Handy Manny

Ockerman 6th over Camp Ernst last night.

Yes. He plays for Northern Pulaski.

6th Grade St. Pius Campbell County Highlands

6th. Grade Camp Ernst over IHM.

6th. Grade Camp Ernst over Conner

6th. grade Summit View over Camp Ernst by 4 Turkeyfoot over Summit View in OT by 11 Camp Ernst over Grant County by a lot.

Highlands 6th rolls Camp Ernst by 31.

Conner Colts

Camp Ernst 6th over Twenhofel by 1. They are now 4-0.

Camp Ernst 6th. over Woodland by about 15. They improve to 3-0 on the season with a home opener against Twenhofel tonight.

Camp Ernst 6th won by 14 or 15 over Holmes.

Camp Ernst at Holmes this Saturday. 6th, 7th, & 8th. Anyone have any info on either of these teams?

6th. grade SVA / St. Pius 12/19 at Summit View

Nice post.

There were valid points made by every poster so far. Is that a BGP first? When deciding what is best for your 9 year old son each case will be different. At that age there are so many levels of development. I have seen kids at that age who couldn't dribble turn out to be great high school players and some of the best lose interest. If you are just comparing SOAS and nothing else then you are likely fine just playing in the rec league. Either way and with aau if you want your son to improve you will need to reinforce fundamentals at home. If your son is an above average player who is driven to compete then an actual aau team may be for him. Go out and seek top competition. AAU players at that age generally have an above average skill set, are driven to compete and typically have better basketball knowledge.

Aside form the gun debate, this makes me absolutely sick and I hope these criminals are punished the rest of their lives.

The dad is forced to leave his daughter by an individual that has a gun. What does he do? He goes to get other people who have guns. If he had his own gun then he doesn't need to go get anyone. Also, if there is the uncertainty of an whether individuals are carrying or not, I believe it adds questionability to whether certain crimes are even committed. I guarantee that if the dad walked 10 yards away and turned and shot one of them, they would all be gone. I am however making the assumption that the dad is carrying legally and is experienced with his gun. As a father, I am not leaving my daughter with anyone in this situation and I feel my chances would be better if I had a gun too.

Best post on the thread.

On this note, I do realize that with every cutoff date there will be kids that are affected negatively by a couple days or a week or so. Kids who may develop slowly. For that reason, I am not opposed to having an exception in AAU that allows for say two per team within a given time period. Possibly two months? It is the teams that are made up of 8 grade exception players who are all up to one year older and physically dominate at events. This is not apples to apples.

Age, grade, emotional maturity, athletic ability, and physical development are all variables that should be addressed independently by the parents. If little Johnny is not emotionally or academically mature enough to begin school with everyone else his age, then by all means hold him back a year until he is ready if it will help. This, however, should have no bearing on what group he plays aau basketball for. I know several gifted athletes who failed to ever mature mentally. Why not separate school and aau altogether. They have no relationship. You go to school by their rules and play school ball by their rules. As parents you make educational decisions that work within the rules of the school. Why should this carry over into a summer sport? Make AAU age based and it eliminates all of the confusion with holdbacks and so forth. There should never be an athletic holdback except in college if they want to redshirt you. So if you want to hold your child back to mature more for educational purposes, then by all means do so, but realize that they would be required to play against their age in summer ball. If you are doing it to give them a better chance at playing a sport, then you are not really comparing apples to apples are you?

I agree with you completely because it is a business. I feel like the AAU is the only organization still operating that actually has the player's best interest at heart though.

What if: Age based program based on a 12 month year with the exception to allow 2 players per team to play if they are in the current grade and no more than 3 months older? That give each team the option to still carry two players who may have been hurt by the rule change. If a player is more than 3 months older than he must play up a year.

Then what about the kids who were born at 11:59 PM on December 31st. There will always be kids who will fall victim to being the youngest in the class no matter what date you use. I really like the 12 month period versus the old 24 month age range per grade. The problem is that most of your teams out there have at least one or two kids that fall just outside the cutoff. So the AAU loses them to grade based tournaments. What if they were to make division 1 grade based and division 2 age based? Or even say that you could have limited number of exceptions like they used to do. There is just so much physical development that occurs at the younger ages and one year makes a considerable difference. Then problems arise when one team can load up with 8 players who are all grade exceptions. It is perfectly legal but not at all apples to apples. I don't claim to have a fix, but personally I like the new rules versus the old ones. Mainly because I am not carrying any older kids, but I do know some that it has affected negatively.

Congrats Carson. One of the hardest working high school players I have ever seen. I believe the Norse games will get a lot more exciting now.