Gold Rush captain in the final two weeks.
SEASON WINDOWAU Pro Basketball yearbooks
OFFICIAL LEAGUE UPDATE · JULY 31, 20262027 is a pause, not a fake schedule.
Athletes Unlimited announced that AU Pro Basketball will pause for the 2027 season while the organization evaluates the league’s next long-term form. We will keep the five completed seasons intact and separate confirmed news from speculation.
Read the official update ↗
2026 SEASON FIVE
Odyssey Sims finally got the crown.
Sims finished first with 6,764 leaderboard points after five AU seasons, 1,420 ahead of runner-up Aneesah Morrow.
Rookie season, second overall.
Glow captain in Week 4.
Nashville Municipal Auditorium · 2026.
THE AU BOARD
2026 Final Leaderboard
AU crowns a player, not a team. Win points, stat points and MVP points all feed one season-long leaderboard.
PLAYER STAT DASHBOARD · AU 2026
All 41 players on the final board.
Search every 2026 participant by final AU leaderboard points, then use the deeper scoring, rebounding, playmaking, defense and shooting columns where the official season stat line is verified. AU points stay separate because they are competition points, not points scored on the court.
FINAL WEEK · 2026
Four named teams, still redrafted every week.
2026 introduced permanent team identities, but the rosters still changed weekly. These are the Week 4 teams, the cleanest snapshot to attach to Playerpedia without pretending the assignment was season-long.
STAT KITCHEN · AU 2026
Traditional box score leaders, separate from AU points.
The player dashboard tracks the full AU scoring system. This kitchen isolates basketball production so points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks can be read on their own.
RESULTS · FINAL WEEK
The last games that closed Season 5.
Final-week results are a snapshot, while the individual leaderboard above remains the championship record.
Odyssey Sims captained Gold Rush to a closing win.
Tina Charles' Rhythm closed the season with a four-point win.
HONORS · 2026
The final podium.
AU's central honor is the season-long individual championship, so the podium stays tied to leaderboard points.
6,764 AU points.
5,344 AU points in her rookie season.
5,269 AU points.
Gold Rush captain in the final two weeks.
THE PIPELINE
AU is an offseason bridge, not a one-way feeder.
Veteran WNBA players, free agents and younger pros share the same pool, then carry those reps back into WNBA camps, overseas seasons and other domestic leagues.
Established players use AU to compete through the winter without leaving the United States.
AU creates current professional tape and measurable performance before WNBA camp decisions.
Younger players get reps against WNBA-level experience instead of waiting for a single tryout window.
We Know the W keeps AU participation connected to each player's current WNBA, free-agent or retired status.
HOW AU WORKS
Fantasy basketball logic, actual professional stakes.
The full field lives in one league roster rather than four permanent franchise rosters.
After each week, the four highest leaderboard scorers become captains for the next draft.
Captains draft Gold Rush, Glow, Rhythm and Eclipse from the available player pool.
The leaderboard follows the player even when her teammates and team identity change.
When the final game ends, the player with the most leaderboard points is the season champion.
FIVE SEASONS OF EXPERIMENTING
From Team Sims to Gold Rush.
AU kept the core weekly-draft format while changing cities, presentation and team identity over time.
The league debuts with weekly captain-named teams and Tianna Hawkins becomes the first basketball champion.
NaLyssa Smith claims the individual championship.
Allisha Gray wins the crown as the player-first scoring model becomes familiar to fans.
Maddy Siegrist wins Season 4. Teams are still identified by captains in the final week, such as Team Siegrist and Team Sims.
Gold Rush, Glow, Rhythm and Eclipse replace the old color-only/captain-facing identity while weekly redrafts remain intact. Odyssey Sims wins Season 5.
AU announces no basketball season while it evaluates the league’s future structure and long-term impact.
THE CHAMPIONS
Five seasons. Five individual winners.
EXPANSION, EVOLUTION + THE PAUSE
Growth does not always mean adding franchises.
For AU, the bigger story is format evolution: a stronger roster, permanent team identities in 2026, ESPN distribution, and now a deliberate 2027 pause.
AU called the Season 5 field its strongest roster to date.
Gold Rush, Glow, Rhythm and Eclipse gave the weekly teams identities fans could recognize even as rosters changed.
The league is paused while AU evaluates how to make its greatest long-term impact.