Great advice but sooo hard to find.
Any suggestions for boys 7th grade boy teams to try out for for the fall season?
DS has been on one super competitive team, one that is the next tier down, and one that is a lower tier from that. Still haven’t found consistently good coaching at any of them. Need suggestions.
Close in to DC would also be a big plus.

There are a lot of threads on this site, so it’s worth doing a search. I say that partly because youth basketball is very confusing and people use the same words to mean different things (e.g. by high school, most “AAU” teams have nothing to do with the AAU).

The other thing to understand is that it’s in the interest of people running youth basketball teams to give the impression that their teams are elite, no matter their actual level. My kid’s first team marketed themselves as “elite”, but over time we learned that they were really the bottom of the barrel. So, don’t believe what coaches tell you. Look somewhere like the BallerTV site to see the team’s scores from previous tournaments.

Finally, people put way too much stock in the innate talent of kids, but in my experience it’s actually more about the coaching. My kid started out coming off the bench on a terrible travel team, then switched to a better team with better coaching, and suddenly he was starting and often leading in scoring. So, I’d look for a well coached team that’s focused on development.

Anonymous wrote:My DC received a notice about trying out for an AAU Basketball Travel Team. DC has only played one season in a recreational league during the summer (league just ended). DC is taking a training class once a week. Is it too premature to try out for a travel team? Should I ask the training coach? Child is interested. Never done AAU basketball. What is it like?

AAU runs the gambit from teams that would lose to a decent rec team to teams packed with future pros. If you don't want to name the club, you can ask the trainer and they should be able to tell you the level that they play at. Fall is usually a much lighter schedule than spring/summer. MD Flames host a league at Boyds that a lot of teams play at, but there are a few other leagues. For Fall, dc's team will drop from three practices a week to two and will play every other weekend with one trip to Spooky Nook instead of most weekends with a few trips per season.

My DC received a notice about trying out for an AAU Basketball Travel Team. DC has only played one season in a recreational league during the summer (league just ended). DC is taking a training class once a week. Is it too premature to try out for a travel team? Should I ask the training coach? Child is interested. Never done AAU basketball. What is it like?