The WNBA saw their highest viewership in history on ESPN during the 2024 season, with a 170% increase from the previous season. The Howell Girls Basketball team has also been impacted by this, with a seemingly growing crowd at their games. In early December, the Howell Girls Varsity Basketball team started their season with an away game against Williamston. Since then, the team has had two games per week. 

”Our Hartland game was a girls-boys double header and I think that having that atmosphere [the crowd] there was super awesome and it really helped to keep the energy up on the court and we didn’t have really as many dips as we might otherwise,” Assistant Varsity Girls’ Basketball Coach Ms. Christians said.

Within the past few years, girls’ basketball has gained more attention

from the community and student body. The gaining popularity of professional women’s basketball might’ve also inspired more people to attend high school games. While some people can view a large, noisy crowd as a distraction, others use the crowd’s energy to help motivate them. 

“When the crowd is very loud and enthusiastic, it almost makes us want to work harder because we know we have support behind us, but when it’s pretty dead, then we start to get dead too,” senior varsity basketball player Maurisa Mikus said.

For point guard Mikus, having a big crowd at a game can motivate her. Many of the girls on the varsity team have been playing basketball since elementary school. Teams in the Livingston County area, such as CBC, Junior Highlanders, and TC Elite, give younger girls opportunities to begin their basketball careers. 

”I definitely plan to play in college, I love the sport, and I wouldn’t really know myself without it,” junior varsity basketball player Gabrielle Piepho said. 

For some players, this sport and the Howell High School team has a significant impact on their lives, inspiring them to go on to play after high school. Many of the players college offers can be found shouted out on their Instagram, @HowellHoops. 

During practice, the players work on drills to build up new skills. These skills learned through various drills are then used in scrimmages and carried over to be used during games. The team tends to have different key focuses every week but also some overarching focuses they continue to work on throughout the season. 

”Quick memory has been a theme for the past few weeks. Not getting hung up on mistakes, not beating yourself up over them, knowing that mistakes are going to happen and that we, the coaching staff, have forgotten, so you individually need to forget and move on, go get the next play,” Ms. Christians said. 

The coaching staff wants the girls to quickly move on from their mistakes and continue to put their best foot forward during the game. If they focus on the mistakes that they have made, they may be distracted and not fully in the game mentally. Piepho, Mikus, and Christians noted that the season didn’t start quite how they wanted but that everyone is working their hardest to do the right things to end the season on a higher note. 

“As a team, our biggest challenge is our height. We’re all around probably average 5’8” for height, so playing against a bunch of six-footers, we struggle with that,” Piepho said. 

As the season goes on, the girls’ varsity basketball team continues working through their troubles and figuring out solutions. The girls get together to practice in June, and many of them participate in a Fall league out of Brighton, where they play other high school teams from areas near Howell. 

With their close bond, the Howell girls’ basketball team continues to grow as a group and increase their skills. Although coaching can be difficult work on top of teaching, Ms. Christians finds joy in it. 

“It really is a labor of love, because it’s just really fun,” Ms. Christians said. 

 Being a part of a team may seem scary for some, but in this team, they have continued to work together and inspire each other throughout the seasons.

”The group that we have has been playing together for so long that we’re really good at knowing how each other plays, and we have a really good team chemistry because of it,” Ms. Christians said.