How Andover’s Bella Bouddhara leveled up into a Kansas basketball star
The point of making 500 3s in a day wasn’t just to sharpen Bella Bouddhara’s outside shot.
It was to build something harder to measure: the mental certainty that when the moment came, she had already done the work to deserve it.
That certainty has reshaped Bouddhara’s junior season for the Andover girls basketball team. The 5-foot-8 guard is no longer easing into games or waiting for the offense to find her. She’s hunting shots, playing with purpose and producing at a level that has cemented her status as one of the best players in Kansas high school basketball.
Bouddhara is averaging 22.9 points, 5.4 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 5.3 steals per game, numbers that reflect a clear leap from last season when she was already an All-Metro and all-Class 5A selection by The Eagle. She’s helped lead Andover to an 8-1 start to the season entering Tuesday’s rivalry game against Andover Central.
The leap can be traced to long offseason days when Bouddhara wouldn’t let herself leave the gym until she had canned 500 3s — a challenge set by her summer coaches and trainers, Craig and Aaron Nicholson.
“Honestly, it’s helped me more on the mental side of it,” Bouddhara said. “I know how much work I’m putting in, so I know I need to show it in my game. The repetition and trust built up, knowing I’ve been in the gym. That gives me the confidence to know what I can do.”
That belief has shown up most vividly over the past week. Bouddhara scored 90 points in three games across four days, highlighted by a 35-point outburst with seven 3s in a statement win over Class 6A No. 1-ranked Wichita East. She followed it up less than 24 hours later with 32 points against Derby, another 6A title contender.
“She’s always had it in her, but I think she felt like she had to get everyone involved,” coach Hannah Alexander said. “She still looks for her teammates, but now she’s taking the initiative to really step up. And there’s some great defense being played on her. It wasn’t like she was wide open on a lot of these shots. She just could not be contained.”
Alexander, who was at Topeka before coming to Andover, has seen plenty of elite players in her coaching career. She believes Bouddhara belongs in that category.
“She can really score it in any way, shape or form,” Alexander said. “If you press up on her, she can drive to the basket. She can draw the foul and get to the line. Her 3 has really evolved over these last few games. She’s hitting a ton of shots with a hand in her face. She’s just been able to score at all three levels.”
With Bouddhara on the roster, Andover has won 55 of 59 games — a staggering 93% winning percentage. The Trojans have reached the Class 5A state semifinals for three straight seasons, including the last two with Bouddhara and the rest of her talented junior class in the mix.
While Bouddhara’s talents draw the headlines, Andover’s continuity has been equally important to the team’s success this season. Bouddhara is joined by Grier Hand, Samantha Siegrist, Katie Robert, Asia’h Sullivan and Brynn Eilert in a junior class that has mostly played together since second grade.
That chemistry has helped give Andover balance, as Hand averages 15.3 points and Siegriest adds 9.1 points and 3.3 assists, along with contributions from freshman Alysha Pierce and senior Bella Davis.
“Our team chemistry is so good,” Bouddhara said. “We’re not just friends, we’re like a family. Every huddle, we break it down, ‘Play together.’ That’s what we do.”
Alexander sees Bouddhara’s relentless work ethic behind the scenes as the driver of this leap. It’s common, she said, for the star guard to text during the offseason asking for the keys to the gym.
Now, after all of that work, it’s paying off for Bouddhara and an Andover team that believes it can finally break through and deliver the first state championship in program history. If Bouddhara sustains her current pace, the Trojans see themselves as capable as anyone in the field.
“It’s so much fun to watch her play when she has that edge like she did in the East game,” Alexander said. “When she plays like that, she can kind of carry the whole team with that energy.”
This story was originally published January 13, 2026 at 6:01 AM.
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