Happy Monday, Ball-Knowers!

Our team at NCS hopes that all of you have had a wonderful holiday season so far and are looking forward to a new year ahead. For most of the last month, we’ve been building out our strategy for 2026. From big projects to smaller content changes, it’s part of our constantly evolving project to make No Cap Space WBB the home of the best women’s basketball coverage out there.

If you haven’t subscribed (as either a free or paid member), now is the time to click the button or convince some others to do so. Our 25% off special on upgraded subscriptions is still in effect until 11:59 pm ET on New Years Eve. So if you’re still looking for a late gift for the Ball-Knower in your life, there’s never been a better time. You also get access to our Discord server and full access to our paywalled YouTube content as well.

Now that the sales pitch is out of the way, let’s talk some hoops.

On to the column!

Ask any sneakerhead and they’ll tell you that Nike has fallen off as a culture-defining shoe brand in recent years. From a lack of innovation to limited drops, the Swoosh had basically turned itself into a fast-fashion mill of recycled ideas at exorbitant prices. But in the last year, the company jettisoned their borderline-useless CEO John Donahoe (who is now the Athletic Director at Stanford) and brought back longtime Nike vet Elliott Hill. The results have been almost immediate.

The ball has gotten rolling on A’ja Wilson’s brand and shoe line and, on Christmas Day in the NBA, Caitlin Clark unveiled her new campaign: #FromAnywhere. While it’s very different in substance than the ‘A’One’ rollout, their stories both hit similar beats. Both Clark and Wilson’s video’s both included childhood teams, former coaches and motifs of home and where they started.

The Kelce brothers and Travis Scott made cameos. Saturday Night Live star Michael Che also was popped in, as Clark poked fun about his past comments deriding the women’s game. Just as an aside, I don’t love rewarding him with a spot in the ad because ultimately, I doubt Che’s views have changed much. But for the broader audience watching, it’s a fun little dunk-on-him moment. From a marketing standpoint, ‘From Anywhere’ is great because of how open ended it is. In fact, if I were Steph Curry, I’d be pretty pissed at Under Armor because why had no one thought of that for him yet?

Between Clark, Wilson, Sabrina Ionescu and Paige Bueckers, it finally feels as though Nike understands what they have in women’s basketball. Even as Reebok, New Balance and Adidas fight for market share, there is still no apparel brand like the Swoosh in sports. To have them fully invested in women’s basketball is a cultural signifier that the game is officially here.

Many of you that subscribe and read our stuff heavily probably know that my second love in sports is college football. If you follow me over on Bluesky, you’re likely to some CFB musings interspersed with women’s basketball news and notes. In the last couple of weeks, one thing I’ve really been interested in is the balance of shifting power from the SEC to the Big Ten. As NIL and revenue sharing give more schools an opportunity to flex their financial muscle, the power of the sport is actually moving up north. While the same can’t be said in women’s basketball just yet, it sure feels as though the Big Ten is a lot deeper this year than we originally anticipated.

Ohio State got within single digits a few times against UCLA on Sunday, showing that they’ve got the juice to be a real deep Tournament threat. Jaloni Cambridge, by the way, is the best player we aren’t talking about in women’s college basketball. Then we have Nebraska, who somehow lost their core and came out stronger behind Britt Prince. Michigan State, who lost to Wisconsin already, went out and beat Ole Miss, one of the six best teams in the SEC, last weekend.

While there’s a reasonable question to ask about if UCLA is truly a title contender in a field with Texas, UConn and South Carolina, I have a feeling there are three Elite Eight teams hiding in this field somewhere. And that’s before you get to some other programs that feel like they could be sneaky tough in March. It’s safe to argue that the biggest heavyweight matchups this year will be in the SEC, I’d also contend that the Big Ten will give you the most bang for your buck week-to-week in terms of really fun basketball to watch.

I’ll try to temper my take slightly given that Texas Tech’s road win over Baylor comes during a time when the Bears are still without Taliah Scott. She played just two minutes against the Red Raiders after suffering an injury against Texas a week earlier. But even with that in mind, I think it’s time to talk about Tech as a legit Tournament team that can make some people’s lives hard in the Big 12 this year. Every season, it’s felt as though Krista Gerlich is on the precipice of breaking through. Things are stable in Lubbock but not exceeding any kind of expectation.

A win over an established Big 12 brand like Baylor, albeit without their leading scorer, is the type of cultural win that can help push your program in the direction you want. And that’s before you factor in two SEC wins over Mississippi State and Arkansas. With a relatively easy start to the Big 12 season ahead (the biggest challenge between now and the end of the month being a road game at West Virginia), we could be talking about Texas Tech as a potential top 16 team by the time they see Iowa State and TCU.

Just before the holiday break, the WNBPA decided to authorize a strike should it be necessary. It’s the latest salvo in one of the more trench-warfare style labor battles we’ve seen in the last decade of professional sports. NBA commissioner Adam Silver has started to wade into the waters, being seen by some as a helping hand and others as a final ‘take it or leave it’ figure.

I’ve been pro-labor from the jump. Not only do I feel that WNBA players have been severely undervalued since the league’s inception, I think there is reasonable evidence over the last 20 years — from cagey corporate speak to ESPN’s Mark Shapiro flat out admitting it — that there are people genuinely invested in not letting the WNBA grow to its full potential. That said, I think it’s important for readers to know that I have lines too.

If there was a proposal for a 25-30% revenue share for the players that didn’t require any criteria to trigger it, I’d be on YouTube immediately imploring the PA to take it. While I would like to believe it would be better for the game in the long term for the WNBA to disband in order to free itself of NBA conflicts of interest and influence, I understand the sport is in a place where doing so would be disastrous. The Players Association seems to understand that too, which is why this strike authorization reads less to me as a mark of indignance and more a plea for sanity to prevail.

Nobody wants there to be a labor stoppage and absolutely nobody wants to see the momentum of women’s basketball to stop. Nobody except the WNBA, who seem more interested in getting back at the players for having the fortitude to stand on business than they are making a deal. If this does end up with a strike being declared, then the players will find that there is a lot more support out there than they think. And, as I’ve been saying since the beginning, how long will it take until non-NBA affiliated owners ask to take their ball and go where the labor’s going?

After UCLA beat Ohio State in Columbus on Sunday, Cori Close told Orange County Register writer Ben Royer about her disappointment in how little media coverage there was of the game. Friend of NCS Thomas Costello, a great Ohio State/Big Ten WBB writer to follow , was covering the game and similarly made note of the lack of press presence.

Some of this makes sense, when you think about it from a media resource and staffing standpoint. In Columbus, where most media outlets are already on tight margins as it is, the king of content is Ohio State football and right now the Buckeyes are getting ready for a narratively juicy College Football Playoff Quarterfinal game against Miami. In local TV, that travel can be sponsored and a source of revenue for cash strapped stations. For newspapers, it means clicks and readers that are barely hanging in as it is.

It forces newsroom and sports department leaders into difficult situations. The problem is that those choices have calcified into institutional beliefs like ‘Everyone who cares about women’s basketball is probably there anyway’. Having people that care about the sport is the first hurdle. Having the people that care convince people that barely care about women’s sports is the next hurdle. Convincing newsroom leaders that barely care about sports at all is the final one.

What Close is frustrated about is completely valid and a failure of our industry to pivot and adapt to a new future. But it’s also what’s opened the door for outlets like No Cap Space WBB to exist. As the media landscape changes, more journalists are adapting with it. While there isn’t a yet a good structure to allow independent media to group together and equitably flourish, it’s definitely coming particularly in women’s sports.

All that to say that Cori Close is right but, hopefully, she won’t be for much longer.

Jaloni Cambridge Needs More Media Coverage

We’ve already started putting together story pitches here at NCS but I’ve seen enough. The Ohio State guard is an absolute blast-in-a-glass and needs some more recognition.

Top 5 Matchups Need to Stop Being At Neutral Sites

We talked about it on YouTube today but the strength of college basketball — men’s or women’s — is in the atmosphere. When you take high level games and sequester them purely at neutral venues that get maybe four or five thousand fans, it doesn’t do the game any good. We’re still growing the sport, after all. Chasing casuals in the early season when you’re competing with football isn’t a winning strategy just yet.

Can Richmond and Princeton Actually Be A Cinderella Story This Year?

One thing the transfer portal has really tilted is the ability of mid-major programs to maintain roster consistency over the course of a recruiting cycle. While that’s made the middle tier of power programs better, it’s also completely gutted the part of the NCAA Tournament many of us love: the upsets. This year, pickings are slim in the mid-majors and many conferences are down this year. Richmond and Princeton are the two that stick out but will their in-conference success lead to a seed too high for them to make a second weekend?