The NCAA allows three "live" recruiting periods during July, 12th-16th, 19th-23th, and 26th-30th. These live periods allow D1 coaches (along with D2, D3, and all others) to go watch players, as long as the event they are at are "NCAA certified." Many high major coaches are criss-crossing the country trying to "babysit" their top targets, while lower levels are doing some of that along with evaluating players to make their player pool bigger, or trying unearth the next CJ McCollum.
With all of that being said, how many games are these kids playing during each live period? First, it depends on how good the team is. Second, how "bad" is the tournament. The better teams usually play the most amount of games because they make it to the championship. If the team is good, they are looking at eight or nine games in the tournament. That's over a three or four day period. Think about that a second...
We, as adults, are asking kids to perform to their best of their abilities eight or nine times in a short period of time in order to help the team and more importantly (during this time frame) be seen by college coaches. That's insane. There is no way that the kids will be able to perform to their best of their abilities this many times in that short period of time. Wait, there's more. They potentially have to do it three times in July.
Playing games is fun, but playing 24 games over the course of 15 days (usually less) is KILLING their bodies. And I haven't mentioned that these same kids are also traveling all over the country to go to these tournaments to be seen. For example, Howard Pulley (local EYBL team) was in Augusta, GA last week, is in Lawrence, KS this week, and off to Vegas for the final period. That's a lot of travel for anyone, let alone kids trying to get a scholarship or be seen by any college coach. Pulley's travel is the norm for almost all sneaker affiliated teams as well as the next tier of AAU programs.
The next issue we have is that HS coaches are trying to get these same kids to participate in their own workouts/practices/tournaments (myself included). It makes it unbelievably taxing on these kids' bodies. They need rest. And WAY more of it.
We've heard the debate over and over in the NBA about players getting rest during the regular season to help prepare their bodies for the playoffs. The Spurs have been resting players since at least 2011 and have gotten fined by the NBA because of it. Here is Coach Pop talking about it.
Think about this for a second. NBA franchises are giving their players rest during the regular season while kids playing AAU can't afford to. Almost all NBA players are physically mature and can take come close to taking on 82-100 games in a eight month stretch. We are asking 14-18 year olds to play 25 games in a total of 19 days (theoretically speaking, usually shorter time frame) while their bodies aren't even close to being mature (for just about all of them). Please read this article by Tim Grover about injuries in the NBA.
The next and final question is, how do we fix it? My best solution would be to make a "live" period in May and then the last week of June, and take out the first week of April and the middle week of July. Helps the evaluation process gives the kids more rest between the craziness. Another possible solution would be a six game limit at tournaments. It's still a lot of games but it isn't eight or nine (which is only in the best interest of the tournament directors).
And bringing back the evaluation process to high school season isn't feasible anymore. AAU is way more efficient for college coaches. They get to see more players in a much shorter period of time and against each other.
Any other thoughts on this? And solutions?
