5th Gr Boys- Best AAU teams?

[Anonymous]

Hi - my son is a great basketball player, but not sure where to start with AAU teams in the DC area. What are the most competitive teams for 5th grade boys?

[Anonymous]

Takeover and Durant.

[Anonymous]

I’d cast a wide net. Where do you live?

[Anonymous]

There are tons of AAU basketball teams, so location and talent level are really important to know (there’s really good and then there’s REALLY good) and height obviously matters a lot, but my son plays on the 5th grade level and these are some teams I’ve been impressed by in tourneys.

Team Takeover and Durant - the same guy comes on here and says this is where you have to play if you’re any good. It would be great to make these teams, don’t get me wrong, but there are more than two good AAU teams in the DMV.
AP Wolverines
Nova 94 - good if you want to stay in NOVA
Team Total
Next Gen Force
MD Revolt
DC Blue Devils
PPA Premier

A lot of these AAU teams aren’t super organized or just have one really good group at a specific age. The St James, PPA Premier and Pat the Roc seem to be fielding multiple teams and bringing a little more organization and a travel soccer style setup to their programs, which has pros and cons.

[Anonymous]

You want your kid on a team he can start. Otherwise they take your $ and he sits on the bench.

[Anonymous]

We live in Bethesda area. He plays other sports so I need some level of flexibility. He tends to always be the best player on the court in every game he plays and I just want to raise the talent level and have him challenged more. He plays in that local league with PPA, Pat the Roc, MADE & Rebels currently.

[Anonymous]

What team is he on in that league? Do you go to tournaments too? Between the league and the tournaments, you should see enough other teams to know where a good upward jump might be. My son also plays in that league, and I haven’t seen one player dominate any of the games….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We live in Bethesda area. He plays other sports so I need some level of flexibility. He tends to always be the best player on the court in every game he plays and I just want to raise the talent level and have him challenged more. He plays in that local league with PPA, Pat the Roc, MADE & Rebels currently.

When my son started to get to good at basketball, coaches and trainers started coming to us. If your son is “the best player on the court in every game”, I’m surprised you’re not already being approached by coaches. Also, my kid played with kids who ended up everywhere from top 25 college teams to playing professionally, and honestly I don’t recall any of those parents making a statement like that about their kid, so maybe consider that in your IRL interactions with basketball folks. It’s a small community, and coaches consider the parents in addition to the kid’s potential.

[Anonymous]

LOL. Why does your elementary schooler need to be on the “best” AAU team?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live in Bethesda area. He plays other sports so I need some level of flexibility. He tends to always be the best player on the court in every game he plays and I just want to raise the talent level and have him challenged more. He plays in that local league with PPA, Pat the Roc, MADE & Rebels currently.

When my son started to get to good at basketball, coaches and trainers started coming to us. If your son is “the best player on the court in every game”, I’m surprised you’re not already being approached by coaches. Also, my kid played with kids who ended up everywhere from top 25 college teams to playing professionally, and honestly I don’t recall any of those parents making a statement like that about their kid, so maybe consider that in your IRL interactions with basketball folks. It’s a small community, and coaches consider the parents in addition to the kid’s potential.

Yeah in addition to this, Rebels, Pat the Roc and I think PPA have different tier teams.

And rereading OP's post about the teams their child plays in, they must be saying that their kid plays in the HBL 365 league which all of this organizations have a team in. I orginally read it as their kid was on all of those teams, which confused me at first.

If this is the case, the HBL 365 League, and when it was the DMV Soaring Stars, always marketed itself as in between league. It says so on their webpage:

"We are ready for your squads to join Montgomery County's Premier Intermediate League. "

So what it sounds like OP is looking for is to play on more competitive teams that compete in more competitive tournamennts.

Looking at the list of teams in the 5th grade division, I think there's only one that I don't think I've seen at local tournaments or higher level leagues. Haven't heard of some of them. But the rest of them have teams that I see compete elsewhere too.

So OP is probably looking for that type of organization/team for their child. If they're on the team that I'm guessing that doesn't have higher level teams, they can probably hop over to one of the other clubs and see if they can get onto one of their higher tier teams. The plus side is that coaches on the other teams may recognize them if their player really stands like the OP says they do.

[Anonymous]

Poster from 14:07 again, another thing that confused me about OP's post is that they mentioned MADE.

Originally when I saw them mention MADE, I thought they meant their kid plays in the MADE hoops circuit.

But then am taking it to mean that their kids plays in the same division as those teams. But the last I heard, MADE merged with KOA. Although it sounds like the former head, the head of the HBL league too, has some of her former teams still under her. And either way, don't see any of those teams in the 5th grade division for the HBL 365 league. So am not entirely sure what the OP is talking about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You want your kid on a team he can start. Otherwise they take your $ and he sits on the bench.

Doesn’t have to start. I needs to be on a team where he can grow as a player though.