Youth Basketball: She's Not the Right Color?

The other day, I was talking to a dad from another basketball team. I learned that his daughter played both basketball and soccer in highly competitive leagues just like my daughter. We talked about our crazy schedules. We talked about the eventual need to specialize in one sport. I told him that my daughter has already run into conflicts and had to pass on ODP soccer (Olympic Development Program) because of AAU basketball.

I mentioned to him that my daughter would likely choose basketball and that her dream is to play for UConn. He said, "Our daughters are not exactly the right color for basketball, they'll have a better chance of playing soccer in college."

I was taken aback by this comment by a total stranger. A dead silence followed as I pondered the statement. Was the statement offensive or statistical fact? I was not personally offended but decided that even if it were statistically accurate it was offensive. If he had said that a black girl is not the right color for soccer the statement would be considered offensive even though the sport is mostly played by white athletes in the US college ranks.

Here is the bottom line:

If my daughter wants to play basketball in college, she will need to be in the top 3-5% of all basketball players, black, white or other, when she graduates from high school.

If she wants to play soccer in college she will need to be in the top 5-7% of all soccer players, black, white or other, when she graduates high school.

If you are wondering - here are some statistics.

Chances of playing sports in college
(Percentage of HS senior athletes who move on to play in college - source NCAA)

• Women's Basketball 3..6%
• Men's Basketball 3.2%
• Football 6.0% 
• Baseball 6.4%
• Men's Soccer 5.6%

I could not find statistics for women's soccer, but the percentage is probably higher than men's soccer because there are 998 NCAA women's soccer teams and only 804 Men's soccer teams. However, there may be more high school women soccer players that could keep the percentage the same as men.

Ethnic Diversity in NCAA Women's soccer and basketball

According to a report from The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports - African American women make up 50.1% of the Division I basketball rosters. White women make up 42.6%. Asian and Hispanic women make up 1.2% each.

The report did not include soccer, so I did a little research on my own by doing

Youth Basketball Routs: How Big a Win is too Big?

Last night, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish Women's Basketball team beat Pitt 120 to 44. If you have never seen Skylar Diggins play ball you need to. 

Last night in men's college hoops, the West Carolina Catamounts beat the Toccoa Falls Eagles of the National Christian College Athletic Association by 102 points (141-39).

Big wins like these on the youth sports scene really upset people. Big wins like these generate questions for me.

Question One: 

What is the politically correct margin of victory when a far superior team plays an inferior team? Should the team stop when the point differential get to 10 points, 20 points, 30 points? I ask the question because I really do not know.

Question Two: 

And when the team, that is in total control, gets to the politically correct point spread what should the team do? Should they play an embarrassing game of keep away? Has anyone asked the losing team why they didn't slow down the pace of play? Surely, the team getting blown-out could have dribbled uncontested at the half court-line for several minutes each possession to kill time.

Over the years, my kids have been on both sides of a blowout. I can tell you that it is no fun to be on the losing side, but it does not anger me unless the coach of the superior team is classless. 

Here is an example: I was completely angered when my son's team was getting blowout in a league championship game. The league was sponsored by a local indoor facility were the rules are somewhat lax compared to sanctioned leagues. My son's team had beaten the other team in the regular season so his team was confident that they could win the championship trophy if they played their game. The opponent that showed up for the game wore the same uniforms as the team my son's team played earlier in the season, but several of the players in the uniforms were different. These new players were awesome and completely dominated the game. If that were not bad enough, the coach of the opposing team called timeout with 24 seconds left in the game, a game his team was winning by 43. He called timeout to set up a scoring play. The coach was a completely classless jackass.

Question Three: 

So what is the coach of a far superior basketball team to do? Here are my thoughts:

1) Stop the full court press as soon as you realize that your team is going to win comfortably. (A 15 point lead is a typical time to consider calling off the dogs. Some leagues restrict full court presses after a team gets to a certain big lead.)

2) Play your non-starters more than normal to give them game time experience. You never know when you will need a reserve to cover for a starting player who becomes injured or who has fouled out at a key juncture in the game.

3) Make sure that your starters get some quality minutes too. They worked hard all week and deserve to play. This is especially important for the star players who

Youth Baseball: BBCOR Bats for Christmas?

My son wants a new BBCOR bat for this fall ball season and for next spring. I told him we are going to wait until our league officially announces the BBCOR bat mandate. 

My other reason is that it saves me money to give it to him as a Christmas present instead of a random purchase. (Dad secret.)


Before you buy - read this post and check out the BBCOR comparison app by baseball express.

Here is a well written email from my son's baseball coach to the team regarding BBCOR bats and the lower expectations in terms of batting statistics associated with them. 

2012 BATS:

At the league meeting on Saturday, we’ll be discussing the BBCOR bat issue.  I am not 100% certain at this point what the league is going to do, but wanted to give you a heads up on the issue.

The new BBCOR standard measures bat performance and replaces the previous BESR (Ball Exit Speed Ratio) standard.  The NCAA required BBCOR baseball bats for the 2011 season.  For NFHS (National Federation of High Schools), all bats must be BBCOR certified for the 2012 season. I expect the league to follow the NFHS for 13U and up at a minimum. 

BBCOR stands for Batted Ball Coefficient of Restitution (What?).  Simply put, it’s a measurement of the LOSS of energy for both the ball and the bat at impact.  Instead of measuring the speed of the ball after it is batted (BESR and the current standard), BBCOR measures the “trampoline” effect on BOTH the ball and the bat.  A PITCHED ball holds a lot of energy, with wood bats much of that energy is lost as the ball compresses on impact with a dense surface.    With hollow-core aluminum or composite bats (most of our current bats) the thin walls flex which distorts the ball less therefore the ball retains more of its original PITCHED energy plus gains the power of the bat’s speed and the bat’s flexibility.  The less energy lost from the pitched ball, the faster the BATTED will be launched off the bat - therefore non-wood bats hit balls FASTER than wood bats.

For more details see http://www.stevetheump.com/BBCOR.htm 
and/or http://baseballexpress.wordpress.com/ncaa-bat-ban/

Why not just go to wood?  Money.  The expense would increase annual operating costs significantly – especially for a 24+ man high school or 35 man NCAA rosters.

The bottom line – new bats under the Christmas tree will have to carry the BBCOR stamp on the bat and may be inspected by umps this year.

LOWER YOUR EXPECTATIONS

The bat you put under the tree will have less hits in it

From the NCAA: 

Division I batting average, scoring and home runs per game in 2011 resemble the wood-bat 1970 era.

Division I teams in 2011 averaged 5.58 runs per game, well off the record 7.12 in 1998.

Home runs left parks at an average of .52 per team per game in 2011 compared with .94 last year and 1.06 in 1998 (also the peak year for that category). That resembles wood-bat days, too (.42) 

Batting average in 2011 was .282, the lowest since 1976.

Note - earned-run average, on the other hand, was its best (4.70) since 1980 (4.59).

The Main Point

The new bats will be much safer. And I believe that the games will be more enjoyable (See post about a great wood bat tournament). The 20-19 three hour games will be replaced with 3-2 nail biters. Pitching, bunting and fielding will become much more important. Baseball will be baseball again and I welcome the change.

Youth Sports: Coach's Calls, Texts and Emails

Is your kid's youth sports coach good or bad at communicating with the team parents? 

Let's face it. Some coaches are great at the X's and O's, but not so good with communicating last minute changes to schedules or uniform selections.

I am a contributing writer for the site Coachhub.com, so for this fall season, I got both my daughter's soccer coach and basketball coach to start using Coachhub.com for all their team's communications. I also convinced my son's fall ball baseball coach to use Coachhub instead of EZTeams.

Coachhub.com is a custom team website and communication command center.

Coaches can update information on the website and broadcast those changes to the parents via email or text or both with a click of a mouse.

For example. Today practice was changed from 6:00 to 6:30. The coach simply went into the site and updated the calendar entry, checked off email and text to parents and clicked Update Event. Email and Texts were sent instantaneously.

Each update is a triple dose of information (Website, Text and Email), so no parent can say "I didn't get the message."

Other features

Announcements - Any parent or coach can make and announcement on the site and send that announcement out via email. This is a great feature if you need want to set up a car pool for a practice.

Calendar - The site features a web-based calendar to view scheduled games and practices. The calendar can be printed or synched to the personal electronic calendars like Outlook or iCal. Any additions or changes to the calendar are automatically sent out to parents via Text and / or Email.

Stats - The coach can keep the team and individual stats on the site.

Game Results - The site keeps track of the team's wins and loses.

Photos - Any registered parent or coach can upload team pictures into the site for other team boosters to enjoy.

Team Documents - The coach can post any documents on the site like medical forms.

Baseball, softball, soccer, football and basketball are currently up and running. Other sports will be added soon.

The Main Point

Coaches always say that communication on the field is key.

Hey coach, off the field communications is important too. Coachhub.com is so easy to set up. You simply need to type in the players name, the parents name and email. The system sends an email to the parents and they provide all the other information you need - like phone numbers, cell phone numbers, alternate email addresses, etc.

Coaches try out Coachhub.com as your communication command center. Then yell out, I GOT IT, I GOT IT.


It's Free.

Youth Soccer: Not All Parents Want Stats Made Public

In a 1 to 0 soccer game, who gets the accolades and the press, the sweeper, the stopper or the scorer? The scorer usually does.

I keep the game stats for the coaching staff. The stats help the coach manage the game. Recently, one of the assistant coaches who has developed a website for the team posted to stats. Here is the response from one of the parents.

We appreciate all the effort and time that you have put into creating this
website for the team.


My thoughts regarding the addition of statistics are that they are an
unnecessary addition to the site.  The team has come a long way in the last
year to mesh together and work as a unit.  By highlighting statistics for
the team it could drive all kinds of negative behavior between players and
parents -it should still be about fun and teamwork at this age.  I would
prefer to see comments that highlight a fantastic play that you have been
working on or a superb move that a player did that you have been practicing.


I realize that the statistical information is not any secret as we are all
there watching the games.  However, personally my husband and I are not keeping
track of individual players goals, assists and other measurements.  If it is
a unanimous decision between the parents, trainer, and league to track these
measurements at this age and level of play then we should agree on someone
who can dedicate their attention to tracking this.


Again, we truly appreciate all the time and effort that you and Coach J put in
to the team but strongly feel that this is not a positive addition and
should be removed immediately.


Sincerely,


Anthony and Dee

The stats were pulled from the site.

The Main Point

Let's face it. Soccer is a low scoring game and 1 to 0 soccer games are more likely to happen than a 10 to 9 game. In a 1 to 0 soccer game, the defense played flawlessly for the entire 40, 60, 90 minutes of the game. (Length of games varies with age group.) The one goal most likely happened in a split second and was the result of a combination of a defensive stop, followed by several passes to make it happen. I believer that goals are over-rated as a measure, but I have been watching soccer for a long time and there are some players that have a nose for the goal and others who do not. Scoring or finishing as many call it is a skill that only a few possess. I wish that there were better statistical measures in soccer to measure defensive contributions for non-goalies.

Keeping the Scorebook

I received a handwritten thank you note from my son's basketball coach.

Stats Dad,

Just wanted to say thank you for all the time and effort of doing the scorebook for this season. It was a huge help and very comforting to know that the book not only was going to be done, but done right. It's a big job and many don't like doing it. Thanks Again.

Coach Matt

The Main Point

I enjoy keeping the books for my kids teams. It keeps me in the games. For Basketball, I kept Field Goals, Field Goals Made, Rebounds, Assists, Steals, Turnovers, Fouls and the total score and timeouts for our team. I also kept the total score, time outs and total shots for the opponent, points by player and fouls. If I had to miss a game, other dads would reluctantly volunteer. Typically they would just keep the total score, fouls and timeouts for both teams.

Can Sports Stats Measure Heart?

Great post from Joe Posnanski, a Senior Writer at Sports Illustrated.

There’s no stat yet that measures heart.”
– Nomar Garciaparra

You hear stuff like this all the time, and often from very good ex-ballplayers like Nomar Garciaparra. Baseball stats are lacking. They don’t quantify what’s inside. They can’t tell you what’s really going on. They don’t reveal a players leadership, his commitment, his consistency, his poise under pressure. Stats cannot measure the heart. Read the rest...

I always feel proud when a coach or another parent tells me that my son or daughter played with heart. My wife and I praise hustle, hard work and courage more than hits, baskets, goals, etc. We tell our kids that there are going to be lots of games without hits, baskets or goals, but you can still feel great about your performance if you play with heart.