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College basketball and sports moms please counsel us


TwoEdgedSword
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**Please don't quote me.** xpost at Chat
 
My daughter is an elite basketball player and has always played up a full year at the local public school. She is now 12 and in 8th grade for sports and only takes a couple of extra curricular classes at the public school. She still mostly home schools. After the spring, we need to decide if she should repeat 8th grade so her grade and age finally match or continue playing up a year and go into high school next fall.  If she doesn't repeat, she would be graduating from high school and starting college at age 17.

If she repeats 8th grade it would be new classes and there would be no academic classes being repeated. We're not concerned about a stigma for repeating. She is serious about playing college basketball and has had coaches tell her this is an acheivable goal for her. She's played with this team since first grade and they are outstanding together. Academically and socially I think she would be fine being a year younger than everyone in high school. But it's hard to know if physically and developmentally she would be disadvantaging herself by being 17 and playing against 22 year olds in college. Or even whether she would be disadvantaging herself in high school when she gets to playing varsity level against older high school girls. If brought up to varsity as a freshman she'd be just 13.
 
One AAU coach advised us that he would not to let his kids start college before age 17 so they can fully develop as a player before starting college. Yet another club ball coach advised that she should be part of a winning team for college "looks."
The team that she has played up with has always been a winning team. She is one of the two strongest players on the team. So if she stayed back while they went on to high school, unfortunately she would be breaking up the team pretty substantially. They would still do well, but there may be some grumpy about it. The team one grade down, that is her actual true grade, is not a winning team so far and they have a loooong way to go. She'd be starting over with friendships in that grade, but she's willing to try this.
 
 
 
With boys it's becoming more common to "grey shirt" where already in their correct grade, they repeat 8th grade for sports so they go into high school stronger and graduate at 19.  There's an undeniable physical advantage when boys do this and I'm not sure if it is as dramatic for girls. However she's not contemplating that scenario. She's considering whether she should repeat 8th grade for sports just to avoid DISadvantaging herself skill wise by being younger than everyone and get back to playing at her true grade level from here forward. She's open to both possibilities. She likes her friends (who are all a year older) for sure, but at this time at least she's very focused on college ball.

Thank you for your input and bearing with the long post. I hope everyone enjoyed their time with family and friends over the long weekend.
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Could your DD not rejoin the "winning" team when she enters HS, even if she enters a year later than most of the others? In other words, if she repeats 8th grade (which sounds like a good idea for several reasons) and plays with the lower-level team next year as a repeat 8th grader, when she starts 9th, can she rejoin her current team at that point? High school teams are usually a mix of grade levels, not just all sophomores or whatever. Then she would have the advantage of another year of physical and academic development, and still be on a winning team when coaches are scouting her.

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Will respond more later today, but there should be no problem repeating 8th grade academically but remaining on the 9th grade AAU team.  One of my son's AAU teams, coached by 2 dads who had played college basketball, always played a year ahead of their son's grades.  So, my son was in 9th grade playing on their 9th grade team, but the coach's sons were in 8th grade playing on the 9th grade team.  The boys are at University of Miami and Kansas State now.

ETA:  Ah. Oh. Ah.  She has been playing at the public school with a team that is a year older than her.  That makes a difference.  I thought she was playing on an AAU team with these girls.  Does she play AAU at all?  You've gotten some good responses on the chat board.

Edited by Sue in St Pete
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3 hours ago, Sue in St Pete said:

ETA:  Ah. Oh. Ah.  She has been playing at the public school with a team that is a year older than her.  That makes a difference.  I thought she was playing on an AAU team with these girls.  Does she play AAU at all?  You've gotten some good responses on the chat board.

Yes she plays AAU and plays a year up there too.

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Ds played on 3 AAU teams over the years.  On one, he was a year younger than the others.  That team was instrumental in his playing college ball.  They went to the USSSA finals and they played against (and lost to) an elite team while D1 college coaches watched.  They lost, but they held their own.  Ds got an invitation to a D1 school's elite camp from that.  He went to the camp, but chose not to pursue the school.

That team is similar to the one he is on today.  No super stars, but all solid players.  His college coach called this AAU coach and ds got the official visit after that.  We had contacted the school with marketing materials before that. 

Sigh.  I hope I'm making sense.  Ds was on a decent high school team as well.

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I didn't read replies on the chat board but if this were my daughter, I would opt to repeat 8th grade and put her at her own age-level as opposed to younger if she were this serious about playing at the college level.

Being on a team carries a lot of varying dynamics with it.  For some of the younger girls on the team, some things are frustrating for them when they are 17 and the rest of the teammates go to an 18-and-up club or something. They either have to get a fake, or stay home (at this point, I think my dd is probably the only one on her team who doesn't/didn't have a fake for either 18 or 21. Fakes are like buying candy at college... most students think it's no big deal whatsoever). Not to mention the drama a team brings (ohhhhh, the drama...) - being older or at least the same age as the other teammates gives them equal footing vs. being younger. imho. Just the additional year of maturity and experience (both in life and in sport) for talking with coaches and such would be a plus. 🙂

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