I've really stopped doing my AAU/school basketball rants, but this past weekend was bookended by games, so I'll provide the short-short update and gloss over details before I go into the fun and excitement of Free Comic Book day and more!
Everyone took fall ball off. Maja quit Varsity to focus on travel volleyball and the two school musicals. The Varsity squad did well, winning our state sectional and getting a deep run into the state playoffs, but Maja's predicted fallout came true. Despite putting up fake smiles at the awards pictures and the end of season dinner, the entire JV squad, save two, has quit. There's something that can be said when you varsity team loses three games in the regular season and six girls account for 98.6% of the scoring and more than 90% of the playing time. Considering there were some other successful programs with similar records (or better) and their bench (past the first varsity six) accounted 10-20 points per game, with one larger programming getting 18 girls more than two points a game. Maja left, other girls filled in her 32 minutes a game of JV, many putting up great numbers... and zero playing time in Varsity.
There was no chance for the JV because the Varsity lost two players to graduation, and a former starter would return from a knee injury. Add the two obvious incoming Freshmen, Millie and her 6'3" center Jordyn, and there would be only eight.
Except that Millie is moving to Upstate New York, and Jordyn will be playing for a private school either outside of Philadelphia or around New York City.
Millie's AAU suffered some trauma as half the players moved up to 9th grade this spring, to bolster a talented but thin team.
A lot of those girls have suffered. Great wins, weekend championships, but very little playing time for girls who rarely stepped off the court. One of Millie's friends has even dropped down to play with her now... and that's a blessing.
Those two now play with the remainder of their team, and who ends up being last spring's B-Team. They've got grit, they've got some talent, but these are the girls Millie's school team trounced... within Millie or Jordyn on the court for large swaths of the blow-outs. They've pulled together one solid weekend and a championship, but this week we learned that their school programs and the AAU programmed failed to cover some basic fundamentals, and ball-handlers were unsupported facing a team with disciplined defense.
Honestly, I am glad that the girls will get to play their sports somewhere else next year, and I'll be happy to subscribe the national high school streaming network to watch their game. I don't have much faith their three sports developing the bare necessity for varsity, and being a single twisted ankle away from torpedoing their team's season because teamwork and cooperation are spoken of in sound bytes and podium speeches, but in reality, the starters practice and the JV kids stand around and "watch greatness" that couldn't shoot over 30% against state competition.
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