Warm up the bus!!!!!!!!!!!

[Puerco]

Team performance:
D
B+
D

Coaching performance:
B+
A
B

Puerco's happiness:
B
A
D-

[gumby]

Originally Posted by dc4azcats

Read this article written by Steve Kerr - very well written.

AAU basketball has replaced high school ball as the dominant form of development in the teen years. I coached my son's AAU team for three years; it's a genuinely weird subculture. Like everywhere else, you have good coaches and bad coaches, or strong programs and weak ones, but what troubled me was how much winning is devalued in the AAU structure. Teams play game after game after game, sometimes winning or losing four times in one day. Very rarely do teams ever hold a practice. Some programs fly in top players from out of state for a single weekend to join their team. Certain players play for one team in the morning and another one in the afternoon. If mom and dad aren't happy with their son's playing time, they switch club teams and stick him on a different one the following week. The process of growing as a team basketball player — learning how to become part of a whole, how to fit into something bigger than oneself — becomes completely lost within the AAU fabric.

This is why so many kids transfer today - it's not a Sean Miller problem by any stretch of the imagination. It's the single biggest problem in college hoops today and it's not going to get better unless some changes are made.

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/...-age-limit-nba

This was a side bar on the story which might be the best part of the story:

I can't begin to identify with any college freshmen whose lives would be affected with a higher age limit. I had no chance of making the NBA after my first season at Arizona, much less right out of high school. (The thought actually makes me laugh.) As a slow 6-foot-3 white guy, I was lucky to even stick around for one NBA season, much less 15. I had the "anti–Anthony Davis experience," spending five full years in college (redshirting one season with a knee injury) before entering the NBA at 22. And maybe this wouldn't be true for everyone, but for me, those five years at Arizona were the most important of my life. My teammates from those Wildcat teams remain my best friends to this day. Our loss in the Final Four during my senior year in 1988 remains the single most disappointing game of my life — but one that motivated me for the rest of my career. The collective value of the experiences we shared — every tough practice, every difficult loss, every euphoric win, even those times on the bus or the plane — created a bond between us that will live forever. And the education we received from our coach, Lute Olson, had an immeasurable effect on all of us. He was a teacher, father figure, and mentor; without his influence, the last 25 years of my life just wouldn't have turned out the same.

A friend and former beat writer noted this recently. We were talking about the JC guy that UW just landed. He originally committed to WSU loooooooooooong ago. Bennett pulled the offer when the guy jumped AAU teams so he could get more shots. Sure enough, the team-jumping continued at the college level.

It's a crazy culture, like Kerr says. Sadly, it is diminishing college hoops.

Mark McLaughlin is the guy.

He attended Inglemoor High School in Kirkland before transferring to New Hampton prep school in New Hampshire for the 2008-09 school year. Along the way, he committed to Washington State and then changed and signed with Nevada. He was released from his letter of intent when Wolfpack head coach Mark Fox left for Georgia. McLaughlin attended Baylor University in 2009 but grew homesick, being away from his son, Jaylen. He transferred to Seattle University and redshirted the 2010 season. In 2011, McLaughlin played 17 games for Seattle U and averaged 7.2 points in 17.8 minutes of action before leaving ....

Read more: http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2012/a...#ixzz1uOioUTYi