At a time when women's basketball is booming and high school girls basketball is bouncing back, New England continues to get left behind.
The latest annual participation survey from the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) counted 362,382 high school girls basketball players nationwide during the 2025-26 school year, an increase of 6,142 from the previous tally. It's a notable change in the context of the last 10 years, when the country's girls basketball participation has nosedived from more than 430,000 players. You can find the full survey here and the organization's press release here.
New England, however did not help the cause. After a slight uptick in 2024-25, the region's girls basketball pool took another hit last year, with the NFHS survey listing just 16,546 total participants. Across the last five surveys, New England's participation has declined roughly 9.51 percent. Since 2004-05, New England has lost more than 28.5 percent of its girls basketball population.
Let's get into some more takeaways from these important yearly check-ins.
