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AAU: Girls basketball program adds to robust scene (5 of 5)
While boys basketball is prominent in Houston — in the high schools, the Amateur Athletic Union and select teams - the city is also known for the girls players it produces.
When it comes to talent, Houston has become a hotbed for girls basketball on the high school as well as the summer select scene.
"College coaches are going to follow the talent," Rice women's coach Greg Williams said. "Houston has always been a focal point and one of the hotbeds for girls basketball for a long time."
While there has long been a plethora of talent locally, the exposure for that talent has grown exponentially in recent years. With the success of individuals such as Cy-Fair's sister duo of Nneka and Chiney Ogwumike, Nimitz center Brittney Griner and Dulles post Kelsey Bone -—all of whom were high school All-Americans and were either ranked as the top recruit nationally in their class or earned a national player of the year award — more attention is being paid to Houston's talent.
Combined with the robust scene in Dallas, Texas is becoming a focal point for grass-roots basketball.
"More events are going to start coming to the south area," former Bellaire High School assistant and Cy-Fair Shock coach Rob Amboree, who is now an assistant recruiting coordinator at Prairie View A&M. "A lot of the big (AAU) events are up on the East Coast, but Texas is really starting to change that and could possibly surpass the East Coast."
That doesn't mean there aren't some issues in the girls select scene. As is the case on the boys side, the relationships between high school coaches and AAU coaches aren't always positive. But some high school coaches said they have good working relationships with the people who coach their players in the summer.
"It's no different than any big business — you're going to have some people in it for the right reasons and some who aren't," Clear Creek coach Jana Williams said. "I've been fortunate in that the parents of my players have been selective of the programs they send their kids to, and I go out and support them in the summer so I have good relationships with the people who coach my players."
There also isn't the perception that the girls scene is as "seedy" or "cutthroat" as the boys because the earning potential for players is much less. While an elite boys basketball player might score a multimillion-dollar contract if he makes it to the NBA, the chances of girls earning that much playing basketball are considerably slimmer.
AAU basketball is considered a vehicle to help a player get a college scholarship, but for girls the education — rather than the possibility of a future playing career — is often the ultimate goal.
"There's no money in women's basketball," said Howard Randle, director of the Houston Elite program. "The opportunity to get to the WNBA is slim. You're playing to have an opportunity to go to college to get a free education. You have to commend those young ladies for that because they know going into it that 'I'm not going to get paid.' "
Shoe company sponsorships are also more rare on the girls scene. For example, Nike sponsors 42 select boys teams nationally in the 17-and-under division and many more in younger age groups. For girls, only 20 teams — regardless of age group — are sponsored by Nike.
Those circumstances make for fewer individuals getting into the scene for financial gain.
"In that sense, you have to think there are a lot of coaches that are doing it for the right reasons because they aren't getting rich," North Shore coach Allison Campbell said. "Any kid that I have that wants to play AAU, we can always find a place for them that's affordable."
That doesn't mean there aren't transgressions, though. Cy-Fair Shock director Al Coleman, who has been involved in the grass-roots scene since 1997, believes things can be done better.
"Everyone wants to win, but if you don't get kids to college then you really haven't achieved your primary goal," Coleman said. "Some people just don't know the game on the national level. They think going to a local tournament and winning the trophy is the end all and that's not it.
"There are a lot of coaches that recruit kids to win basketball games and at the end of the day they really don't care if that kid goes to college or not."
Still, the stigma carried with boys AAU basketball doesn't seem to apply to the girls scene.
"I feel like the majority of the guys in Houston are good guys," Campbell said. "For the most part, they have the kids' best interest at heart."
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Basketball recruiting almost like arms race (2 of 5)
Pressure to win causing colleges to target players younger than ever
Houston Chronicle
Aug. 2, 2010
College basketball coaches across the country know plenty about Aaron and Andrew Harrison.
Before they had stepped on a high school campus, coaches had evaluated and pursued the now 15-year-old twin brothers. Several offered basketball scholarships.
As members of the Houston Defenders, their Amateur Athletic Union select basketball team, the 6-5 twins are dominant figures on the summer basketball circuit in front of hordes of coaches, many of whom hope to land the highly skilled pair. Their father — Defenders coach Aaron Harrison Sr. - estimates that each of his sons has more than 20 verbal scholarship offers and has received a dozen in the past two weeks.
"Their seventh-grade year was when they first started getting a lot of attention," said Harrison, who has coached his sons since they were 8.
But now, if the NCAA has its way, colleges will have to halt the common practice of pursuing elite middle-school athletes who are discovered in AAU programs. The NCAA's Division I Recruiting and Athletics Personnel Issues Cabinet has endorsed a proposal to ban verbal scholarship offers to recruits before July 1 in the summer between their junior and senior years in high school.
The proposal could be adopted in January or April and, if passed, would apply to all sports. But some believe the rule will be impossible to enforce.
"That rule is going to be impossible to legislate," Rice basketball coach Ben Braun said. "Kids are going to ask a coach, 'Are you going to save a scholarship for me?' And the coach is going to say yes. No coach is going to say, 'No, we'll talk to you in your senior year,' to a good recruit."
In an era of high turnover among college basketball coaches and immense pressure to win, everyone looks for an edge. When it comes to recruiting, that can mean offering players scholarships before the competition.
Services are big business
Recruiting and scouting services know this and help coaches keep up with the talent. HoopScoopOnline.com, a highly regarded source for analysis and coverage of recruiting and grass-roots basketball, ranks the top players nationally from sixth grade to 12th grade, as well as fifth-year prep-school players. It also offers a subscription service for college coaches.
But much of a college coach's homework is done in the July evaluation periods, when the NCAA permits coaches to attend certified non-scholastic basketball tournaments. With tournaments spotted across the country and several age groups participating in each of them, it serves as one-stop shopping for recruiting.
For top-level prospects, coaches quickly come calling, because the first scholarship offer can make a difference in a player's college choice.
"There's not pressure as much as it is the opportunity to be able to get him first and be the first one so they remember you," Memphis coach Josh Pastner said. "A kid remembers that they were the first ones there, and sometimes - but not always - that carries a lot of weight when it comes to making a final decision."
Second Baptist point guard L.J. Rose is another example. Ranked as the top junior point guard nationally by ESPNU, Rose has "too many offers to count," according to his father Lynden Rose. The younger Rose, who plays with Houston Hoops in the summer, led Second Baptist to a state championship game last season, was an all-state selection and competed abroad with USA Basketball's 16-and-under team in 2009.
Lynden Rose, a former University of Houston basketball player and a member of the school's board of regents, said his son got his first scholarship offer as a seventh-grader and an estimated dozen by the time he entered high school.
Verbal offers are non-binding. Coaches can rescind them at any time, and recruits can change their verbal commitment when they want. In basketball, players can't sign a binding letter of intent until their senior year during one of the NCAA's basketball signing periods, which typically fall in November and April. But that doesn't stop players from committing early in their high school careers.
Process works both ways
Former Madison and University of Oklahoma point guard Tommy Mason-Griffin was heavily recruited at a young age . He got his first verbal offer from Baylor when he was an eighth-grader at Welch Middle School and verbally committed to LSU as a sophomore. After a coaching change at LSU, the 2009 McDonald's All-American reopened his recruitment before eventually settling on Oklahoma. He said the attention didn't affect his play, but he understands how it could.
"Getting that early offer puts you in the early limelight, and some kids don't know how to handle limelight and accolades at a young age," Mason-Griffin said. "It makes it seem like you've already made it. By the time you get (to the) 12th grade, if you haven't worked on your game, then those offers might go away."
Some believe a limit on early recruiting is unnecessary and question whether it can be enforced. Lynden Rose said limiting when a school can extend an offer might create fewer opportunities for scholarships. Pastner thinks some positives can come from an early offer.
"I don't think there is any slippery slope," he said. "In basketball, you know if a prospect is going to have an opportunity to be really good. If someone offers a scholarship in seventh grade or eighth grade, there's no negativity, it's not binding, and there are no legal ramifications. Sometimes it's better for the school and the prospect because it helps them make sure they're on the right path academically."
AAU: Success leads to scrutiny of Hal Pastner (4 of 5)
Houston Hoops boss denies profiting from team, other criticisms
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Aug. 4, 2010,
For 30 years, Hal Pastner worked in sales and marketing for a local industrial company.
He says that's where he made his money. He scoffs at the suggestion he has profited through any involvement with the Houston Hoops, the AAU organization he founded. As for Vision Sports, the business he formed in 2001 that provided guidance and organization while running AAU tournaments, Pastner says he sold it in 2007 to MaxxAthlete for $300,000.
The two never mixed, he says. Houston Hoops was and remains his hobby, a non-profit pursuit. Vision Sports, which he started after the industrial company he was employed by was sold, was his livelihood, an idea hatched after being around sports for so long.
But he insists the distinction remains critical.
"Vision Sports was my living," Pastner said. "Houston Hoops had nothing to do with Vision Sports. … We never mixed Vision Sports with Houston Hoops."
This matters because Houston Hoops is one of the most successful and high-profile programs of its kind, no doubt aided by being one of a select — 42, to be exact - travel teams in the 17-and-under division to be subsidized by Nike. And Pastner, while not a coach but more like the organization's CEO who literally wondered aloud Tuesday why he was still involved in all of this, is viewed by some as "the godfather" of the Houston summer scene.
With eight alumni currently in the NBA and dozens more enrolled in universities throughout the country, Pastner has ascended to heights most will only dream of achieving. So, naturally, there is skepticism regarding his methods.
Ask Pastner, and everything he's done has been for the greater good.
"What's the root of most evil? What's the root of many of our problems in society today? Greed," he said. "It depends on people's motives. If your motives are to enjoy the kids, the competition, that's fine. But when greed sets in and it becomes about the money first, that's a problem."
Defended by Dickey
University of Houston coach James Dickey was complimentary.
"I've always enjoyed working with Hal over the years," he said. "I knew him while I was at Texas Tech and Oklahoma State. The guys in the summer are all trying to provide opportunities, and the people I've always dealt with, including Hal, have been always been positive."
But ask others, specifically the competition, and the response is contradictory.
Some rival coaches say they fear uttering anything negative about Pastner because it might hurt how their players are viewed or even ranked by some online recruiting sites such as Rivals.com and Scout.com.
Pastner laughed Tuesday at the notion he might possess that sort of clout.
"I don't have that much control," he said. " If your name is out there in a positive way, there will always be people trying to tear someone down."
He cites the Kingwood Classic as an example. It's the tournament Pastner launched in 1995 with 12 teams and blossomed to more than 650 in 2007, his last year in control of the event. But there remain grumbling that Pastner was charging teams $700 for entry and then coaches another $400 for information contact books.
Expensive undertaking
These are the facts, he says:
Teams were charged $350-375 per team, although a quarter of the 650 or so teams never paid. Books were $175-200, but half of the coaches were given copies for free.
What wasn't mentioned, Pastner says, was the cost of officials for the approximately 1,500 games and other expenses associated with putting on the event.
"Every person was paid," Pastner said. "We never had a volunteer."
Which is a far cry from Houston Hoops, he says.
"If Nike didn't give us money, I'd probably stop doing it tomorrow," Pastner said. "It's too expensive."
According to various local coaches, the cost of travel, lodging, food and tournament fees for a 12-player roster in the 17-and-under division during the summer is between $50,000-60,000. Pastner said the check - he wouldn't divulge the actual amount - from Nike covers expenses and little else.
Pastner admits to hearing the chatter, such as Houston Hoops poaches players.
"Ridiculous," he said. "People call us and want to play with us… We're not even the best team in the city."
Or that he steers prospects to his son, Josh, the second-year coach at Memphis and a former assistant at Arizona.
"How many of our guys have played for him? Maybe Nic Wise," he said. " We don't have that much power or control. That's up to the parents."
Rival coaches are beyond skeptical. Pastner maintains his motives are different.
"I ended up loving the kids, the competition," Pastner said. "… Not everything in life is about money.
"I do the Houston Hoops for the love of Houston Hoops."
