After attending three spring basketball tournaments since early April and two each in 2008 and 2009, this much I know: AAU/spring season basketball is a different world.
The varsity basketball “offseason” isn’t much an offseason, but a time for midweek league games where teams closely resembling high school rosters can play together while high weekend tournaments get a lot of the attention.
I’m wondering if this should actually be covered more since this is where players improve their skills while college coaches are on the lookout for their next players. This is an attempt to at least try some coverage.
The following observations don’t come from a writer who is anywhere close to be an “expert” on recruiting or who the next “it” player will be that is getting attention in the spring/summer circuit. They’re observations that have more to do with the atmosphere of spring-summer basketball.
•A request from readers out there: If anyone knows of kids from the Germantown, Menomonee Falls or Hamilton school district areas of high school age that are on traveling teams, email me at thomasj@discoverhometown.com and let me know what teams they’re on. I will at least try to follow up and see what those teams are doing at one point this summer. The dilemma with covering spring/summer/offseason/AAU basketball is that players are spread out everywhere on teams teams that go to a bunch of tournaments. It can be a challenge keeping up with who is doing what where.
•While the score is kept during spring/summer basketball tournaments, it’s not necessarily the most important thing. It’s players getting additional playing time a game setting against stronger competition. It’s interesting covering a sporting event where the score isn’t necessarily the most important part of the experience.
•The spring/summer season is many things for many people. The “buzz” in the season comes from the high profile players playing in high profile tournaments across the nation attended by the most well-known college coaches. But the spring/summer season is also players getting playing time in smaller events to improve on their game for the high school season.
•The first tournament I observed this spring was a “warm up” event that began on  Good Friday and ended on Easter Sunday, with the first games beginning at 2:30 p.m.
Is that a big deal, does it unintentionally say something about the declining role or religion in society that a basketball tournament was held on Easter weekend while almost all retail businesses were closed on Easter Sunday? I’ll leave it for others to discuss whether that is an issue or non-issue.
•Almost all the parents, fans and coaches get it — they treat these tournaments for what they are and don’t get too serious about it.
It’s the obnoxious ones that are remembered. At a tournament this spring, I was 15 feet away from a fan of a team who was caterwauling at an official. The official turned around and warned him to stop, but the spectator argued the point.
“I’ve had enough of you,” the official said, and ejected the fan from the stands.
At an offseason basketball tournament.
Really.
It did remind of a coach from a basketball tournament called the World Youth Basketball Festival, which was held for 10 years at the UW-Milwaukee Klotsche Center for during the late 80s and early 90s. A coach I interviewed for a free-lance story later saw me in downtown Milwaukee and caught up with me.
“We beat the Russians,” the coach said as he talked to me for several minutes,in the process showing he wasn’t entirely up to speed on European geography — the team in question was from Estonia.
•Spring/summer basketball tournaments are a people-watching events. Of course there are the games with the players, a few of whom are known because they’re being talked about in recruiting circles. I do wonder if most parents in the stands have any idea of the kids on the other team.
But the real people watching comes from spotting college coaches walking around and eyeing talent. At the AAU state tournament in Stoughton last weekend, there was a line of coaches from Carrol College, UW-Oshkosh, St. Norbert, UW-Parkside, and Marian College watching a game between the Wisconsin Blizzard and Wisconsin Panthers. Also nearby but not necessarily watching that game were coaches from the Milwaukee School of Engineering, Edgewood College, Ripon College and Winona State.
For higher profile tournaments later in the summer, the people watching part of the event is well worth the price of admission.