Kyle Shiloh, BUA Trainer Blog
Kyle Shiloh: AAU Basketball
April2011
If you haven't noticed, in the Bakersfield area alone it's almost as if a new "AAU" travel team is created almost every other month. Sadly, I feel that most of these coaches, teams, and players have the wrong intentions/idea behind this. AAU travel basketball was created as an opportunity to display your talent and further your basketball career after HS by hopefully receiving a scholarship to college. For the kids/parents who do take it serious, there's a lack of preparation in the off season for that level of basketball. I feel that too many people these days are confused as what the main purpose of AAU basketball is. Let me throw out some numbers to better clarify a kids opportunities of receiving a college basketball athletic scholarship.
On average, there are only 13 available max basketball scholarships available at a Division 1 college, 10 scholarships max for a Division 2, 18 for a NAIA, and 15 for a Junior College. Between D1, D2, and NAIA there is a total of slightly over 1,000 schools available for kids to receive a scholarship and play basketball. That means for roughly over 1 million kids in all 50 states there is only slightly over 1,000 opportunities for all of those kids to receive a scholarship. Every single one of those millions of kids have the same dream and are fighting for the same scholarships.
My point behind the numbers is that with the odds your given, why not increase your chances by preparing yourself as much as possible? Recently, I've been concerned by a lot of the kids and parents I talk to on a daily basis. For any parents or current players involved in AAU who might be reading this, I want you to ask yourself a question... When are the open dates throughout the year that colleges can attend events to scout players? Then I want you to ask yourself, Does my AAU team go to any tournaments and/or events during these dates? If so, have I been training and working out accordingly to prepare me for this? Most kids/teams don't travel during the recruiting period, some kids/teams do but they've been so busy playing games that they have no idea as to how the game SHOULD be played, and then they end up being overlooked by the same people they are trying to impress... the coaches. I think most of us forget this or do not realize it and think of AAU as something that people just do these days. Trust me, the travel and fee's that come along with AAU basketball are not cheap. If that means taking some time off from AAU and devoting it specifically to developing your game, so be it. So if you want to take part in all of this, make sure you're ready! That means working on your game and training in the off season, recognizing the weak points in your game, and having an understanding of WHAT COLLEGE COACHES WANT TO SEE!
On average, there are only 13 available max basketball scholarships available at a Division 1 college, 10 scholarships max for a Division 2, 18 for a NAIA, and 15 for a Junior College. Between D1, D2, and NAIA there is a total of slightly over 1,000 schools available for kids to receive a scholarship and play basketball. That means for roughly over 1 million kids in all 50 states there is only slightly over 1,000 opportunities for all of those kids to receive a scholarship. Every single one of those millions of kids have the same dream and are fighting for the same scholarships.
My point behind the numbers is that with the odds your given, why not increase your chances by preparing yourself as much as possible? Recently, I've been concerned by a lot of the kids and parents I talk to on a daily basis. For any parents or current players involved in AAU who might be reading this, I want you to ask yourself a question... When are the open dates throughout the year that colleges can attend events to scout players? Then I want you to ask yourself, Does my AAU team go to any tournaments and/or events during these dates? If so, have I been training and working out accordingly to prepare me for this? Most kids/teams don't travel during the recruiting period, some kids/teams do but they've been so busy playing games that they have no idea as to how the game SHOULD be played, and then they end up being overlooked by the same people they are trying to impress... the coaches. I think most of us forget this or do not realize it and think of AAU as something that people just do these days. Trust me, the travel and fee's that come along with AAU basketball are not cheap. If that means taking some time off from AAU and devoting it specifically to developing your game, so be it. So if you want to take part in all of this, make sure you're ready! That means working on your game and training in the off season, recognizing the weak points in your game, and having an understanding of WHAT COLLEGE COACHES WANT TO SEE!
Kyle Shiloh: France
November2010
It's been a while since I was last able to put up a new blog because I haven't had internet access for the last month. The team gave me the option of moving to a new apartment downtown so they had to switch the service to the new address. In the states, if you put an order in for something such as the internet it will most likely be taken care of that same day or close to it. In France, everything takes two to three weeks to go through for some reason. No matter how nice of an area in Europe you're in, these type of little things are what can make you appreciate what you have back home. Also, the government in France had recently decided to raise the age in which people can start collecting retirement from work. The people have decided to go on strike to protest this which means that businesses have been closed all around France including most public transportation. I'm not sure how long the strike will go on but I'm sure that is one of the reasons why it took so long for everything to be turned on in my apartment.
A lot has happened since my last blog. We're now 4-1 in the season and we also won our cup game that we recently played in. The one loss that we have was against Rouen on the road. Rouen is a big city, about one hour from Paris. So I did get to see the Ifal Tower from a distance while we were traveling to the game. I plan on going to Paris in June some time before I leave to see everything up close. There are five different leagues in France; National 1, 2, 3, Pro B, and Pro A being the highest level. Whichever team wins the championship in its division will have the option of moving up a division and the bottom team in the league will move to the next league down. Rouen is a team that wants to make the jump up to Pro A which means that they must win a championship to do so. They have put a lot of money into their team and their players have a lot of pressure on them to perform because of this. I'm sure all of you know about how Lebron James is now with the Heat and they are calling them the "Big 3". Before the game, the team had an advertisement up with three of their Americans on the front calling them the "Big 3" and the coach was also in the newspaper talking about one of them as if he's close to being cut because he's not playing good. Going into the game, they were struggling at the time but we all knew they were due for a good game. We played well in the first half but they ended up beating us by double digits to give us our first loss.
After the Rouen game we headed back home to play a team called Clermont. A guy by the name of Dreike Bouldin, who played in the same conference as me in college at Fresno State, plays on this team. It was cool because me and him talked for a minute before the game about some of the days back in college. He's an older guy so he's been all around Europe in the past years and it's always good talking to guys like that every once in a while. This is a team that we played once in the pre season so we already knew what type of team they were. We ended up winning by double digits.
Our most recent game was at home against Antibes. They have an american pg, Justin Ingram, who I played against in college at the University of Toledo. He's played in France for about five years so he already has a certain amount of respect here. The talk in the papers was about how big of a game it was for both clubs and also about my matchup against him. The game was extremely close but we ended up pulling it out in the end. As for the matchup between me and the other pg, we both played very well. He finished with 25 points hitting some big threes towards the end and I finished with 16 points, 5 rebounds, and 6 assist. I suffered a hand injury towards the end of the game and my whole hand was swollen afterwards. The team was scared that something was broken so they had me take x-ray's the following day just to make sure. Everything came out fine, but it was swollen to the point that I couldn't move it so they put me in a cast for a few days and we'll just have to wait and see how it heals. Hopefully I'll be able to play in our game on the road this weekend.
A lot has happened since my last blog. We're now 4-1 in the season and we also won our cup game that we recently played in. The one loss that we have was against Rouen on the road. Rouen is a big city, about one hour from Paris. So I did get to see the Ifal Tower from a distance while we were traveling to the game. I plan on going to Paris in June some time before I leave to see everything up close. There are five different leagues in France; National 1, 2, 3, Pro B, and Pro A being the highest level. Whichever team wins the championship in its division will have the option of moving up a division and the bottom team in the league will move to the next league down. Rouen is a team that wants to make the jump up to Pro A which means that they must win a championship to do so. They have put a lot of money into their team and their players have a lot of pressure on them to perform because of this. I'm sure all of you know about how Lebron James is now with the Heat and they are calling them the "Big 3". Before the game, the team had an advertisement up with three of their Americans on the front calling them the "Big 3" and the coach was also in the newspaper talking about one of them as if he's close to being cut because he's not playing good. Going into the game, they were struggling at the time but we all knew they were due for a good game. We played well in the first half but they ended up beating us by double digits to give us our first loss.
After the Rouen game we headed back home to play a team called Clermont. A guy by the name of Dreike Bouldin, who played in the same conference as me in college at Fresno State, plays on this team. It was cool because me and him talked for a minute before the game about some of the days back in college. He's an older guy so he's been all around Europe in the past years and it's always good talking to guys like that every once in a while. This is a team that we played once in the pre season so we already knew what type of team they were. We ended up winning by double digits.
Our most recent game was at home against Antibes. They have an american pg, Justin Ingram, who I played against in college at the University of Toledo. He's played in France for about five years so he already has a certain amount of respect here. The talk in the papers was about how big of a game it was for both clubs and also about my matchup against him. The game was extremely close but we ended up pulling it out in the end. As for the matchup between me and the other pg, we both played very well. He finished with 25 points hitting some big threes towards the end and I finished with 16 points, 5 rebounds, and 6 assist. I suffered a hand injury towards the end of the game and my whole hand was swollen afterwards. The team was scared that something was broken so they had me take x-ray's the following day just to make sure. Everything came out fine, but it was swollen to the point that I couldn't move it so they put me in a cast for a few days and we'll just have to wait and see how it heals. Hopefully I'll be able to play in our game on the road this weekend.