2020 WNBA Season: New Year Tips-Off Saturday, Two Beavers Alumni Set To Play

The 2020 WNBA season is slated to tip-off on Saturday, July 25th at noon (eastern time) on ESPN, with their season’s restart “bubble” based out of IMG Academy in Florida. The campaign will contain 22 regular season games and playoffs, which will conclude in October.

The big news for Oregon State fans is that former Beavers Sydney Wiese, who signed a contract extension this off-season, and Marie Gulich will both be suiting up for the Los Angeles Sparks. However, 2020 third-round WNBA draft pick Mikayla Pivec will not play for the Atlanta Dream due to “personal reasons”.

The Sparks season begins at 3 PM (eastern time) on Saturday and features a strong match-up between Los Angeles, led by Candace Parker, Nneka Ogwumike and Chelsea Gray, and Phoenix, who is anchored by the trio of Diana Taurasi, Brittney Griner and Skylar Diggins-Smith.

That game will be preceded by a match-up between the New York Liberty and the Seattle Storm, which officially kicks off the campaign at noon (eastern time). Sabrina Ionescu, the first overall pick in the 2020 WNBA Draft, will debut for the Liberty against the Storm’s Breanna Stewart, the league’s 2018 Most Valuable Player.

The Saturday slate will be rounded out by a meeting between the Indiana Fever and Washington Mystics at 5 PM (eastern time).

Overall, the excitement around this WNBA season parallels very few in years past and the national attention of the league is reaching an incredibly high level with a full, nationally televised slate on their debut weekend.