By Jeff Haefner

Every year, thousands of high school and junior college basketball players compete to get one of the few basketball scholarships that are awarded each year. Here are some basketball tips on how to increase your chances of being selected to receive one of those coveted positions.

Talent and Ability

First and foremost, you have to maximize your basketball skill. Every day you are not getting better, someone else is getting better than you. You have to work and work to become the best player you can be. Work on your skills, be in condition and get stronger.

The jump from high school to college is a big jump. Players are bigger, stronger and more experienced. The game is longer, faster and more physical than anything you have experienced so far in your career. Don’t fall into the trap that you are doing enough to get yourself ready. Without exception, when new college players report for their first workouts they are surprised at how different it is compared to high school. Work to be ready.

The Value of Summer Basketball

Basketball recruiting has changed drastically over the last 15 years. Rules that colleges have to abide by have become more restrictive. The pressure to get commitments from players has resulted in players deciding earlier and earlier on what schools they are going to attend. It is no longer sufficient to be a good player with your high school team. Your senior year in high school has almost become irrelevant! Colleges need to identify prospects earlier and earlier in their career. Coaches now go to places where they can identify and evaluate multiple prospects at one time. The places for that have become AAU tournaments and high profile “recruiting summer camps.”
AAU (or Amateur Athletic Union) is an organization that sponsors amateur sporting events. In basketball, they sponsor spring, summer and fall tournaments in multiple age groups. The age brackets are usually 19 & under, 17 & under, 15 & under, etc. The advantage of that system is that you can play up a bracket to get in better competition (a 15 year old can play in a 17 & U tournament but a 17 year cannot play in a 15 & U tournament). The tournaments are usually played during “live” college recruiting periods so college recruiters heavily attend them. If you can find an AAU basketball team in your area and it is an appropriate age bracket it would be well worth your effort to join the program.

High profile “recruiting camps” are basketball camps that are held during the summer that attract high-level players, which in turn, attract college recruiters. Most of these are private camps, not camps owned by universities, colleges or high schools. They usually offer excellent instruction and very competitive games. Call a couple of colleges and find out what camps they attend to evaluate prospects and make plans to attend.

Summer basketball has become the most significant aspect of recruiting. At no other time can a college coach go to one spot and evaluate 300-400 players at one time. If you want to get one of those scholarships, you have to be where the coaches are.

Be Pro-Active

Don’t wait for a college to find you, go find them. If there are schools that you are interested in, contact them early, and let them know of your interest. Visit the campus, invite the coach to come and see you play. Have your high school coach contact the schools you are interested in. Be sure they have the information they need to evaluate you. Things like game schedules, summer schedules, etc. should be sent to all schools you are interested in. Return all questionnaires and comply with all the requirements that they have for acceptance to school.

Take Care of Your Schoolwork

Believe it or not, college coaches want athletes with good grades! Players in college are “student-athletes.” They attend class, write papers, and do research. Coaches really don’t like to take chances on academic risks. Get good grades; take your standardized tests (SATs, ACTs) as early and as often as possible. Unless you are truly a great player, coaches will not wait for you.

To get a scholarship, you have to register for the NCAA Initial Eligibility Clearinghouse. This is the organization that will evaluate your grades to determine whether or not you are eligible to play. Even if you are in junior college, they will go back to your high school grades to determine your eligibility (there are different rules for “qualifiers” and “non-qualifiers” coming out of high school and junior college). Take care of your registration as early as possible.

There used to be a saying, “if you can play, they will find you.” That is NOT true any more!! Being able to play is not enough, now. You have to be out where the coaches can find you.

For more basketball players tips, check out our free ebooks and resources on this site…

http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/toptips.html

http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/fundamentals/basketballfundamentals.html

#1 Lack of trust

The most fundamental pillar of a functioning team is trust. If there is a lack of trust within a team, then it is impossible to have a well-performing team.

But if you, as a team member, trust your team, then you don´t have a problem to admit a mistake, when you made one. People in a trusting team admit weaknesses.

They also ask for help, if they need it. If you don´t trust your team members, then you probably are also not going to ask them for help. And you may end-up with wasting a lot of time on a simple task, which you might have solved easily with just a little bit of help from another team member.
In trusting teams the team members also look forward to meetings and other opportunities to work as a group. And this is great for a healthy team.
#2 Fear of conflict
The second level of team dysfunction is fear of conflict – for example if team members are afraid to openly express their opinion, because it might end-up in a serious conflict.

Healthy conflicts are very important, because they help the team to progress and improve. It is better to have healthy conflicts instead of artificial harmony in a team.

But on the other side, in the worst cases the conflicts can also end-up in mean personal attacks. Therefore the key is to have an environment, which is somewhere in between artificial harmony and mean personal attacks.

#3 Lack of commitment

The third level of team dysfunctions is lack of commitment. True commitment is about getting buy-in when all the team members don´t agree.

For example, if the team manager takes team-related decisions without discussing it in the team, then people might not agree with that – there is a lack of commitment for the decision.

On the other hand, if the topic is discussed within the team, everything is clarified and assumptions are removed, then it is easier to come to a common decision, which everybody supports.
An indicator of teams with lack of commitment is revisiting the same topics over and over again.

#4 Avoidance of accountability

The fourth level of team dysfunctions is avoidance of accountability.

Accountability is the willingness of team members to remind each other when they are not living up to whatever standards have been agreed upon by the group.

For example, if a team member constantly arrives late at the office and nobody in the team feels responsible to tell him, then at a certain point other team members will start to do the same thing. They will think “Why should I bother to be there earlier, if it is more convenient for me and nobody complains from the group when I´m late?” This lowers of course the standards of the group.
On the other hand, if the team constantly reminds each other about the agreed standards, only then the team is able to keep this standards.

#5 Inattention to results

The fifth and last level of team dysfunctions is inattention to results.

This dysfunction is caused by team members focusing on their personal success over their teams success – instead they should put the success of the team over their personal ego.

The team should be focusing on delivering measurable results – this helps to keep focusing on the success of the project and avoids distractions. Have an open discussion with your team to avoid these 5 key dysfunctions. 

5 Levels of Dysfunction

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How to Be a Better Athlete

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