In March of 2024, Iowa women’s basketball star Caitlin Clark took the sports world by storm, breaking the all-time division one scoring record and driving up ratings and viewership. Nearly two years into the era of the “Caitlin Clark Effect” and women’s basketball’s fanbase, revenue, and enthusiasm are still through the roof at both the collegiate and professional level–but where does that leave the Mustangs?
Despite the women’s basketball team’s solid record of 14-10, the boys’ games are “definitely more packed and hype,” according to sophomore NCP TV commentator Alex Kim. When asked if he saw a reason for this clear discrepancy, women’s basketball head coach Henry Henderson said, “Boys games just traditionally draw more because it’s more of a social hit than our games.”
The Mustangs are optimistic about the direction the program is heading in, however. Senior point guard Sela Nucum, who recently hit the 1,000 career point marker, said that she joined the new Pep colloquium this semester to “bring more fans to not just women’s games, but also all sports in general at Northside.”
Henderson added, “There is a little bit of a spike [in attendance], but the tsunami is coming…I think we’ll start to see it really hit the high school game in the next couple of years. We’ll start to see those players who were influenced by Clark and now the current players like Lauren Betts and Juju Watkins.” Betts and Watkins are currently starring at UCLA and USC, respectively.
On the court, Caitlin Clark is best known for her deep three pointers. Other young WNBA stars are known for their incredible passing, strong social media presences, and “tunnel fits,” the outfits players wear when arriving for games.
Though arriving in designer suits hasn’t hit NCP hoops just yet, Henderson, Nucum, and Senior Eliza Roffe all agree that three point shooting has “definitely increased” in recent years, resulting in an overhaul of both the offense and defense played by the Mustangs. As more players shoot from beyond the three point arc, spreading players out on offense becomes crucial to getting three point shooters open looks- something defenses have to adjust for as well.
Northside is no stranger to a spread offense, though. “We started spreading the floor because that spreading the floor negates height, [spacing out your offensive players makes it easier to play fast and avoid getting blocked by a taller defense] and we’ve always told our kids they can shoot the three, but until recently, the last two years, we hadn’t really shot at all that much, and… a lot of games this year, we lived and died by the three,” Coach Henderson explains, highlighting the on-court changes.
Sold-out WNBA games and millions of viewers may not mean that high school girl’s basketball is magically as popular as men’s. However, players like Clark, Paige Bueckers, and Chicago’s own Angel Reese have made a definite impact on the world women’s basketball that will continue to grow the game- even here at NCP.
