Mike Gminski on AAU

[Mitch McConnell]

I happened to be listening to the pre-game show of Maryland-Ga Tech Saturday morning -- satellite radio subscriber -- when there was an interview with former Duke great Mike Gminski.

Of course, he was talking about the ACC and so forth. But the interviewer was asking him about the AAU influence in college basketball.

Gminski was very complimentary of it because of the athleticism and ability. He recognized there were some bad apples in the industry -- because that's what it really is, an industry -- but said the one thing that kids on those teams don't have ingrained in them is possessing the ability to actually know how to win games and to understand how to make critical plays. I'm paraphrasing but the gist of it was that the kids are out there to do their thing and then it's time to move on to the next game.

Is that too simplistic? Perhaps. But I thought he raised a point that I didn't give enough thought to. And I thought it was worth discussing on the board.

[PonyDoh]

I happened to be listening to the pre-game show of Maryland-Ga Tech Saturday morning -- satellite radio subscriber -- when there was an interview with former Duke great Mike Gminski.

Of course, he was talking about the ACC and so forth. But the interviewer was asking him about the AAU influence in college basketball.

Gminski was very complimentary of it because of the athleticism and ability. He recognized there were some bad apples in the industry -- because that's what it really is, an industry -- but said the one thing that kids on those teams don't have ingrained in them is possessing the ability to actually know how to win games and to understand how to make critical plays. I'm paraphrasing but the gist of it was that the kids are out there to do their thing and then it's time to move on to the next game.

Is that too simplistic? Perhaps. But I thought he raised a point that I didn't give enough thought to. And I thought it was worth discussing on the board.

I don't really buy into that, if only b/c these kids play 50x as many big games as they used to. The more you see situations, the better you are at dealing w/them. Now, one thing I will say about AAU & social networking, is that these kids no longer hate each other. When I first started on the circuit, the best team from DC repped DC, and wanted the throat of an LA team and vice versa. 15 years later, all these kids know each, room w/each other at camps, and generally like the kids opposite them. That can hurt competitiveness in a big way

PS- Gminski doesn't own a TV , but wears several earrings at like 60. Have no idea what that means, but he's a quirky dude

[Thumper]

It's just wrong to call anyone who went to Puke University a "great."