Tampa, Fla. – Elle Duncan remembers being impressed by Virginia Tech. In February 2024, the ESPN’s College Gameday female basketball edition, or Duncan is the host of, went to Blacksburg, the Cassell de Virginia coliseum to transmit from an action for the first time. Thousands of Hokies fans appeared early to get into the door to get a place in the crowd behind the set set. They were strong, noisy and proud, providing a decent atmosphere for the game game before the confrontation of Hokies classified by El Nacional with the North Carolina Tar Heels.
And then, last season, Duncan, Andray Carter and Chiney Ogwumike went to the Reynolds Coliseum on the Campus of the North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Duncan had to readjust his classifications of his best locations from which he has done the program.
“I think we chose very wisely where we are going. The state of NC was a great answer,” Duncan told SB Nation in the Final Four. “Virginia Tech was, for me, incredible. I was crazy. Then we went to NC State and I said:” Oh, they defeated (Virginia Tech). “They aligned even before.”
Fans posted outside the historic sand the night before the game. The NC State coach, Wes Moore, greeted those passionate followers with free donuts on Sunday morning, hours before Wolfpack disturbed No. 1 Notre Give me in extra time in front of a crowd with exhausted tickets. Before that epic game, those same fans brought incredible energy as a backdrop for the university.
“That was my favorite. Should that say? I’m sorry,” says Ogwumike about NC state with a smile. “But going there was amazing.”
College Gameday is one of the iconic brands of ESPN. The football version of the program in 1987 and began taking its set on the road in 1993 and has become the game with which fans are now familiar, where Lee Corso puts on a pet head at the end of each air. The coach will retire this season as Gameday turns the page with new personalities such as Pat McAfee and Nick Saban as his stars.
In 2005, ESPN, the plan of his marquee football preach show and applied it to male university basketball. Between that opening season of the show and 2021, Gameday Tok’s game was established in a female basketball contest only twice: A Notre Dame at Uconn Clash in 2010 and a Vanderbilt At Tessee Matheree in 2011.
Finally, in 2022, the show returned to female university basketball, coinciding with a time when the sport fandom was boom. There was a show in 2022, three in 2023, five in 2024 and four last season. There was supposed to be a fifth show this last year, but the game was canceled due to snow.
As the show has returned, grown and created its own loyal and avid audience, its basic products, Duncan, Carter and Ogwumike, have become stars in their own right and, in many ways, they have become the faces of Bassbeall female.
“It’s amazing,” Carter said. “I am very happy that we have united us again. We have to maintain energy and carry that impulse. We are really good friends, so it is not as if we lose contact and there is all the return. Things we have already spoken, and we have all these internal jokes that we can do, and this energy that never leaves us.”
When they are breaking X and O or arguing the personalities of players and coaches in the air, Duncan, Carter and Ogwumike could disagree with some things. But when it comes to the future of the adaptation of female university basketball of College Gameday, everyone agrees on a fundamental thing.
They want more.
“We hope even more, right? The hope is that we are going to do more of them,” says Duncan. “I definitely think there is a desire. Sponsorship is there. So, it’s really just about logistics. But that is always our hope, just try to do more, but climb in a way that makes sense.”
Carter adds: “More shows, larger crowds, more things.”
And Ogwumike: “There is a camaraderie within female basketball where we are all raising each other that I think is very special and very unique. So, the goal is to have more play games.”
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Photo by Cindy Ord/Getty Images
This season, there were 16 transmissions of the male university game with 10 or those from locations on the site. The male show begged on January 11 from the study of ESPN in Bristol, Connecticut, while the first of the four female shows did not broadcast until February 16 to the special of two hours before UCONN in South Carolina was inclined in Columbia.
The hosts of the female interpretation of College Gameday know that they do not have much control over the schedule, but to help the sport and the program to grow, they would like them to begin much earlier in the calendar.
“I am the wrong person to ask,” says Carter with a smile. “If you asked me, we would be somewhere in the first week. This is not really how it works. Even with the men’s game, they tend to wait until the football season begins to fill, because Gameday football is great (to start at the beginning of the season).
Carter, a former player in Tennessee, has worked in ESPN in several roles in recent years. In addition to its duties as a study analyst for women’s university basketball and WNBA, she has been a secondary reporter for the SEC soccer games and is also a regular in the male university game.
In addition to seeing that the Day of Women’s Game occurs more frequently and begins at the beginning of the season, also expects to become more similar to the version that viewers see in basketball and male football, while it is not so prior to the program that it is a live chat independent one last cave of one week standing.
“For many times, our shows are like shows prior to the game, where it goes directly to the game. Then it is our traditional game game program that is very early where all fans have just seen the program and there is more interaction of fans,” Carter said. “I think that we go to that space a little more, a show of a show prior to the game, and make fans come … move to that, find more windows and also just have more shows. Obviously, since some of the days dated days days days days days days days days days days days days days share the days of two days days days sharing Dag Goeday Goeday Dagnays Dayys Dagnays Dagnays Dagnays Dagnays Dagnays Dayys Shareday Shareday What do Women “.
Duncan adds: “Is this a show that is better served as a game prior to a game that goes in ESPN, or better served as an independent show, as it is with men? We are discovering it, but the answer is abruptly.”
For example, all female players shows this season led to a game that was transmitted by one of the ESPN family networks, either ESPN, ESPN2, ABC, the SEC network or the ACC network. That has been true of 12 of the 13 shows of university players of women since 2022, with the only exception made for a confrontation classified between the state of Ohio and Iowa by Caitlin Clark on March 3, 2024 that was issued in Fox.
Meanwhile, the football player left last season from the five -game places that were not broadcast on ESPN platforms. The football program has always followed the great story, regardless of the conference and regardless of where the game is transmitted.
That raises a frustration by Ogwumike, who points out that the game did not show this season from Los Angeles, at home with two of the best programs in the country and two or the best players. Juju Watkins of the USC was the national consensus player of the year, while Lauren Betts promoted UCLA to his first appearance in Final Four.
“We were to go to Los Angeles,” says Carter. “USC or UCLA are obvious that we would love to do.”
But both schools play in Big Ten, where their games are transmitted by NBC and Fox. Another argument is that the Big Ten school generally does not play Sunday as the SEC and the ACC teams and when the female are usually transmitted. However, USC and UCLA played a team of seven big games at home last season. There were opportunities for the game to go to the city of Los Angeles.
“Very good, I’m on my agenda, my little upper horse now,” Ogwumike starts. “I would really want this to be the year we had the Los Angeles basketball (in Gameday). Tips of Titurs, therefore, can reach the types.
Since 2022, Gameday women have gone to seven SEC locations, four ACCCE games and two Big Ten games. You still have to travel to a place that houses a school in Big East, Big Ten or Big 12, much less a medium -sized conference.
“We have Ucennon here in the final and we did it to go to Storrs. That is in the backyard (of ESPN),” says Ogwumike, a former PAC-12 player of the former twice in Stanford. “And I know the best executives who are trying to make the best decisions for us, but I hope we find ways to tell those athletes stories. As, they imagine that they are going to see Paige in the last year seeing Juju. That type of that type of such such such one of that type of that type of that type of that type of that type of such such thing of such things of things of things.” “” “” “” “” “” “”. “” “” “
ESPN has this fall to satisfy the appeals of Gameday stars. While the contest will lack Watkins, who can miss the entire next season, since he recovers from a tragic knee injury, the USC is the host of South Carolina in what will be a confrontation that must be seen on November 15. Folded “The Real SC” Battle, the game will be played on a Saturday and will be for Fox.
Are ESPN willing to step on the feet of university football and play a west coast played by a rival, so it can have a presence in the most anticipated female basketball clash of the year not with the conference?
When the game was announced, Duncan says that the crew sent an email to his bosses.
“It was like,” then, are we here then? “That is a previous season confrontation,” says Duncan. “But that would be an absolute dream.”
