After seeing the body of work, the development that occurred, the maturity that occurred, I know it was the right decision (to play college ball).
– This from a mid-level D1 college baseball player who was drafted in the 35th round out of high school, but opted for college. Three years of college (and a 3.6 GPA in finance) later, he’s signing after being taken in the 13th round. His high school and college ball were both played at schools in the northern US.
Even if today’s players are incredibly gifted, they grow up in a basketball environment that can only be called counterproductive. 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.
– Steve Kerr, Head Coach, Golden State Warriors
Question: What % of all men’s basketball players who enter Division I directly out of high school depart their initial school by the end of their sophomore year?
Answer: 40%
Here’s the link to the complete article on the NCAA website.
http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/research/tracking-transfer-division-i-men-s-basketball