Basketball Tryouts

[Anonymous]

last year, we knew our son had made a team at the end of the last tryout but it took another 4-5 days to get the official notification from the club.

[Anonymous]

My kid just got a polite rejection email from the coach. Oh well.

[Anonymous]

OP here. My kid also go a rejection. Sigh. It seems like more unqualified kids got in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. My kid also go a rejection. Sigh. It seems like more unqualified kids got in.

I have a kid who just got on a team.

Last year, he didn’t make the team and h/we felt he was better than several kids who were already on the team or made the team over my kid. I have been to a bunch of these tryouts and usually there are a few standout players, a few clear bad players and then a sea of good players. It is really hard to stand out in this pool of good players.

I have learned the coach needs to know you and my son went to all the open gyms.

[Anonymous]

Unless you’re an absolute standout (either for good or bad, and size and general athleticism can be included here as well as schools), than only two things will set you apart from the pack: knowing the coach (e.g. he knows you’re coachable and your parents aren’t nuts), or having a skillset which the coach happens to think would fit in well with the team he’s already mostly picked (e.g. if your kid is the third best ball handler at tryouts but the team already took the first and second best and now they want someone who can shoot three’s, so they pick the remaining kid who is best at that skill even though his overall game isn’t as good as your kid’s).

Long story short, it isn’t necessarily nefarious or favoritism. It’s just that there are a lot of kids who are statistically indistinguishable from each other so some other factors come into play.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unless you’re an absolute standout (either for good or bad, and size and general athleticism can be included here as well as skills), than only two things will set you apart from the pack: knowing the coach (e.g. he knows you’re coachable and your parents aren’t nuts), or having a skillset which the coach happens to think would fit in well with the team he’s already mostly picked (e.g. if your kid is the third best ball handler at tryouts but the team already took the first and second best and now they want someone who can shoot three’s, so they pick the remaining kid who is best at that skill even though his overall game isn’t as good as your kid’s).

Long story short, it isn’t necessarily nefarious or favoritism. It’s just that there are a lot of kids who are statistically indistinguishable from each other so some other factors come into play.

[Anonymous]

Pretty much size or being a known entity is what gets you picked.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, the process is a bit random. You have to be (1) lights out awesome, (2) big, or (3) known. The last category is where things can be unfair.
A few years ago, one of the FCYBL team websites was refreshingly honest. It said they had 20 total spots for D1 and D2, and they said that you could only count on a spot if you were one of the top 5 players at tryouts!

[Anonymous]

We had a weird experience. Won’t say which teams, but my DD plays AAU and the best girl on her AAU team weirdly didn’t get an offer from a county Select team. She ended up playing on another Select team, but we were confused at the time. Now that practices have started, I am second guessing our coach’s selection process, as there were a few girls I would have thought would have made the team but didn’t (and we don’t look as good as we would have looked with them on the team). We’re going to keep going because it’s too late now to switch teams, but weird process. Hopefully we’re an anomaly, but sounds like this happens every now and then.