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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m not familiar with girls teams but I know most younger boys teams finished tryouts and made offers already. Why don’t you dig through these archives to find mention of girls teams and try to contact the coaches? In the meantime find a pay to play team and trainer to prepare your DD for the next level of play. Definitely sign up for summer girls basketball  camps (good ones fill up quickly).

In addition to training places listed above, try Pat the Rock and HoopEd. [/quote]

Sorry, this is a bit of a rant.

I think it's important to distinguish between "developmental" and "pay to play."  Developmental groups will ideally take anyone, but they will demand kids learn skills and hold kids to a high standard (e.g. if you don't sprint during drills, you're kicked out of the workout).  Pay to play teams will take your money and assure you that your kid is on a super elite team, despite that fact that they may be very, very many levels down the overall hierarchy of teams.

We had no idea when my kid started travel ball how many levels existed, how different they were, and how much difference coaching makes.  Lots of teams exist that will take your money, put your kid out on the floor with a disinterested or incompetent coach on the sidelines (even if they are "professional coach" and a former D1 or international player) and let them get sink or swim with no effective coaching.  Those same teams will enroll your kid's team to compete in big HoopGroup or Elevate tournaments and essentially blame the kids when they get blown out or can't get the ball past half court.  Also, they may not tell you that those tournaments have 4 or 5 divisions, and your kid's team traveled to, for example, Atlanta to play in the lowest division against competition weaker than most local teams.  This was our experience with DS's first team -- a total "pay to play" experience.  In contrast, when DS moved to a better coached team, suddenly he was like a different player because he was actually being coached.

So, my advice would be to first work on basic skills.  I'm not sure what this is for 10U girls, but for 7th grade boys it would be something 20 correct, full speed layups in a row with both hands, >90% makes on reverse layups,  can make 8 out of 10 free throws, can dribble up and down court staying very low and pounding a ball with each hand looking up without losing either ball, can dribble full speed looking up with either hand (and FULL SPEED is really important --- lots of kids who are early cuts in tryouts are kids who seem to do everything in slow motion).  It's important to note that all of these skills can be learned by any averagely athletic kid if they put in the time AND they know how to practice (which they won't until they are taught).  Unless you're a basketball coach, skilled individual training is important here because kids will insist on doing things the easy way, not the right way AND they will absolutely think they are doing things correctly when they are not -- most people who aren't super athletes do not have the proprioceptive sense to know what their body is actually doing versus what they think it's doing.

Once your kid has basic skills, look for an opportunity for your kid to play lots of 2 on 2 or 3 on 3 with coaching to try to learn how basketball works as a team sport - screen and roll, give and go, pick and pop, hedging a screen, switching, all the basic mechanics of the team game.

Then, try to find a successful team with strong coaching so that they can learn the 5 on 5 game.  One way to know if a team is well coached is to see if the coaches adjust positions and personnel to help the team as the game goes along.  A good coach will yell something like "Sarah, she's going left every time", and suddenly Sarah takes away the left hand drive on defense.  Also, look for teams where kids seem to know what to do at all times (not just 4 kids ball watching while a point guard with delusions of being Kyrie dribbles too much).  Look for teams that run back on defense every time and teams where kids cheer each other a lot -- well coached teams will cheer like crazy when a bench player scores or gets a block, because they know good minutes off the bench mean that starters can go harder when they are back in the game. If you are willing to invest the time before your kid is ready to do tryouts, going to some local tournaments or league games and watching teams play (and coaches coach) can be really illuminating.[/quote]

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