Rick Bolus runs a good outfit, yes it is a money vacuum, but so are all the AAU teams that people put together to claim they have the best approach to coaching and connecting kids to the next level. If you have a kid that can play next level ball and you don't have a high school coach marketing them, then your only options are to put highlight film together and push it out to college coaches. Blue Chip venue is the best place in central KY to get EYES on prospects. The best form of scouting is done with the naked eye.

 

Keep in mind that Rick Bolus hires a staff that sees the ability in ball players too. They are obligated to annotate and document the abilities of specific athletes. The system is not flawed, but their are some minor flaws. Now, is Calipari there.... no, is Chris Mack from Xavier there, No.... is Bob Huggins there, no.... but he has been in the business long enough to know how to run one and to give credit where credit is due. I personally scout for Division 1 coaches and I have to say that there are only about 7-10 natural prospects on that whole list. There are a ton of NAIA and D-2 kids. The overwhelming wake up call is this....

 

Kids are not applying themselves academically.... there are more prop 48 situations on that list that I can name. College Coaches at the Division 1 and 2 levels have no interested in losing scholarship dollars and assistance. The mentality and attitude dispositions of these kids are not representative of the cultures at the next level. The camp is set up to glorify the elite. if the elite don't perform, they lose ranking. If someone stands out that is not on the list, then they get recognized, but consistency is key here. It all starts with the Junior High Blue Chips. Kids need to be in the systems of Five Star and Blue Chip at an early age. They cant just start showing up when they are Juniors. Bolus is well respected and runs a tight ship. If you had a bad experience or your child didn't get chosen, then you need to assess the high school and junior high school coaches that they play for and invest more time in placing them in the proper hands. Bolus doesn't make players he markets them. For some its their only shot at recognition. If their time to shine is solely dependent on 1 week of Blue Chip, then Blue Chip camp never was a good option for that kid. The instruction and speeches and player education facilitated at the camp is worth 300$ alone. He spends money on professionals in the business to educate players on how to market themselves and how to position themselves and how to be better players. Kids just don't have the same discipline. Excuses are made and values have been lost over time. And parents are enabling those behaviors. Parents go to these camps and exert their parental coaching dominance... this is a huge turn off for scouts, and unfortunately coaches (some) know the name of the game. Basketball is a tough business where everyone thinks that they know more and are better than what they really are. If resumes check out, then the person you are dealing with is more than likely credible. Everyone is trying to sell something better in this basketball society. Rick Bolus and his camp is a great asset to the Ky Basketball Athlete. There isn't a better localized camp for Ky. you have to travel to major cities to get it done for your STUDENT-athlete. Emphasis on STUDENT, unless you have a phenom. For the record, there is not a phenom on that list. The top 12 players are solid prospects. I would be willing to bet only 5 of those 12 make it at the D-1 level. My buck in on the Trinity kid (Spaulding) and the Parker kid from Male. Those two stood out leagues above the rest.

Edited July 28, 201412 yr by True blue (and gold)
rule 2

Rick Bolus runs a good outfit, yes it is a money vacuum, but so are all the AAU teams that people put together to claim they have the best approach to coaching and connecting kids to the next level. If you have a kid that can play next level ball and you don't have a high school coach marketing them, then your only options are to put highlight film together and push it out to college coaches. Blue Chip venue is the best place in central KY to get EYES on prospects. The best form of scouting is done with the naked eye.

 

Keep in mind that Rick Bolus hires a staff that sees the ability in ball players too. They are obligated to annotate and document the abilities of specific athletes. The system is not flawed, but their are some minor flaws. Now, is Calipari there.... no, is Chris Mack from Xavier there, No.... is Bob Huggins there, no.... but he has been in the business long enough to know how to run one and to give credit where credit is due. I personally scout for Division 1 coaches and I have to say that there are only about 7-10 natural prospects on that whole list. There are a ton of NAIA and D-2 kids. The overwhelming wake up call is this....

 

Kids are not applying themselves academically.... there are more prop 48 situations on that list that I can name. College Coaches at the Division 1 and 2 levels have no interested in losing scholarship dollars and assistance. The mentality and attitude dispositions of these kids are not representative of the cultures at the next level. The camp is set up to glorify the elite. if the elite don't perform, they lose ranking. If someone stands out that is not on the list, then they get recognized, but consistency is key here. It all starts with the Junior High Blue Chips. Kids need to be in the systems of Five Star and Blue Chip at an early age. They cant just start showing up when they are Juniors. Bolus is well respected and runs a tight ship. If you had a bad experience or your child didn't get chosen, then you need to assess the high school and junior high school coaches that they play for and invest more time in placing them in the proper hands. Bolus doesn't make players he markets them. For some its their only shot at recognition. If their time to shine is solely dependent on 1 week of Blue Chip, then Blue Chip camp never was a good option for that kid. The instruction and speeches and player education facilitated at the camp is worth 300$ alone. He spends money on professionals in the business to educate players on how to market themselves and how to position themselves and how to be better players. Kids just don't have the same discipline. Excuses are made and values have been lost over time. And parents are enabling those behaviors. Parents go to these camps and exert their parental coaching dominance... this is a huge turn off for scouts, and unfortunately coaches (some) know the name of the game. Basketball is a tough business where everyone thinks that they know more and are better than what they really are. If resumes check out, then the person you are dealing with is more than likely credible. Everyone is trying to sell something better in this basketball society. Rick Bolus and his camp is a great asset to the Ky Basketball Athlete. There isn't a better localized camp for Ky. you have to travel to major cities to get it done for your STUDENT-athlete. Emphasis on STUDENT, unless you have a phenom. For the record, there is not a phenom on that list. The top 12 players are solid prospects. I would be willing to bet only 5 of those 12 make it at the D-1 level. My buck in on the Trinity kid (Spaulding) and the Parker kid from Male. Those two stood out leagues above the rest.

Totally disagree with so many comments in this statement I have no idea where to start....

Edited July 28, 201412 yr by True blue (and gold)

Bluechipper14 - first of all, I really like what you said about the academic piece. It's often the elephant in the room that no one wants to acknowledge.

 

Rather than simply disagree about your assertion of there being only 8 -10 natural D1 prospects on that whole list, I will use D1 offers as a guide. I know that at least 12 of the seniors mentioned have D1 scholarship offers, most more than one - and that's just the ones I know. There may be more. Of the juniors, there are at least 5 that already have D1 offers. And there are a couple of others that have legit interest - one that isn't even referenced in the ranking.

 

Let's face it. Most of these type of camps are money makers and they generally only rank, or give more favorable ranking to, those players that attend. Bolus' is no different. What makes Bolus' a little worse is that he covers a limited geographic area. That being the case, it's very easy for folks to point out obvious fallacies. For example, many of the folks on here know the top KY kids and are aware when rankings are jacked up - and these rankings, as usual, are just that.

Rick Bolus runs a good outfit, yes it is a money vacuum, but so are all the AAU teams that people put together to claim they have the best approach to coaching and connecting kids to the next level. If you have a kid that can play next level ball and you don't have a high school coach marketing them, then your only options are to put highlight film together and push it out to college coaches. Blue Chip venue is the best place in central KY to get EYES on prospects. The best form of scouting is done with the naked eye.

 

Keep in mind that Rick Bolus hires a staff that sees the ability in ball players too. They are obligated to annotate and document the abilities of specific athletes. The system is not flawed, but their are some minor flaws. Now, is Calipari there.... no, is Chris Mack from Xavier there, No.... is Bob Huggins there, no.... but he has been in the business long enough to know how to run one and to give credit where credit is due. I personally scout for Division 1 coaches and I have to say that there are only about 7-10 natural prospects on that whole list. There are a ton of NAIA and D-2 kids. The overwhelming wake up call is this....

 

Kids are not applying themselves academically.... there are more prop 48 situations on that list that I can name. College Coaches at the Division 1 and 2 levels have no interested in losing scholarship dollars and assistance. The mentality and attitude dispositions of these kids are not representative of the cultures at the next level. The camp is set up to glorify the elite. if the elite don't perform, they lose ranking. If someone stands out that is not on the list, then they get recognized, but consistency is key here. It all starts with the Junior High Blue Chips. Kids need to be in the systems of Five Star and Blue Chip at an early age. They cant just start showing up when they are Juniors. Bolus is well respected and runs a tight ship. If you had a bad experience or your child didn't get chosen, then you need to assess the high school and junior high school coaches that they play for and invest more time in placing them in the proper hands. Bolus doesn't make players he markets them. For some its their only shot at recognition. If their time to shine is solely dependent on 1 week of Blue Chip, then Blue Chip camp never was a good option for that kid. The instruction and speeches and player education facilitated at the camp is worth 300$ alone. He spends money on professionals in the business to educate players on how to market themselves and how to position themselves and how to be better players. Kids just don't have the same discipline. Excuses are made and values have been lost over time. And parents are enabling those behaviors. Parents go to these camps and exert their parental coaching dominance... this is a huge turn off for scouts, and unfortunately coaches (some) know the name of the game. Basketball is a tough business where everyone thinks that they know more and are better than what they really are. If resumes check out, then the person you are dealing with is more than likely credible. Everyone is trying to sell something better in this basketball society. Rick Bolus and his camp is a great asset to the Ky Basketball Athlete. There isn't a better localized camp for Ky. you have to travel to major cities to get it done for your STUDENT-athlete. Emphasis on STUDENT, unless you have a phenom. For the record, there is not a phenom on that list. The top 12 players are solid prospects. I would be willing to bet only 5 of those 12 make it at the D-1 level. My buck in on the Trinity kid (Spaulding) and the Parker kid from Male. Those two stood out leagues above the rest.

 

You must be on the Bolus payroll.

I am biased, but not having Matt Miller from John Hardin on this list is a joke. He will be a Junior and was the starting point guard last year as a sophomore. I think he will be better than Brandon Price was, who plays at Western Kentucky.

I am biased, but not having Matt Miller from John Hardin on this list is a joke. He will be a Junior and was the starting point guard last year as a sophomore. I think he will be better than Brandon Price was, who plays at Western Kentucky.

 

You may be biased but you are right. If you compare this to any other top 20 ranking, the 2 obvious omissions (for the '16 rankings) are Matt Miller and Will Hager. Bolus' rankings list over 50 kids in the junior class yet don't include those two kids. For perspective, a (different) recent ranking had Hager 9th and Miller 14th. Every ranking I've seen has both in the top 15, minimum. Yet they don't make his top 50. Additionally, I know this class pretty well and have never heard of several of the names that did make the cut. Hmmmm.

Connor Brock of Beechwood.

25 games played last year.

8.2 PPG

33% from 3-- 42.7% combined

65% from the charity stripe

2.7 rebounds

on a 11-16 team

 

I had never heard of him and saw he was from Beechwood, looked up his stats. Must have had a heck of a summer or a great week at the Bolus camp?

You may be biased but you are right. If you compare this to any other top 20 ranking, the 2 obvious omissions (for the '16 rankings) are Matt Miller and Will Hager. Bolus' rankings list over 50 kids in the junior class yet don't include those two kids. For perspective, a (different) recent ranking had Hager 9th and Miller 14th. Every ranking I've seen has both in the top 15, minimum. Yet they don't make his top 50. Additionally, I know this class pretty well and have never heard of several of the names that did make the cut. Hmmmm.

 

Exactly. I have seen other rankings and Miller is in there. His AAU coach also stated that he is going to be a star and is very underrated right now. Plus, after seeing him play I know he is the real deal and he should only get better.

He has Trey Farmer listed as a sophomore, thought he was going to be a junior.

He has Trey Farmer listed as a sophomore, thought he was going to be a junior.

 

He is.

No Jake Ohmer?

WAIT A MINUTE! WAIT A MINUTE! WAIT A MINUTE!! Hagen Tyler in the 2nd 25? Is this a joke? Where the cameras at? And the Jrs list! SMH!!! Darius Williams has offers from Samford, NKU and Miss. State and he's #9? But we all know that rankings doesn't mean a thing when you're IT4L. (Inside those 4 lines)

WAIT A MINUTE! WAIT A MINUTE! WAIT A MINUTE!! Hagen Tyler in the 2nd 25? Is this a joke? Where the cameras at? And the Jrs list! SMH!!! Darius Williams has offers from Samford, NKU and Miss. State and he's #9? But we all know that rankings doesn't mean a thing when you're IT4L. (Inside those 4 lines)

 

Are you sure about that regarding Williams" offers? I'd heard Samford but not NKU or Missisippi State. State would represemt a whole different level. That's quite a sigificant jump from Samford.

Are you sure about that regarding Williams" offers? I'd heard Samford but not NKU or Missisippi State. State would represemt a whole different level. That's quite a sigificant jump from Samford.

 

yep

Are you sure about that regarding Williams" offers? I'd heard Samford but not NKU or Missisippi State. State would represemt a whole different level. That's quite a sigificant jump from Samford.

 

...and if you don't believe me