article I'm Starting To Question The Wisdom Of AAU & The Transfer Culture...

[JokersWild24]

Hey everyone, you may know me as Joker, the guy who loved seeing transfers and is all for the free-for-all that often comes with it. But something weird happened last week, and I began changing my mind, or at least started having some doubt creep in. It's a weird feeling, and the inspiration came from an unlikely source.

 

As lots of you know, I'm an Eastern Kentucky kid who left behind the sweltering gyms of the 13th for the more spacious and talent-filled gyms of the 11th while going to UK. From there, my next stop was San Antonio, Texas. Here, tourism is done right and I'd imagine that outside of Vegas, you won't find a city that hosts as many conventions and professional conferences as you’ll find here. As you'd imagine, there are a lot of events here as well. Some of those include the US All American HS Football game, the Alamo Bowl, hosting NCAA Championship games about once a decade and regionals about every other year (Kentucky fans who took in the ’98 ship live will have fond memories of the city).

 

So this year, I was fortunate enough to be free to see the Texas 4A and 6A Public School Championships come to town and even more fortunate that things worked out so that I was actually able to take them in. I found out on an hour’s notice from a roommate that had some friends and family coming in to see the games for a bit of a rooting interest. The results-- well, I'll get to those below.

 

First off, Texas is not Kentucky and Kentucky is not Texas. I realize that and hope you’ll just take my word for it. Some of my arguments below should be read while keeping in mind that lots of what I'm complaining about is related to the fact that Texas is divided into classes, as well as "public" and "private" classifications.

 

Back to Saturday night, as I walk into the Alamodome, a 65,000 seat dome that was once home to the Spurs, but is a very underrated facility for what it offers. As we're taking in the 2nd half of the 4A championship game, we're sitting through a blowout, and the questions I knew were coming started to roll. You know, the "how does this compare to Kentucky" questions.

 

Cue the obvious answers on the crowd, the classes, and the holy ground that is the venue (whereas Texas rotates sites and playing in the Alamodome is probably cool for a kid from Houston or Dallas, but not the same as playing in Rupp means to a kid from Kentucky). Looking through the crowd, I didn't see one team's fan shirts mention the ‘Alamodome’, but I’ve seen more than a few student tees with ‘Rupp’ printed on them.

 

As we are talking, I’m sitting and taking in Bridgeport, a Texas 4A school (read: huge by Kentucky standards) that is on the outskirts of Dallas and on the way north to Oklahoma City, I tell them that I see a very well-coached, disciplined team. They have talent, but no stars. They remind me a lot of some of the Lexington Catholic teams I’ve seen over the years—one or two really good athletes that they primarily run through on offense and could beat their man one-on-one, then a ton of kids who are fundamentally sound and who play their roles exceptionally well that make you pay when you help. They execute their system so flawlessly that they force other teams to make mistakes-- the kind of mistakes that they don’t make themselves-- and when they do, they’ll make you pay. This wasn’t a roster with any names of D1 prospects that jumped out at me. It was a team that had a blue-collar mentality and solid coaching and they are drilling Sterling, an inner-Houston school with a fair amount of athletics success in their history (evidenced by alum like Clyde Drexler, a few alums who are former pro football players... street cred for their having rapper DJ Screw, K-Rino, and Lil Troy). I tell my friend, “in terms of talent, this (Bridgeport) team wouldn’t be one of the, say, five or eight most talented in Kentucky, but they play so well together, they could beat anyone... it would take a lot from them to beat a Ballard, Trinity, or someone like that though”.

 

Bridgeport ends up drubbing Sterling, 83-53, in a game that didn’t seem that close.

 

That’s alright though because now I’ve visited the concession stand and sitting down with a loaded chili-dog and soda, ready for the big 6A showdown. That’s the one that these guys are wanting to see and have been hyping up.

 

As we’re going through the program to see what the participants, Clear Lake (Houston) and Plano West (Plano is basically a part of Dallas). Going through the programs and seeing them warm up, you’d have thought Clear Lake was going to get demolished. I said that then and say it now because I look in the program and see a familiar name, Mickey Mitchell (a 6’8 Ohio St. commit that UK long ago at least had their eye on). He’s joined by Tyler Davis, a 6’10, 270 man-child who has committed to Texas A&M, is rated as the #1 overall player in Texas, the #6 center in the nation per ESPN, and will participate in the Jordan Brand Classic. They also have DJ Hogg, a 6’5, 200 shooting guard (at the next level) with a smooth stroke who’ll follow Davis to A&M next season and is the #3 3 player in the ESPN 100, #6 ‘small forward’ in the nation, and #3 player in Texas. They are flanked by Soso Jamabo, a kid who is ESPN’s #28th rated football player in the class of 2015. He’s a 6’2, 200 running back with a 4.6 40 and offers from Alabama, Auburn, Ohio St., Oregon, Oklahoma, Texas, Texas A&M, Baylor.... well, you see what I’m getting at, but he’s going to UCLA.

 

So yea... the point I’m getting at: it doesn’t matter that they lost Avery Johnson Jr. (the son of... you guessed it). Or maybe it does, and maybe that’s a good place to explain where this all starts.

 

You see, Plano West is 6A power that was nearly beaten by a scrappy Houston Clear Lake team that might have had one or two kids who’ll likely go on to play significant minutes at a Division 1 program. Instead, it’s Bradley George, the 6’5 leading scorer who doesn’t show up on any recruiting lists. The same goes for 5’10 Orion Lewis and 6’3 Christian West. Clear Lake’s biggest kid may only be 6’6 Cole Miller, but they look scrappy and warming up (and basically run all of the same warm up drills as Rodney Woods at Wayne County, which is kind of a good analogy for them if you are trying to get a rough comparison). You get the impression that they a team who’ll play as hard as you could ask. Part of that probably stems from the fact that they are coached by the son of former Houston Cougars Head Coach Tom Penders, so for now, just remember that he’s got a good coaching pedigree, but does not have a wealth of talent, especially not like the coach on the opposite bench.

 

On the other end of the floor, Plano West is #3 in the nation, and you can see why they could just roll the ball out and beat the stuffing out of thousands of teams across the nation on talent alone, which is good, because it looked like that’s apparently what they kind of do. Their kids seemed to be having a de facto dunk competition for the early part of warm-ups, which is not something I’m really complaining about, but is just a bit of an observation, and definitely a contrast to what’s going on roughly 60 feet toward the other basket.

 

Back to Avery Johnson, Jr., though. You see, it’s not Junior that I’m against here. It’s just that introducing him into the story is a good place to start because he, Mitchell, Davis, Hogg, and Jamabo, they all have something in common: none of them began their careers at Plano West. Ok, what’s the big deal? Oh yea, that and that they were all affiliated with the Texas Titans AAU Program.

 

Plano West Senior High School, has 2,700 kids... who are only juniors and seniors. Freshman and sophomores can also play for them though, and sophomore Chris Giles came off the bench. That’s a nice luxury to have considering he’s a sophomore with offers from SMU, Ohio State, Oklahoma State, Oklahoma, and Houston already. But, with the way those kinds of things must work, he’s probably off somewhere else next year. Back to the point at hand though-- aside from a stacked roster of kids who all moved in from separate high schools (save 2 of their kids), there’s not really a big deal. You should read some of the parents and teams’ quotes about the situation. I don’t know which is sadder, the fact that it’s trotted out there or the fact that they are playing a game where they have to say the right things. Regardless of what it is, if there’s one thing you can say about Plano West, it’s that they have talent.

 

Cats fans probably remember Mickey Mitchell because he was a teammate of Julius Randle at Prestonwood Christian Academy. Before an ACL tear, he was definitely someone that colleges had their eye on, a burly 6-8 freshman that had extremely exceptional court vision, a lefty who was just athletic enough and just skilled enough to make you respect all the other facets of his game and absolutely murder you with his ability to pass. Along with the Cats, his ESPN profile associates him with other blue bloods like North Carolina, Kansas, & Duke. Maybe it’s unfair of me to say what I’m about to, because I haven’t watched him a ton and could see injuries catching up to him and/or him being a holdback that looked like this great prospect as a freshman who had the field catch up to him, however I don’t think Mitchell got any better from his freshman year. In fact, I think he got worse, and brings us to a point I’ll make later.

 

As the game started, the Clear Lake team you’d think would be beaten by 50 during warm-ups looked the exactly the part as Plano hit a 9-2 run from the jump. Timeout Clear Lake! But the tides began to turn.

 

Suddenly, Tyler Davis, obviously far and away the best talent on the floor, and one whose transfer ruffled some feathers (as you can read about here, began getting swarmed by defenders. Mitchell seemed content to pound the ball out front while running the “offense”. There was little ball movement from anyone else. (I say ‘offense’ because that’s only what you could loosely term what Plano West was doing; a better descriptor might be ‘unorganized pick-up game’).

 

A few defensive stands by Clear Lake’s last line of defense (read: guarding 7 feet from the basket and in like their lives depended on it) resulted in them some strips and rebounds that let them break. Points off the break led to their setting up pressure.... and it’s then that I find out that Plano West doesn’t have a very good press offense. Maybe “not very good” is too harsh, maybe it’s too kind too because I’ve never seen such a highly regarded team repeatedly turn the ball over to back-taps (in the same spot of the floor no less) in my life.

 

Soso Jamabo takes a few bad shots, gets pulled, and gets mad when he does. He lets his frustration be known when he gets back to the bench. This is when I get the impression that Plano’s staff manages their kid’s attitudes and emotions as much as they have probably been coaching them.

 

The first quarter ends, and it’s 16-13, Clear Lake leads. The 9-2 run that Plano West opened up on quickly became a 14-4 Clear Lake advantage.

 

Clear Lake starts making some shots. Plano West gets what they can from Davis, who is playing like Superman inside. The problem is that he doesn’t have tons of room to operate given the triple teams thrown at him. Well, that and that he’s cursed with a staff who can recognize his talent and get him to enroll, but don’t seem to conceptualize how easily a pass, cut, and fill would work and/or don’t have enough influence over the team off AAU stars they have to get them to run it if they do.

 

As this goes on, DJ Hogg keeps shooting and more than a few of his looks barely miss, even though you get the impression that the shots he’s taking are ones he definitely can make. He’s a shooter, but more of a pure set shooter than a guy who is going to go one on one and create a pull up opportunity. Part of his struggles could also be Clear Lake’s utilization of a second/help defender on him, whether it’s to rush his shot or to sweep the passing lane, which is very predictable considering the amount of time he spent just standing in that section of the court. Whatever it is, they’ve found a way to limit a kid who is usually money. Maybe that’s luck, maybe you don’t believe in luck.

 

Whatever the reason, Plano West didn’t adjust. And when I say “didn’t adjust”, I mean, like, at all. I’m talking about: “we’re getting out coached and this team shouldn’t be playing us this close, but we don’t know what else to do. It's like the thought was: "eh, this always works, so I guess we’ll stick with it and hope for the best, even though we shouldn’t even be down”. One off games don’t always work like that. You don’t lose at noon and then go to the loser’s bracket or have a chance at them again after pool play.

 

Halftime and it’s a 31-26 advantage for Clear Lake. They’ve just won their second consecutive quarter, and they’ve done so by a wider margin than the first.

 

You could tell that Clear Lake didn’t have a kid like Mitchell that the coach dare pull off the point because that’s what he needed to do to win. To put in perspective what was going on and how slow Mitchell looked when he wasn’t pounding the air out of the ball, it was also Clear Lake’s attacking Mitchell on the defensive end by going to a lot of 1-4 flat sets, iso-ing him, and killing Plano by getting dribble penetration then reacting properly wherever the help came from that acted as their default offense as well. Jamabo coming out and seeming to argue with coaches, you get the impression that it wouldn’t be something that’d happen on the other sideline. Clear Lake and Plano were pretty opposite. One was gritty, hard-working, and they didn’t seem very coddled. The other was supremely talented and would have been an unreal machine if they played and were coached by the others.

 

The third quarter continues, and Clear Lake’s lead swells to 10. Because of the stress that the defense puts on him by forcing dribble penetration, dives, and kids looking to put a second or third body on him when the ball went up, Davis is in foul trouble; he’d sat for awhile in the first half, and Clear Lake decisively won the segment when he was out, and now he’s picked up another one. Plano fans are starting to grow silent, things aren’t looking good for them at all and some of the neutral crowd is starting to think, “are we really going to be seeing this upset?”.

 

End of the third quarter, one in which Davis is back and doesn’t get hit with another foul in (though there were arguably some opportunities to put one on him), and Clear Lake leads 40-34. Clear Lake has just won their third consecutive quarter, though this one was only 9-8. Still, they’ve looked like the better team all night, and they were up by five at the half and had me thinking, “the start of the third quarter is going to be big”.

 

Hogg starts to find the bottom of the net in the fourth quarter. Davis’ foul trouble starts to dissipate, but there are moments.

 

Cut to 5.5 seconds remaining in regulation. Clear Lake is in control until it becomes “that time” of the game. There’s a questionable out of bounds call. Maybe there’s an over the back here or a push there once that we’ve missed. The last though, is the dagger.

 

To be diplomatic, I’ll say that a Clear Lake basket that is wiped off on one of the worst charge/block calls I’ve seen in that type of moment. Even if he did commit a charge, there’s no way the basket should NOT have counted. The point is, Plano West got close enough that it was to the point that maybe it was, “weeeellllll...... they are the team that is supposed to win” time and they got a call or two that the teams like that get.

 

Whatever the reason, DJ Hogg, is now hot. Plano runs an inbound play with the brilliance to bring Davis out to the three point line to get the inbounds pass while putting Mitchell on the block (you know, the one time in the game where they do decide to at least have him cut there that on that night). Davis throws it to Hogg, who does what D1 talent does in high school games—he takes over for a moment and shows you that “makes it look easy” play as he hits a tough shot in someone’s face despite the defender being all over him and knowing what was coming before it happened. He made a play. The buzzer sounds and one of the most intriguing upsets I think I might have ever witnessed doesn’t happen, but it doesn’t matter, because I’m now really starting to question some of my previous thoughts on building teams.

 

 

 

My Takeaways:

 

#1 . – If this kind of AAU thing is the way the game is moving, then I’m slightly scared of the direction. Coaches who can amass talent and leave other schools in their wake who can do so while covering their path are slick, but not slick enough to run an offense and can just depend on getting away with it, and they are winning titles. Or maybe they can coach better than anyone else, they just don’t get to show it because their kids don’t play together for very long.

 

#2 . – I’m not really sure how I feel about what a school like Plano West could* be doing in a State that has a separate division for private schools and allows those privates more leeway in terms of recruiting. We’re talking about a school that has thousands and thousands of kids, but I’m guessing that a single one of those kids didn’t see the floor that night unless it was to celebrate. I’m sure other large publics from similar circumstances (i.e., desirable school to go to/district to live in) have some kids transfer in too. I don’t know enough about what it’d mean for their other sports, etc., if they were to classify as private in one sport but not others. Whatever it is though, in Texas, the implications are honestly with football, as no one cares what happens in Texas basketball. However, it makes me feel as though spindoc was dead on when he said that we’re going down the road to club sports.

* - ’could’ meaning “in a hypothetical world”

 

 

#3 . – The Alamodome was a huge, neutral-site venue, but it was awful for watching a State Final, so I don’t even want to imagine what the earlier semis was like. Rupp Arena makes the Sweet 16 special. Lexington is a “little big city” that has a charm to it and is a central destination for a fair portion of the State; Louisville is an awesome city to host NCAA tournament games (and those are probably a big deal to the local economy), but most kids in the State grow up dreaming of playing Rupp and it’s going to take a long time for that to change. Maybe if the city of Louisville gets a professional basketball team, then definitely debatable as to what venue high schoolers would dream of playing in. Right now, polling the State, it’s Rupp and that’s part of what makes Kentucky so special. I think the large, neutral site venue is a problem for Kentucky High School Basketball in terms of a regional tournament though, at least until something changes and some of the sites begin to get history of their own. Right now, I am beginning to wonder whether or not they have more to do with the Sweet 16’s declining attendance than some might care to admit.

Edited March 26, 2015 by JokersWild24

[JokersWild24]

[JokersWild24]

Above is the crowd to see the Texas 4A and 6A public school championships. The Alamodome is a big arena and they had some of their suites open to what I can only presume were high rollers, but as you can see, the atmosphere does leave a bit to be desired (especially considering that there was only maybe 1/5th or so of the available seating being used, tops).

[PurplePride92]

Texas sucks. Just saying.

[JokersWild24]

Hahaha... I know. But you lived here too. Unfortunately for me, you got to live in a cooler part than SA though (I have love for Houston). Still alright. Will agree that they don't do basketball right at all in the great State of Texas though.

[PurplePride92]

Hahaha... I know. But you lived here too. Unfortunately for me, you got to live in a cooler part than SA though (I have love for Houston). Still alright. Will agree that they don't do basketball right at all in the great State of Texas though.

 

They are so football oriented that basketball is an afterthought down there. It's too bad. Tons of talent all over the state.

[JokersWild24]

They are so football oriented that basketball is an afterthought down there. It's too bad. Tons of talent all over the state.

 

Agree. The amount of untapped potential here is unreal. Texans love their football though and it'll be awhile before it changes. If LeBron was born here, some adult/booster would tell him to be a tight end, not an NBA draft pick. It is UNREAL to see the amount of talent and what's done with it here though. Take it from someone who is forced to buy the Longhorn Network as part of his cable sports package. Unreal.

[sweet16]

Kind of on subject,. I went to a Tennessee finals day. Class A, AA, AAA and I've seen bigger crowds at regional tournaments in KY

[Fourtimes]

Kentucky is basketball,coal and religion ...in that order

[JokersWild24]

Kentucky is basketball,coal and religion ...in that order

 

True. If we had the talent that is just in the East or Northern quarter of Texas, it would be unreal. Crazy how different the game is here.

[JokersWild24]

Complete details are sketchy right now, but Soso Jamabo, who is mentioned in this article, was arrested earlier today and faces a number of charges.

 

UCLA Bruins recruit Soso Jamabo arrested in Texas

[Jesse James]

The problem is not exactly AAU per say. Its the loss of morality and the state of society as a whole thats affecting all this. The problems are much deeper than just AAU.

[JokersWild24]

The problem is not exactly AAU per say. Its the loss of morality and the state of society as a whole thats affecting all this. The problems are much deeper than just AAU.

 

 

Agreed that problems are much deeper than AAU, but I did think it's telling that I was talking about how much he talked back to coaches, showed his frustration on the court, etc. To me, those things imply a lack of discipline. I wrote about that nearly a month ago, and now it looks like there was possibly something to that.

 

 

He was also cited in a place that was ~40 miles south of Dallas, but the high school he attended was in the 'burbs of North

Dallas. With all the movement on his team and all that, I wouldn't be surprised at all to learn that the place he was cited is/was much closer to where he'd actually lived.

 

 

All that said, the majority of the charges were no longer listed by this afternoon. Per the link above:

 

"The online records showed that Jamabo was charged with evading arrest with a vehicle. Earlier Sunday, those records had listed several other charges, including disregarding a stop sign, minor consumption of alcohol, minor in possession of alcohol, driving without possessing a driver's license and speeding, but those charges were no longer listed by the afternoon."