Spring/AAU basketball

Hi Everyone,

I can see there is a lot of interest in this topic, but not a lot of people posting and I'm guessing there just hasn't been a lot of experience with the basketball clubs. Both my sons play basketball and I can tell you the little I know about these clubs.

The Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) is one of the largest, non-profit, volunteer, sports organizations in the United States. A multi-sport organization, the AAU is dedicated exclusively to the promotion and development of amateur sports and physical fitness programs. I found this website that is helpful in describing the AAU experience: www.coachesclipboard.net/YouthBasketballClubTeams.html

There are a number of clubs in the metro area that field AAU teams. I list is featured here: tchoops.blogspot.com/2008/05/aau-web-sites.html. Northstar Hoops (Prephoops) is a site that follows the top high school basketball players. IF you go to the rankings on the menu bar, you can view past player rankings, including what Grassroots (club) teams they played for. Any current or future rankings (2016 or later) requires a paid membership, but the past ones are free. A lot of highly rated players come from Howard Pulley, D1 Minnesota, Net Gain, and Minnesota Fury. These are teams for kids that are very serious about basketball. Participation at the high school level is usually through invitation only. Some of them have younger grades that have try-outs and may be a good choice if you have a child that plays very well and wants to get noticed.

For players that just want to play more in the spring and improve, there are quite a few clubs, but the majority are in the west metro. I have found after some investigating, that this is likely because the west metro has more practice facilities. Of those clubs, I guess the Minnesota Heat are a good bet because they appear to be one of the biggest clubs, but they are based in the northwest metro. I know some families currently at the 6A level that have been playing with the Heat over the past year and have had a good experience. All clubs can be hit or miss depending on what sort of players and coaches your player ends up with.

Nearby clubs include the Minnesota Magic (Bloomington), Minnesota Select (Apple Valley), Minnesota Developmental Basketball (Bloomington) and Minnesota Ice. The Minnesota Ice is the only club that has practices in Woodbury/ east metro and has only been around for three years. The reason why there are so few clubs in this area is there seems to be a severe shortage of practice courts available during March-May due to competition for gyms with other sports.

My oldest son played 14U with the Minnesota Ice last year. He was on the lower (D2) of two teams. It was not the best experience - the team lost most of their games. I think it was a combination of the boys not being quite good enough to play at that level and the coach (who did seem pretty knowledgeable) was having some setbacks in his personal life that made it hard for him to get enthusiastic about coaching. That being said, I would still encourage people to support this club as it is the only one that will have practices with convenient locations. It looks like a 12U team will be forming this spring with some of the players from the WAA 6A team with a coach that was previously with the Minnesota Heat.

If you know enough boys to form your own team, you can do so without trying out for a club. My older son did this two years ago with some boys from his WAA team with one of the dad's coaching. It was a pretty good experience, but again, it was a nightmare for the poor dad to find practice space.

I talked to a few people further. One member of the WAA board who is a coach and whose son has some talent at basketball says one downside to AAU is that there is not a lot of incentive to push your child to go beyond what they can currently do. They will be selected for a team based on the current position they excel at and will continue to play at that position and do "what works now" in order to win games. He said he has seen players get better playing for AAU, but he has also heard that players can stagnate. For example, if your child is an early bloomer and currently plays big, they may not be playing that position in high school when other kids have caught up to and surpassed them in height. If they have never played as a forward or guard, they will have more difficulty competing with the other kids who have had more experience at those positions. He said good off-season development can include working on skills (shooting and ball handling), strengthening and conditioning, and participating in 3v3 leagues where the kids can experiment in their play without the pressure of making mistakes that could result in their being benched or hurting their team's chances of winning. That being said, if a child participates in AAU in spring or fall AND does the other developmental activities, there's no reason why they can't benefit from all of them.

The criticisms of AAU seem to be directed more at the most highly competitive teams and players who are playing year round and investing a lot of time into it such that it is nearly their sole source of development. For good, but not (yet) elite players looking to improve, one can see it as a way to play 5v5 with players and coaches outside your child's school or club to get more variety in their play. I heard the bigger clubs such as the Minnesota Heat do not tend to have a lot of turnover on the top teams as the same players keep coming back (likely another reason to criticize AAU - lack of variation in teammates). I don't know if that is true for the smaller clubs.

I know this response is not very timely, but for future reference, Stillwater has a very good 3-on-3 spring league. Look for early registration in February, registration closes mid-March with games beginning in late March. Find more information here: www.midwest3on3.com/

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