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Wednesday, June 6, 2012

why Michigan basketball is in a decline

For thee past decade Michigan boys basketball has been on a steady decline. Many people inside of Michigan refuse to accept it. When is the last time Michigan High School or Travel teams were known as a national power ? Part of the blame fall soley on MHSAA and its member schools and coaches. The rules in Michigan prevent kids from getting national exposure, no televised games and no all- star games (ridiculous).  Schools in Michigan have repeatedly hired incompetent and unethical coaches just to say we won our district or league. Lastly coaches in Michigan seem to only recruit they don't believe in player development I have been in several high school practices over the past 3 years and i see little to no skill development. Next the travel basketball in Michigan is a Case of the haves and have nots there is no other way to put it. If you aren't chosen to play for one of the 3 sponsored programs in Michigan you are deemed as an inferior talent. Here is the problem with that none of those 3 teams have players from one of the biggest talent pools in the country "Detroit" 2 of them ( mustangs/family) don't target players in Detroit and the other(Dorian's Pride) just simply can't get kids from Detroit. Now I will say this part of the reason players from Detroit aren't being targeted is history, in the past the majority of them weren't able to qualify for scholarships. I tend to believe that is 75% the players fault and 25% the coach and travel team's fault. How do you as a high school coach allow a kid to get thee bare minimum 2.0 just to be eligible for high school and on thee other hand how as a travel team do you take a team full of kids that are barely passing all over the country just to win a few games. What we have to realize is there is a domino effect. everything comes down to dollars/ Colleges aren't going to spend money to come see you play in high school or come visit you in your living room until they know you are going to qualify., and perception is southeast Michigan players won't qualify. So we need to  prepare our kids for college and MHSAA has to allow kids to get the national exposure that players from other states get.