Mandatory AAU Basketball Rant: Tournament #4

 The Queens are dead, what do we do now?

After 12 tournaments and hundreds of miles travelled, Millie's 5th grade team finally lost an AAU game in pool play in the 13th.  

It was another weekend down in Spooky Nook,  a constant diet of mozzarella sticks and Diet Pepsi, and thankfully a room at the on-site hotel, to rest my feet mid-day.  The one thing I didn't really expect?  The two top teams in the Northeast playing in the same pool.  

Looking at the teams for 5th grade, everyone expected another super-tough championship game against Collegeville, until the schedule came out, and in an age group where only 1st from Pool A played 1st from Pool B for the title, both teams were stuck in Pool A.  

Oh yeah, Collegeville came armed to the teeth and maybe brought a few older girls down for a regular game, if the other parents' claims are true.  Regardless, Millie's team had their flattest performance of the season in their first pool game, so it wasn't a complete shock when a re-loaded and motivated team took advantage of things from the tip-off.   A 38-25 loss (it could have been far far worse) is thus far the only blemish to their record.  

And prove the point of the poorly constructed pools, the Pool B winner came into the tournament with an overall losing record, demolished their competition, but still lost 35-9 in the championship game.

Luckily, Millie's team hit a reset button, rather than a self-destruct, and easily handled their third pool team for a 2-1 record.  Despite the loss to the #2 team, Clutch remains at the top spot, although without the commanding lead they had before.  

There was one major tournament in Philly this weekend that apparently uses no technology to track the dozens of teams playing.  Everything is on a cross-referenced and coded pdf chart, which I haven't seen since a local tournament up our way in March!  I'm unable to find results for these games, so for now, those teams have the equivalent of a bye, for better or for worse.   The ones who did not benefit from this were York and SLAAM, who played well, but against inferior competition, thus lowering their index numbers.

Maja had a scheduling conflict for her 7th grade team:  a dance competition Friday into Saturday morning.  We divided and conquered, my wife staying at dance and only missing of Millie's games.  While she was dancing the day away, one teammate out for the season, and another with back spams,  her teammates played two solid wins to 2nd place for the play-in games.  

The first Sunday game showed Maja's fresh legs for rebounding, and they beat the same local team for third time in two tournaments in a grinding fashion. 

My one pet peeve with AAU program names is the overuse of the word "Elite."  It might work for the older divisions, but we had seen only one or two teams out of a dozen with the word "Elite" in their name that were any good.  

Thankfully, for the sake of competition, Elevate Elite out of Virginia was the antithesis to that rule, have won most of their games in commanding fashion all season. 

With even match-ups up and down the rosters, it wasn't surprising that Maja's team was only up by one at halftime.  In the second half, Elevate's previously missed shots and lay-ups began to find their way, and it took an strong rally to come up short in a 27-24 nail-biter.  

Same notes about the Philly tournament affecting the index here.   All top four teams could not be found at any tournament in the Northeast.  

One more tournament, TBD, but tonight (Monday), we look to the future with the first game of the local school summer league.  The good news,  some of her classmates are also AAU teammates.  The bad news, some may have been moved to play a grade level above.    The sixth graders moving up to junior high ball are not eligible until they finish the 6th grade school year on Friday, so it's seven girls going up against the Hazleton Lady Cougars, who are exactly the same team at #4 in the AAU Power Index.  

Let's have fun!