COLUMN: AAU Provides Great Opportunities for Players

AAU for many basketball players is an opportunity to showcase their talents against the best talent across the country and is also an opportunity to show those who watch what they are made of. It’s a time where a player can show a college coach what they are made and hopefully receive an offer.

AAU is a great place to get noticed because of the high-level talent that comes to play at some of these tournaments. Teams from all over the country could show up. Some teams with big names, like Vegas Elite, AOT or Alabama Fusion, or small teams with no weight behind their names are on that list. A player coming to one of these tournaments gets to lace up with players that are just as good, if not better than them. Two teams get to play it out until the final buzzer to see who wins. The special thing about these tournaments is that the a “no name” team could beat the big name team, or that “no name” team could crawl its way from the bottom of the bracket to meet the best team in their bracket for the championship and that would immediately put team and the players on the team on everyone’s watch list.

AAU is also great to get looks from both high school and college coaches. While at big tournaments, it is not just parents and friends showing up to watch kids play basketball, but coaches from all around the country looking to see who would be the best for their team. Coaches now understand that they need to come and see kids play early, not to just see how good they are now, but the potential they may hold. A coach could talk to the best kid in the whole tournament, but also those who showed the most promise, the kid who probably isn’t the best now, but with more time, hard-work and dedication could be one of the best. 

AAU is one of the best opportunities in the world for a player to showcase their talent and impress anyone watching. The truly best part about AAU is a player could be completely unknown in March and by the end of April have 30 plus offers.