Last year’s Full Court Press women’s NCAA basketball docuseries proved to be a remarkable moment. The series, from Omaha Productions, Words + Pictures, and ESPN, followed Caitlin Clark, Kamilla Cardoso, and Kiki Rice through a wild season that saw massive interest in them, especially around Clark breaking the NCAA scoring record.
So how do you follow that up?
That was a key question around the second season of Full Court Press, which was green-lit last May. The first season drew a lot of attention, but there was discussion of how much of that was the Clark effect. And that fit into wider discussions about where women’s college basketball ratings would go post-Clark. Indeed, season one director Kristen Lappas even told Awful Announcing last spring “We caught lightning in a bottle” in terms of how well things broke for the first season of the show.
But the post-Clark era has seen ratings interest in women’s college basketball continue, with even some year-over-year growth. And that’s promising for the second season of Full Court Press, which premieres Saturday. Its first two episodes will air at 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. ET on ESPN, with the final two airing May 11 at 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. ET on ESPN2, and with all episodes available on ESPN+ following their airing.
Nikki Spetseris, who directed the second season of Full Court Press, spoke to AA on that this week. She said there were some questions on how to follow up the first season, but this one (covering Notre Dame sophomore guard Hannah Hidalgo, LSU junior guard Flau’jae Johnson and USC graduate student forward Kiki Iriafen) came together to provide its own unique set of stories.
“I think last season was amazing, but obviously they had a superstar, and a tangible thing to follow, which was her record-breaking season,” Spetseris said. “No one knew what to expect this season: will we live up to the hype of of the first one? And I think it’s almost more exciting, because we have…I don’t want to say they didn’t have three big personalities, but I do think that every woman got the same airtime [in S2], and we got to put a spotlight on three different personalities, programs, backgrounds, equally, and follow those stories.”
Telling three unique athletes’ stories
Each of those athletes has quite a different story. Spetseris said Johnson’s is a combination of her playing success, her business success, and her personal background.
“Flau’jae Johnson, the first time I met her in person, she just walked into the room, and there was this air about her. You’re like ‘She is a superstar.’ She just has that energy and that feeling around her. Not only are these three women amazing athletes, and we were able to see that, the discipline and the work they put in every day, but I think with Flau’jae, it’s the story off the court.
“I think her backstory is so inspiring, growing up with a single mom and her dad passed away while her mom was still pregnant with her. And she’s then pursuing his kind of rap career. I think she stands out with her off-the-court story. Also, she has more NIL deals than almost any college basketball player. So that was kind of interesting to follow, just a business mogul, musician, and athlete.”
With Hidalgo, Spetseris said the docuseries shows off a side of her that fans might not expect.
“Hannah Hidalgo, I think people see her on the court and she’s so fiery. Those were some of the the games I looked forward to the most, watching her out there flexing, doing her Incredible Hulk and just getting her team and the crowd amped up.
“I think what was cool to figure out with her, which we talked about in the series, is that off the court, she’s not like that at all. She’s really mellow. She’s really calm. She’s kind of quiet. So I think that makes her very interesting. There’s something that’s stepping out onto the floor and being under the lights and being around the crowd that just flips the switch for her.”
And with Iriafen, Spetseris said the show got a chance to watch her grace under pressure during difficult times.
“Kiki was kind of the player that maybe myself and my whole team knew the least about going into the show, and she just continued to impress us. I think of just grace when I think of her. She’s really poised. They really all were vulnerable and let their personality show, but I think there were some moments with Kiki where there were some growing pains at the beginning of the season, airing out chemistry with her new team and what her role was.”
One moment in particular with Iriafen stood out for Spetseris.
“We had a really interesting moment with her after the Notre Dame-USC game. She had a really tough time, and she opened up to us and she gave a teary interview about the turning point that that game created for her. That took a lot of guts.
“And at first she didn’t want to talk about it. But we kind of stressed the importance of showing the highs and lows; ‘You’re a gorgeous, talented athlete, let young women know that you have struggles too.’ With her, I was just really impressed how she opens up. And she has this grace that maybe we didn’t know at first, that she was so poised that way.”
Another element with Iriafen was her academic work in grad school and how she balanced that with on-court play.
“With Kiki, that was just a little bit more of her story,” Spetseris said. “I mean, graduating Stanford in three years is insane. So certainly that just became a little bit more of her story arc than the other two women.”
Maintaining women’s college basketball’s momentum
Overall, Spetseris said she sees this season of Full Court Press as proof there are still incredible stories to cover in women’s college basketball even after Clark.
“The time and place we’re at, wondering if this was just a moment in time with women’s basketball, I think we were able to help prove that it isn’t, and keep that momentum going.”
Speaking of maintaining momentum, Spetseris said coming into an established series like this actually had some benefits, with her able to build on the work Lappas had done.
“I think as filmmakers, we always want to put our stamp on things. But for me, I just remember when I first got the call and first started talking about the show. I just kept saying like ‘You know, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel.’
“They’d already set so many things in motion that were successful, even kind of like a rough formula for ‘Here’s what we track over the season, and here’s our graphics look.’ And we had a composer. There were so many things that I usually have to worry about that were just already set up that I could really focus on getting to know these women, and their stories, and how do we tell the best stories? So I actually felt really lucky that I could just focus on the fun stuff, if you will: Kristen had already put a lot in motion. So that was great.”
Spetseris and her team did make some changes here and there, though. That included more emphasis on practices and on some different interview settings.
“They didn’t do so many practices last season, and I tend to just love that process of seeing what you work on in practice and then seeing it play out in a game. So I think that was kind of an interesting little added thing.
“And Kristen had these epic interviews that were so gorgeous, where these women were the center of the room, and we loved that. But I feel like just to get to know them, we kind of started, like with this vulnerable interview I was talking about with Kiki, that was just in her bedroom on her bed in the afternoon. And we tried to craft a few intimate moments like that, where maybe they would open up in a different way.”
She said the series’ focus on telling the stories of each athlete on and off the court remains, though.
“You’re always trying to get that right combination as a filmmaker: what will get the best result, what will make people the most comfortable? So we played around with that a little bit, and that served us well. But generally the storytelling, I just feel like it’s really ‘What’s the flow of the story and how do you mix these three characters together?’
“And for me, the mark of success is always, I mean, we hope people watch, but ‘Do you care about these characters and care about these women after you watch the show, and do you want to tune in and and hear more? Do you want to follow their games? Are are they relatable in some way?’ I think Kristen did a great job at that, and I think that I’ve done and my team has done a great job with that this season.”
The logistical hurdles of a multi-athlete series
It’s a lot of work to pull off a docuseries covering three athletes across three different schools over the course of six months, though. Spetseris said her team was critical to making that happen.
“For this project, we’ve been following these women for about six months, obviously their season story arc, but also injuries and birthdays and family events. And you really are embedded. I just want to shout out the women for letting us in and being so vulnerable. But also, I had like a forty-person team, the people in the field and the cameras and editors and assistant editors, and then the three field producers.
“I’m not everywhere, I’m also running four edit rooms while we’re filming, so we have three field producers that were just out there, and they’re the ones that really become like family to the women. Shout out to them and the rest of the crew, because it really is a team effort on this one.”
She said another particular challenge with a project like Full Court Press is that these athletes are all busy, and have frequent short-notice schedule changes.
“The logistics of it are the most difficult part. And I also think that because they’re young women, they have a lot of scheduling changes. We would fly somewhere and we’d have a day planned and then all of a sudden a practice would get scheduled, or a time would change for a practice or a workout or training session, or maybe a NIL commercial shoot would pop up.”
Spetseris said the key from her perspective is being flexible there.
“I think that you just have to be, most people that produce and direct are really type A, and I think you have to let a little of that go when you’re doing documentary work, particularly with college athletes. I got a lot of mid-day or late-night phone calls about, ‘Hey, this isn’t happening anymore, what should we do now,’ and just brainstorming on the fly.”
And that flexibility led to some benefits for the series, including an unexpected chance to connect with Johnson at a key moment.
“After LSU’s Elite Eight loss, we ended up just by chance being on the same flight as Flau’jae going to Atlanta,” Spetseris said. “We saw her at the airport. We just thought, ‘Oh my God, we need to get a shot of her on the plane.’ We filmed her right after the loss. So we have her at the airport, in an airplane.
“And then it was kind of this discussion, basically like midnight that night, ‘Do we just stay in Atlanta and film with her the next day? Because how crazy is that access?’
“There’s a lot of that last-minute decision making in the show. And the games are at night and on the weekends, all the stuff. So we did definitely live and breathe it the last six months, which was really fun. But also, we all need naps now.”
While projects like this do take a massive amount of work, Spetseris is optimistic Full Court Press can pave the way for more docuseries on female athletes.
“I’ve been doing this almost 20 years, and this is one of the first shows I’ve done with female lead athletes. And the majority of my team behind the scenes, shoutout to the guys that were on our team too, but we had a a strong female-led team. And just knowing my own personal energy for it and my team, for us, we feel like, ‘Oh my God, this is such a long time coming. This is just the beginning.’
“Now it’s such a rare thing, there’s still not enough of these docs out there. But I think hopefully really soon they’ll just be good docs and great athletes and all that stuff that they are. I think now it’s so new still that there’s such a focus on these being female-led stories, right? So for me, no, I never worry, because I know how me and all my friends think, and they’re like ‘More of this.'”
