SPOKANE, Wash. — Women's college basketball is soaring in popularity.
This year's Big Ten Championship game that featured Iowa star Caitlyn Clark, was the most watched women's basketball game on CBS in nearly 25 years.
Perhaps more than ever, people are tuning in to see these women stars shine. Stars like Clark, South Carolina's Kamilla Cardoso and Gonzaga's own Yvonne Ejim.
"I feel like we've seen like a definite shift in kind of like the attention that we get just from women's college sports and women's college basketball," said Ejim. " I feel like more people are talking about it and noticing it."
Ejim, who recently announced she'll be returning to the Kennel to play for another season, says she's definitely seen an increase in support, especially from their home crowd.
"It's definitely been a blessing to play in this environment with all these like supportive people," said Ejim. "And the kind of the energy that we've received, especially this year has just been phenomenal. Every single game, we come to the Kennel like, it's just a lot of high energy and a lot of hype."
Head Coach Lisa Fortier, has lead the Zags for nearly 10 years and says she still meets people out who are surprised to find out how good her team is.
"People say to us all the time, I couldn't get tickets to this game or that game, but I came to your game, and I didn't even want to go to the other games anymore," said Coach Lisa.
The Zags are no strangers to the spotlight, but this year there is quite a bit of hype growing around the team.
"I think that we play an exciting brand of basketball and the Troungs you know the passes that they make to each other, Brynna making all of these threes, Eliza making all these threes. We got Yvonne doing basically everything else that needs to be done out there on the court," said Coach Lisa. "It's the style I think, and it's fast paced, and it's exciting. And in our games, a lot of times there's people who don't know a ton about basketball, but they love the players and that we're part of the community."
An entire community, all supporting their Zags.
"I know that what we do is collective, right, so just like what we're doing as a team is not just because of Yvonne or just because of Lynne (Kaylynne) or just because of Leigh (Kayleigh) or anybody else," said Coach Lisa. "And what we do with our team is not just because of us, you know our guys being good is great for us and we collaborate a ton. So I try to always be gracious but I do not have a problem making sure that they know that our our women's team is really good too."
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