FCYBL winter travel or year-round AAU team?
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Anonymous
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Our 12 year old son is newly enrolled in our neighborhood NoVA public middle school and interested in NoVA basketball teams. He's advanced, having played on PG county Maryland AAU teams for the past 2+ years. His last team split up so he's looking for a new AAU team, preferably in NoVA, but he's been attending tryouts now in Maryland for the 23-24 season.
We've been told by local coaches and sports parents that, unlike Maryland, the NoVA middle school AAU teams are not holding tryouts to recruit until spring because most teams don't play year round but break for their players to join FCYBL winter season teams November through February. We believe our son has a very good chance of making a FCYBL team (and we've already reached out) but we don't know if it will be better for development and competition to switch him to a local FCYBL team or stick with AAU. It's certainly a lot easier for us to avoid winter commuting to/from practice in PG county and the extra expenses of AAU participation in winter tournaments and leagues. Questions: 1. Will our son be less likely to make a middle or high school team if he's NOT playing in FCYBL? We can't assume coaches will know if a year round Maryland AAU team (not TTO or Durant) is better than FCYBL or if said coaches will assume our son couldn't make a FCYBL team. 2. Do the advanced NoVA players stop playing on FCYBL teams before 8th grade in favor of year round AAU? TIA!! |
Anonymous
| Most kids that are good players do both. |
Anonymous
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The fcybl is a very well run league and you should have your son playing with the club team that feeds into your high school. So if you live in Mclean, you would want him trying out for the mclean or falls church teams.
That way he will be playing with the kids he will attend HS with, your practices will be convenient etc. i am sure you already know that the teams are limited in general to certain zip codes for their players. Many fcybl players do fycbl for winter and then spring aau tryouts happen right at the end of the fcybl season. |
Anonymous
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If he's really good, he should try out for an fcybl team that is planning to play in division 1. That's the best competition.
So he's in 7th grade, right? What zip code are you? |
Anonymous
| Just my 2 cents, i don’t love the parent coach model of FCYBL. My daughter was so much fun to watch playing basketball, but her team’s parent coaches crushed her spirit and she lost interest in basketball. It was fun, until it wasn’t. It’s always hit or miss on coaching, but it’s less likely to work when each coach has a kid playing for the team too… |
Anonymous
The best competition is an aau team playing on a circuit. As kids get closer to high school, it is more likely that their aau teams will continue play over the winter. Any kid on the local county team thinking that it's a direct route to high school is going to wonder what happened when kids play club year round show up to tryouts |
Anonymous
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NP. My DS played for Arlington Travel last year and his coach stated up front that if they join ATB, it should be their first priority for sports starting in Nov/Dec thru Feb, requiring full attendance at all practices. At the time, DS had been recruited to play on an AAU team for winter but he dropped it in favor of ATB. He would have received better coaching on the AAU team and better game competition but at a much higher cost.
Last year, ATB was a much better option for reps because DS's team practiced twice a week and usually played games twice each weekend. And the AAU team practiced twice weekly but didn't play consistently. This year, DS plays on a NoVA AAU team that will stop for FCYBL travel season. But he wants to join a new AAU team that will play thru winter. We face a similar decision. |
Anonymous
| PYBL is another option. Most elite DMV kids play on the league. |
Anonymous
Yes, My kid played on elite “AAU” team, grassroots at this age group. Played all year long in tournament like Hoop group, Made, etc. most of his team also played on PYBL teams as well as the players are elite. The FCYBL is where the good town players go. So if you’re a really good player in McLean, you play FCYBL. My kid chose not to play in FCYBL as it was not competitive enough. However, there are lots of really good players that play there, but the PYBL completion is better. |
Anonymous
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My son played up a year in FCYBL, played winter AAU at the same time (but on a NoVa AAU team that played a reduced schedule since most of the kids were playing FCYBL), and he also played PYBL.
Is a kid penalized in high school for not playing FCYBL? I would not think so, but agree with the poster who noted that skipping FCYBL will mean missing out on potential friendships with a few people who will end up at his high school. Some of the best players in the area played FCYBL, including Darren Harris. Although he did quit playing there at some point, in 7th or 8th. |
Anonymous
My kids' AAU team has more future high teammates than the local FCBYL team. According to my kid when the basketball team has middle school workouts, the coach judges and initially places kids based on their backpacks |
Anonymous
| Which FCPS public high school has middle school basketball team workouts? |
Anonymous
+1. Our large middle class FCPS HS basketball program does not have any such thing. Nor do they have many players from AAU teams. Maybe that's a rich HS kid thing, not sure. FCYBL is not better or worse than AAU. AAU can be terrible teams, or amazing teams. At this point "AAU" is a meaningless phrase. A well-coached FCYBL team is a lot of fun. Kids like representing "Great Falls" against "Springfield" or wherever. The refs aren't trying to rush thru the games like they do in AAU tournaments. Depending on where you live, you could have a lot of great close-by options, or just a few. Teams have to take players from their designated zip codes (they can have two "exceptions" but its best to try to stay close to home and play with other kids your dc will go to HS with, unless the coach is a disaster or your kid can't make that team.) |
Anonymous
| Are the teams that were good last year likely to be good this year? Like if we wanted our dc to only play on a division 1 team, we would take dc to go try out for the teams that were division 1 last year? |
Anonymous
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OP are you already familiar with the zip code restrictions? Getting on an out-of-zip team can be tough. No one wants to cut a returning player and there are strict limits on roster size and out of zip code players (2). You can try out for any team you want, but if you’re out of zip code you’ll need to make sure they actually have room for an out of zip player
http://www.fcybl.org/Page.asp?n=154934&org=FCYBL.COM |