/kaitlyn-chen\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kaitlyn Chen<\/a>, <a data-player-guid=\"32ac85f3-8056-3b55-bfa3-f848ef92af7c\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/player\/_\/id\/4433386\/jaylyn-sherrod\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jaylyn Sherrod<\/a> and <a data-player-guid=\"d21a1e7d-c02e-3dc6-9ba5-d3e450b4c3b5\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/player\/_\/id\/4597509\/aaliyah-nye\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Aaliyah Nye<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Megan Perry, vice president of basketball for Athletes Unlimited, said this roster features players who want to test themselves against the best. AU&#8217;s format features 5-on-5 basketball.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The depth across all 40 spots is exceptional, and it&#8217;s going to make this one of the most challenging and compelling seasons we&#8217;ve had,&#8221; Perry said.<\/p>\n<p>The 2026 season will be played for a second straight year at Municipal Auditorium in Nashville from Feb. 4 to March 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jan 15, 2026, 02:05 PM ET NASHVILLE, Tenn. &#8212; Athletes Unlimited announced a final roster Thursday featuring 20&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":{"0":"post-409557","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}