High School Basketball
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Anonymous
LOL. The idea that PP believes there are more lacrosse clubs in the DMV than there are basketball clubs is hilarious. I’m guessing they thing polo and golf are also more popular than football and baseball? |
Anonymous
And especially PG county. This is worth a watch: https://www.sho.com/titles/3492196/basketball-county-in-the-water |
Anonymous
I’ll bite. Some observations from a parent whose kid played: - it’s a good idea to go into the summer before high school knowing the high school coach. Coaches at competitive schools know just about all varsity players, most JV players, and many freshman players before tryouts. Look for open gyms or just stop by the coach’s office on a shadow day and ask what to do to get ready for tryouts. - rising freshmen can try out for and play on the school’s summer league team. That makes playing during the season much more likely. - it’s hard to stand out at tryouts. One piece of advice is that kids need to take charge of the things they can control — don’t wait for passes. Get rebounds, lead breaks, set screens, go for steals. Putting back other kids misses is an easy way to score, and getting offensive rebounds is a way to get the ball on offense without getting a pass. Also, trapping a player who picks up his dribble when on defense (and forcing a turnover). And running to help a teammate who is stuck and can’t find someone to pass to. Other kids will pass to a kid who plays proactively like that. My kid got that advice from his trainer at a showcase after a terrible first game where he just waited for passes and got none. At the beginning of the second game, he got a steal, made a long outlet then sprinted down court and got the ball back and made the layup - basically a full court give and go. Next play he got the rebound, passed to a guard, then got a putback by trailing the guard and tipping in his failed dunk attempt. From then on, he at least touched the ball every possession. I’m not really explaining it well, but so many kids at tryouts just passively wait for passes, whereas if they were as active as they could be and really maxed out everything in their control, the passes would come. - play AAU. If you don’t make the freshman team, find a trainer, find and AAU team and get better, then try for JV the next year. My kid played with a kid who did this. - Depending on where you play, there is a lot of… corruption. I guess you’d call it. Players getting a pass on academics, getting special treatment from admins, getting fake jobs that pay them to train or sleep on the job, parents being hired as coaches in order to lock kids in, etc. It’s not the lesson you want for your kids, and you kinda have to decide how much of that you’re willing to tolerate. It’s much worse for star players, which my kid wasn’t, but he saw enough to be pretty disgusted. |
Anonymous
There are more kids on lacrosse roster than a basketball roster and this area is one of the hotbeds for lacrosse recruiting. 5 of the 10 richest counties in the country are in this area, so we tend to have a lot of families in rich white bubbles. |
Anonymous
“Hotbed of lacrosse” is kinda like “jumbo shrimp.” More than 5 times as many kids play basketball as play lacrosse, so a national hotbed of basketball talent is going to have a lot more players than a hotbed of a niche sport like lacrosse. How do you not get this? |
Anonymous
| Reinforcing the "it depends on your school" answer. DD's FCPS freshman team has only a couple travel/AAU players. The rest had never played more than Rec. |
Anonymous
+100 My kids don't play basketball but I live in PG County and basketball is pretty big around here. It's not farfetched to conclude that those who look at the DCUM sports forums skew very white and upper class so just keep that in mind if you're attempting to find helpful information here. Honestly, if you're having a hard time finding helpful info about elite or super competitive basketball in general, I'm going to hazard a guess that your kid is just not that remarkable. I have a talented kid in a different sport and I feel people go out of the way to give us helpful information (assuming they've seen my kid play). Every kid I know who plays high level basketball was noticed early on and their parents given the information they need to keep him playing at a high level. |
Anonymous
Not at all schools. At our public HS it is very hard to make the freshman team for both boys and girls. |
Anonymous
| If you live in NoVA, have your kids try out for AAU teams at younger ages and by 5th grade try out for your local FCYBL (zipcode based) teams. Those FCYBL travel teams are feeders for HS basketball. |
Anonymous
So is AAU a necessity? There aren’t enough NOVA AAU teams making AAU a real obstacle. |
Anonymous
Not on the girls side, like you said there aren’t enough teams for every girl playing in high school to be one one. Contrary to what PP’s said about how popular basketball is around here, there are maybe 4 big clubs on the girls side in nova and some only field one team per age group. There are some one off teams, but no where near enough for every girl who plays in high school to be on an aau team. |
Anonymous
Basketball is very different by gender. I think lots of athletic girls choose volleyball instead. |
Anonymous
This. WSJ did a story recently on it. Even though in VA they don't play HS in the same season, I assume a lot of former/potential basketball players are playing club VB in winter. Also, given popularity of swimming, particularly in the wealthier areas, that is a draw away from basketball as well. |
Anonymous
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I would say AAU is a must. DD played country and AAU and all her teammates (split into 3 HS) made either JV or varsity at their HSs. No one from Rec will play past freshman year unless they are an anomaly in height or talent and will put in the extra time.
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Anonymous
LOL |