TAMPA, Fla. \u2014<\/strong> Elle Duncan remembers being impressed by Virginia Tech<\/a>. Back in February of 2024, the women\u2019s basketball edition of ESPN\u2019s College GameDay \u2014 of which Duncan is the host of \u2014 went to Blacksburg, Virginia\u2019s Cassell Coliseum to broadcast from an ACC venue for the first time. Thousands of Hokies\u2019 fans showed up early to get in the door to get a spot in the crowd behind the GameDay set. They were loud, rowdy and proud, providing a worthy environment for GameDay ahead of the nationally-ranked Hokies\u2019 matchup with the North Carolina Tar Heels<\/a>.<\/p>\n And then, this past season, Duncan, Andraya Carter and Chiney Ogwumike went to Reynolds Coliseum on the campus of North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Duncan had to readjust her rankings of her top locations she\u2019s done the show from.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we choose very wisely where we go. N.C. State was a really great response,\u201d Duncan told SB Nation at the Final Four. \u201cVirginia Tech was, to me, amazing. It was nuts. Then we went to N.C. State and I was like, \u2018Oh, they beat (Virginia Tech).\u2019 They lined up even earlier.\u201d<\/p>\n Fans posted up outside the historic arena the night before the game. N.C. State coach Wes Moore greeted those passionate supporters with free donuts on Sunday morning, hours before the Wolfpack upset No. 1 Notre Dame<\/a> in double-overtime in front of a sold-out crowd. Before that epic game, those same fans brought an incredible energy as a backdrop to College GameDay.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was my favorite. Should I be saying that? I\u2019m sorry,\u201d Ogwumike says of N.C. State with a laugh. \u201cBut going there was awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n College GameDay is one of ESPN\u2019s iconic brands. The football version of the show began way back in 1987 and started taking its set on the road in 1993 and has transformed into the GameDay that fans are familiar with now, where Lee Corso dons a mascot head at the end of every airing. The coach is set to retire this season as GameDay turns the page with new personalities like Pat McAfee and Nick Saban as its stars.<\/p>\n In 2005, ESPN took the blueprint for its marquee football pregame show and applied it to men\u2019s college basketball. Between that inaugural season of the show and 2021, GameDay took its set to a women\u2019s basketball contest just twice: a Notre Dame at UConn<\/a> clash in 2010 and a Vanderbilt at Tennessee matchup in 2011.<\/p>\n Finally, in 2022, the show came back to women\u2019s college basketball, coinciding with a time in which the sport\u2019s fandom began to boom. There was one show in 2022, three in 2023, five in 2024 and four this past season. There was supposed to be a fifth show this last year, but the game was canceled due to snow.<\/p>\n As the show has returned, grown and created its own loyal and fervent audience, the staples of it \u2014 Duncan, Carter and Ogwumike \u2014 have become stars in their own right and in many ways have developed into the faces of women\u2019s basketball at ESPN.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been awesome,\u201d Carter said. \u201cI\u2019m very happy that they brought us back together. We sort of got to keep the energy and carry that momentum. We\u2019re really good friends, so it\u2019s not like we lose touch and then have to come together and figure out this natural chemistry again. When we come back together, we have all these things that we\u2019ve already talked about, and we have all these inside jokes that we can make, and this energy that never leaves us.\u201d<\/p>\n When they\u2019re breaking down x\u2019s and o\u2019s or discussing the personalities of players and coaches on the air, Duncan, Carter and Ogwumike might disagree on a few things. But when it comes to the future of the women\u2019s college basketball adaptation of College GameDay, they all agree on one fundamental thing.<\/p>\n They want more.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re hoping for even more, right? The hope is that we\u2019re just going to do more of them,\u201d Duncan says. \u201cI definitely think that there is a desire. The sponsorship is there. So, it\u2019s really just about logistics. But that\u2019s always been our hope, to just try to do more, but scale in a way that makes sense.\u201d<\/p>\n Carter adds: \u201cMore shows, bigger crowds, more things.\u201d<\/p>\n And Ogwumike: \u201cThere\u2019s a camaraderie within women\u2019s basketball where we\u2019re all uplifting each other that I feel is very special and very unique. So, the goal is to have more GameDays.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Photo by Cindy Ord\/Getty Images<\/cite><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n This season, there were 16 airings of men\u2019s College GameDay with 10 of those coming from on-site locations. The men\u2019s show began on Jan. 11 from ESPN\u2019s studio in Bristol, Connecticut, while the first of four women\u2019s shows didn\u2019t air until Feb. 16 \u2014 a two-hour special before UConn at South Carolina tipped off in Columbia.<\/p>\n Hosts of the women\u2019s rendition of College GameDay know that they don\u2019t have much control over the schedule, but to help the sport and the show grow, they would like to see it start much earlier in the calendar.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m the wrong person to ask,\u201d Duncan says with a laugh. \u201cIf you asked me, we would be somewhere the very first week. That\u2019s not really how it works. Even with men\u2019s GameDay, they tend to wait until football season starts to wind down, because football GameDay obviously dominates those Saturdays, as it should. But it would be great (to start earlier in the season). We get creative with our GameDays too. We\u2019ll do ones on Thursdays.\u201d<\/p>\n Carter, a former standout player at Tennessee, has worked at ESPN in various roles over the past several years. In addition to her duties as studio analyst for women\u2019s college basketball and the WNBA<\/a>, she\u2019s been a sideline reporter for SEC football games and is also a regular on men\u2019s College GameDay.<\/p>\n In addition to seeing women\u2019s GameDay happen more often and start earlier in the season, she also hopes that it becomes more akin to the version viewers see in men\u2019s basketball and football whereas, it\u2019s not so much a pregame show as it is a standalone show that happens to broadcast live from the biggest game of the week.<\/p>\n \u201cFor a lot of times, our shows are like pregame shows, where it goes right into the game. Then there\u2019s our traditional GameDay show that\u2019s really early where all the fans just come for the show and there\u2019s more fan interaction,\u201d Carter told SB Nation. \u201cI think moving into that space a little bit more \u2014 a show instead of a pregame show \u2014 and having fans come\u2026 Moving into that, finding more windows and also just having more shows. Obviously, as someone that does the men\u2019s College GameDay, there are more Saturdays that we do that than there are Sundays that we do women.\u201d<\/p>\n Duncan adds: \u201cIs this a show that is better served as a pregame to a game that\u2019s going to be on ESPN, or better served as a standalone show, like it is with the men? We\u2019re figuring it out, but the response has been incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"basketball](\"https:\/\/cdn.vox-cdn.com\/thumbor\/QLOLhkPyww182kZM-PIhIaQtrcg=\/0x0:5338x3559\/1200x0\/filters:focal(0x0:5338x3559):no_upscale()\/cdn.vox-cdn.com\/uploads\/chorus_asset\/file\/25967582\/2210293311.jpg\")
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