What does it take?- high school basketball

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We know a tall kid who played travel basketball his whole life who did not make the freshman basketball team. We were all surprised he didn’t make it. There was one kid who was very skilled and short who made the team. I believe every other kid has played travel and/or AAU.

Being on a travel team doesn’t mean you will make it. If you only play rec, it is safe to assume you won’t make it unless you are super tall.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The other price of advice here that aren’t foolproof but can help:

(1) Train for a specific skill set you can be great at. Spending a ton of time at the gym trying to get Kyrie’s bag isn’t going to be useful for most players. If you can shoot lean into that. If you are tall and can protect the rim and rebound, lean into that.

(2) Communicate what you think your player can add before the tryouts to the coach so they know what to look for in your player. Ideally this should come from the player and don’t set unrealistic expectations you can’t meet at the tryout. Attending a cattle call tryout without prior talking to the coaches is a recipe for failure unless your player pops athletically or in terms of size.

Unless your player is very tall, they need to shoot if the team is any good. Modern offense relies on spacing the floor and for spacing to work every player needs to be a credible shooter

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The other price of advice here that aren’t foolproof but can help:

(1) Train for a specific skill set you can be great at. Spending a ton of time at the gym trying to get Kyrie’s bag isn’t going to be useful for most players. If you can shoot lean into that. If you are tall and can protect the rim and rebound, lean into that.

(2) Communicate what you think your player can add before the tryouts to the coach so they know what to look for in your player. Ideally this should come from the player and don’t set unrealistic expectations you can’t meet at the tryout. Attending a cattle call tryout without prior talking to the coaches is a recipe for failure unless your player pops athletically or in terms of size.

Again, depends on the school. My 6’2” freshman was a 50% three point shooter in games (averaged 3 threes a game in MS), but kinda weak on ball handling. He had a big vertical and started dunking in 8th grade, so he made the freshman team at his school. He didn’t get moved up until he improved his handles a LOT b/c the coach couldn’t trust him with the ball with weak handles because too many kids are too good at poking the ball away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one is commenting on what it takes. How much practice? Travel teams, private coaching etc.

Just need to be tall and athletic

Above I gave my story of my 6’4” athletic son who made varsity but couldn’t play at the varsity level because no, that isn’t enough. What he lacked primarily was being able to see the court and know where to be. That takes immense amount of time and passion to develop.

DP but actually I think your story proves that it *is* enough, as your son made his varsity team as a freshman. It’s not unusual to not be ready to play with/against the seniors as a freshman, and it sounds like your son should have moved down to JV so he could get more playing experience. Quite frankly, your take on your son’s situation is just bizarre IMO.

I have an average height son who is good but they will pick the 6’4” freshman over my 5’9” freshman who is more skilled.

[Anonymous]

Obviously, height is important in basketball. But on my son's private school team there are a surprising number of very skilled shorter kids on the team. My son is a legit 6-2 (meaning he is about as tall as many basketball recruits in the DMV who claim they are 6-4), and he was taller than all but a few kids on the team last year. Granted, he is not at PVI, but this is a real team. All of these super-skilled little guys are serious AAU players, and most of them them do not play much on varsity, but they are on the varsity. The local publics are loaded with shorter players (say 6-1 and under). Many teams have no size at all, probably because almost all the bigs have been recruited to the private schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Obviously, height is important in basketball. But on my son's private school team there are a surprising number of very skilled shorter kids on the team. My son is a legit 6-2 (meaning he is about as tall as many basketball recruits in the DMV who claim they are 6-4), and he was taller than all but a few kids on the team last year. Granted, he is not at PVI, but this is a real team. All of these super-skilled little guys are serious AAU players, and most of them them do not play much on varsity, but they are on the varsity. The local publics are loaded with shorter players (say 6-1 and under). Many teams have no size at all, probably because almost all the bigs have been recruited to the private schools.

Isn't it much easier to make most private school basketball teams vs. public school teams? A 3000 student public high school has a lot more kids trying out than a 400 student private school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Obviously, height is important in basketball. But on my son's private school team there are a surprising number of very skilled shorter kids on the team. My son is a legit 6-2 (meaning he is about as tall as many basketball recruits in the DMV who claim they are 6-4), and he was taller than all but a few kids on the team last year. Granted, he is not at PVI, but this is a real team. All of these super-skilled little guys are serious AAU players, and most of them them do not play much on varsity, but they are on the varsity. The local publics are loaded with shorter players (say 6-1 and under). Many teams have no size at all, probably because almost all the bigs have been recruited to the private schools.

Isn't it much easier to make most private school basketball teams vs. public school teams? A 3000 student public high school has a lot more kids trying out than a 400 student private school.

My own experience is with a WCAC team, but, in theory, yes, it would seem that statistically speaking it is easier to make a private school team, BUT, at our WCAC school varsity and most of the jv team are recruited players. Freshman team is generally not recruited athletes, but, there may be a couple of super tall kids that do not have the skills to be on JV but coaches think they have some potential. My son's freshman year, one of these kids was entirely new to BB (but 6'5" and still growing) and was placed on freshman team. He made JV sophomore year then didn't even come back to tryout junior year. Just didn't love basketball enough to devote the time to it. This is a long-winded way to say there are very few spots at some of these schools. I'd say there are 10ish open spots for Freshman, maybe 2 for JV. None for varsity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Obviously, height is important in basketball. But on my son's private school team there are a surprising number of very skilled shorter kids on the team. My son is a legit 6-2 (meaning he is about as tall as many basketball recruits in the DMV who claim they are 6-4), and he was taller than all but a few kids on the team last year. Granted, he is not at PVI, but this is a real team. All of these super-skilled little guys are serious AAU players, and most of them them do not play much on varsity, but they are on the varsity. The local publics are loaded with shorter players (say 6-1 and under). Many teams have no size at all, probably because almost all the bigs have been recruited to the private schools.

Isn't it much easier to make most private school basketball teams vs. public school teams? A 3000 student public high school has a lot more kids trying out than a 400 student private school.

The issue is that private schools can recruit to fill their rosters from anywhere and the public schools (at least in theory) have to pull from the local area.

The result is that the hardest teams to make by a mile are the private schools that recruit for basketball.
The large public schools are the next hardest to make.
Then much much easier are the private schools that don't recruit for basketball.

[Anonymous]

My DS only played rec and made the freshman team (fcps) this year. He was 5’10”, played other travel sports, not a Bball phenom.
It can be done

[Anonymous]

DS made a competitive HS freshman team without playing "travel" basketball. Tall and played other sports, though.

[Anonymous]

WCAC Are much more competitive at the varsity level than any public schools. They can recruit and have the top coaches in the area. Their players play for EYBL teams for AAU. It doesn’t mean to take away from the public schools, but the caliber of player is higher on the private school varsity teams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:WCAC Are much more competitive at the varsity level than any public schools. They can recruit and have the top coaches in the area. Their players play for EYBL teams for AAU. It doesn’t mean to take away from the public schools, but the caliber of player is higher on the private school varsity teams.

Absolutely.
We happened to attend a game between two public HS teams, one of which had a player who was originally recruited by a private powerhouse school but then was sent back to his local HS (or so the story goes, don't know the details) and ended up playing on a varsity team there. OMG, the difference between that boy and his teammates - and the boys on another team - it was simply jarring. Ironically, his team didn't go far in the tournament since even the best of players can't singlehandedly win games

[Anonymous]

I took my son to a Virginia HS playoff games. We were pretty sure my son’s younger middle school (top tier) AAU team could have beaten either team. There were several very skilled players on both teams who played almost entire game but they couldn’t carry some of their teammates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I took my son to a Virginia HS playoff games. We were pretty sure my son’s younger middle school (top tier) AAU team could have beaten either team. There were several very skilled players on both teams who played almost entire game but they couldn’t carry some of their teammates.

This probably isn't accurate, especially if we're talking about regional playoffs. Your son's 8th grade AAU team isn't beating a Varisty team in a regional playoff game.

[Anonymous]

Name your son’s aau team and the schools you watched?