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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]As to the idea of doing a power league format instead of a one-day bid regional tournament, I don't think this would result in any meaningful difference in the teams that rise to the top. Again using 17s an an example, I think it's pretty clear for this age group that Metro, VA Elite, Paramount, and Blue Ridge are the top teams in CHRVA...And playing at more qualifiers gets the players more exposure to college coaches - 11 players from 17 Travel are committed to D1 schools. VA Elite 17s has 4 D1 commits so far.[/quote]

If your goal is to get a player recruited, then there's no reason to care much about the region as a whole. But the discussion is why CHRVA isn't doing as well as expected -- and a lot of it tracks back to exactly the reasoning you gave above -- a focus on recruiting rather than competitive improvement as a whole. Those regions all have more D1 players across their teams, so the power league doesn't hurt recruiting at all. They still attend qualifiers. What the other regions have realized is that there is no value in having only 3-4 "best" teams and then having the rest of the regions clubs be feeder systems into those teams. Instead, they focus on having 10-12 competitive teams.

There's always a chance that one of our teams catches lightning in a bottle and does great at nationals, but if we want consistent performances every year then the focus would need to switch to developing many, many more players than the 15 you cited above. For those families currently in the recruiting cycle and clubs who market heavily based on recruiting there are lots of reasons not to do this, so there is little to no interest in making meaningful structural improvements to the way the region develops a broad base of talent.

[quote]But forcing these teams to play each other within the region isn't going to do anything to raise the level of CHRVA teams against the rest of the country - playing in Open at National Qualifiers is the way to get exposure to the top teams in the country. Metro, Paramount, and VA Elite all went to 3 or 4 qualifiers playing in the Open division. While none of them earned an Open bid, playing at those tournaments helps them improve far more than playing each other week after week vying for a National bid.[/quote]

Let's agree to disagree on that. If your DD plays for one of those clubs, then you likely believe this statement. But its not relevant to improving the region as a whole.

Compared to other regions, too many of the "top" teams take too many players, b/c there is a belief around DC that if you don't play for the top teams, you can't get recruited.  Coming from a region with many more D1 recruits, there was a different mentality: you develop the fastest by playing a large number of meaningful points in tournaments and by maximizing touches in practice.  As a result, team sizes were smaller so more players play in tournaments and more players get exposure to coaches at those tournaments -- and more get recruited. For comparison, here's the team sizes from the AAU Open finals this year:
16: Mintonette-11, Skyline-13
17: Tribe-11, Sports Performance-9

For comparison, here's our USAV national team sizes:
16: Paramount-15 
17: Metro-15, VA Elite-13

And the players on the AAU teams played significant minutes and points. Now head to BallerTV and count how many players on our teams barely see the court during a match this week. There is very little competitive benefit if you never see the court, play garbage time points or get in for just a few rotations.  You'd be better off getting extra hours in the practice gym. And the # of players also impacts the # of touches players get in practice -- especially in competitive gameplay drills where research has shown the most substantial player development occurs.

Here's a fun game -- head to AES and sort any of the top regions like NO, FL, DE, HA by national rank for virtually any age group.  Then check the top 5 teams for how many players are on their roster. CHRVA's average is 14! players, and that's with Blue Ridge only taking 10.[/quote]
That's what the other coach said that so many talents got wasted by few clubs and even these players who have most play time not developing fully to their potential because of lacking good coaching. Even 'top' chrva teams got in lower half after 2 days of pool play and winless.[/quote]

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