Mandatory AAU Basketball Rant: Week 11-12 - The End of the Season

One thing parent miscalculate about travel sports, far more than the unsuspecting kids, is the commitment to the team, especially for a successful program.  

Maja's 6th grade team hung it up two weeks ago, although most are still practicing and, of course, the school rec league, but more on that later.   Priority goes to Millie's 4th grade team.  

With their second invitation to a "National" championship, the program chose to visit Spooky Nook for the East Coast Nationals.  Thirty courts going non-stop, hundreds of teams from at least ten different states, and for a first this year... Friday games.    

The girls' 4th grade division fielded seven teams, including the teams we eeked out our last championship against, a local team for us, plus a mysterious new team out of Virginia.   It looked like pool play might be a challenge if the team didn't execute.  

It was far from it.  By game 3 or the 4 game pool play, 4th Grade Clutch and the mysterious Virginia team were already guaranteed a spot in the championship games.  Those game were against teams that had spirit, but not enough to avoid 35-3, 38-2 and 32-3 losses.    While some teams are invited, anyone willing to play the bloated entry fee gets four guaranteed games on the court.  

After an afternoon of swimming, shopping and miniature golf, we were back at the Nook 8am Sunday to cheer on the 5th grade girls team and at 9am for a rematch against Team Thrill.  With the 21-19 championship fresh in their minds, the girls went to work and dismantled the team, 37-7. 

4-0, 142 points scored.  15 points against.

The only problem was the Fairfax All-Stars emerged from their pool:  

4-0, 148 points scored.  21 points against.  

It was agreed upon by parents on both teams that it simply would have been easier to meet up early on Friday, play this one game, then go home, or enjoy the weekend elsewhere.   Most of the divisions in the tourney had spectacular, close games.  For 4th grade the championship game was it.  

Fairfax came out swinging with the same players they had used since Friday (counter to some alleged shenanigans), our girls not only caught up but held the lead at the half., but the Virginia team slowly pulled ahead in the second half.  We were as close as five with two minutes left, but poor shooting and rebounding doomed them down the stretch, and they lost 41-30.  

Each team gave up more points in the championship game than they allowed in the four pool games combined.  

Millie had a solid tournament, a few nice buckets, great assists, and some more time pretending to be a big, and at many time succeeding.

Overall the team was 29-4 for the season, Undefeated in pool play and 4-4 in championship games.  Not bad for a team assemble in March, after a single winter league where they were ripping each other's heads off.  Find a key position player, some bench depth, and they're going to be a force to be reckoned with for years. 

Maja's relegating time to the still-open AAU practices, and the practices and summer games for the future 7th grade middle school team.  If the last two weeks demonstrated anything, it's that the future 7th graders will beat the pants off of the future 8th graders, guaranteed.  

Last week, the team played Hazleton, most of which is comprised of the nationally ranked 6th grade Lady Cougars.  The coach put our four of her future 8th grade starters plus one more to start the game.  

Within a minute it was 10-0 Hazleton and substitutions were flying in.  It's not too much of a surprise that upon subbing in the girls who played 6th grade AAU this year, not only did the bleeding stop, but like Millie's game, they were actually up at the half.  

With 15 players rotating in groups of five for our team, Hazleton pulled away in the second half to a ten point win.  It does beg the question of how Maja's team would have fared against this AAU team.  I guess there's always next year.  

This week saw the same massive bench, but the arrival of Maja's classmate Charli.  She's an extremely tall and coordinated girl and with her playing elsewhere for the past few years, this was the first chance for Maja and her to team up.  

The group with Maja and Charli probably scored 3/4 of the points in their win.  After the intimate knowledge of each other on 6-7 player AAU teams, it will take awhile for the others to catch up to (and be ready to catch) Maja's passing.  Charli took advantage of Maja's passing (and great hustle on her part to get open) to score almost all her points that weren't 3-pointers.  

That future 7th grade team was a core of five that should rival most Freshman teams.   There might be a future basketball rant, but not for sometime.  I'm just going to enjoy the "off-season" while it lasts.