DefenseBB
Snark is always appreciated!
- Joined
- Nov 10, 2016
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Umm that makes no sense. 1st off from what I can tell they have HS Coaches coach the U16 in the past as they fit that age group and College coaches weren't offered as options. All coaches are vetted and embody what USA Basketball deems their values. U19 and U23 are done by college coaches who also commit time and effort to grow the game as a whole, not solely for their benefit. USA Basketball could care less if a coach gains an advantage as long as they aid USA Basketball and their stated objectives.One of the Reasons USA's BB younger program don't have any of the elite college coaches is that it gives these coaches too much of a recruiting advantage. That's why prior U16/U17 teams had HS Coaches. This years U16 Head Coach was Carla Berbue of Tufts Univ (Div 3). It will be interesting to see if she gets the U17 team next year's World Championships. Many College Programs were complaining.
The reason that this team and others have not succeeded (defined as winning Gold) is mostly due to a lack of practice time to garner team cohesion. I thought this years U19 showed great promise but they had limited practice time and early on the coach played everyone in fairly logical distributed minutes, including Cristyn Williams who was clearly outmatched n being there. The coach actually did well in my view and I was highly skeptical early on. This team dominated everyone but Russia. How long did Russia have together? Same for Japan who made a nice effort. They had lots of practice time together.
I think we all have witness Geno talk about the process enough to know time together is most important to know the teammates skills, abilities and where to find them.. Simple as that. Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. Or make illogical observations.



