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FAST DRAW FEATURES

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ACC Best Practices: Maryland Uncovers the Connection Between Twitter & Recruiting

From Digital Hoops Blast, via LinkedIN and Andrew Pawlowski.

This blog is all about inspiration.
We’re going to spend 3 days elevating best practices from the squads that make up the Atlantic Coast Conference. And then we’ll talk about how to make that even better…

What makes something a best practice? This isn’t about the most intricate experience. It’s about looking at the world from your consumer’s point of view and delivering something that hits it right smack on the head. In the case of colleges, I’m treating the primary consumer as that prospective student athlete.

Cool?

Let’s move.

It seems fitting that today is here. Yesterday, we covered the details at the bottom of a website (check what Duke does, here)… And today we will flip that around with the top navigation. Let’s move to the Maryland Athletics website, here. As you can see in the image below, they hit us front and center with a For Recruits header.
That’s where the magic happens.

First of all, let’s zoom into that menu, below:

Maryland Positions Twitter as a Recruiting Tool. We have long identified that Twitter offers the potential for prospective student athletes to stay in contact with coaches. But if you look at the majority of sites, they instead offer Twitter under “Fan Zone” or “Multimedia” or, maybe, “Social Media”. And I’m a believer that you identify your audience and speak to them. Maryland makes this very clear.

I clicked into Twitter, and come to Coach Gary Williams’ page, here. Coach Williams does a great job here – he’s up fairly often, and is conversational and relevant. Scroll through it and you’ll see he gives props to former players (Greivis Vasquez, Steve Blake, and Landon Milbourne recently) — signaling that he doesn’t forget you once you leave Maryland. Just solid all around.

How could this be better? Make this the first thing on the menu. Twitter crashed the recruits menu, the mission now is to move it to the first thing we see.

One thing Andrew doesn’t mention is that perhaps an even better use of this comes from “down the hall” at the Comcast Center… Brenda Frese and her staff have, arguably, the Nation’s #1 recruiting class in 2011 and 2012 may be equally as good.  There is no secret that Frese has long been known for her masterful art of recruiting and her staff is tremendous.

The custom UMD Women’s Basketball site (many schools are doing this now) is really, really good.

I follow many coaches “Tweets” out there and the primary difference between the ones flowing out of College Park and the rest is I don’t just here about:  “It’s a beautiful day in (you fill in the college town), or ” Heading to workouts, it’s a great day to be a (fill in mascot of your choice.)” and the best is “just had a great (fill in meal based on time of day) at (fill in local sub, pizza or food spot) AWESOME!”  Don’t get me wrong, there is still plenty of that… every staff does that, it’s a given.  Follow Coach Frese on Twitter, you’ll get the idea.

I haven’t personally done a “Best of Twitter College Basketball Review,” maybe that is something that is out there.

Anyone with input and links to really good uses of Twitter forward them via comments section and we will share.

Remember who has the final decision

Mark Lewis

Mark Lewis writes for Hoop Gurlz… he writes exceptionally well.  Very insightful.  Would I consider him a writer?  Probably not.  No disrespect intended.  Mark’s a basketball coach.  In my mind’s eye I still see him on the sideline, or out on the road recruiting…. minus the camera.

So many times in the recruiting process parents try to re-live their sports lives (or lack there of) through their child’s… HUGE MISTAKE.  Mark’s insight is accurate and helpful.  Mark says, “I’m not a parent…”  I disagree.  Biology may not have played a part in Mark’s “parenting,” but he “parented” many during his 20+ year coaching career.

I’m a parent.  We have a daughter.  Both my wife and I went off to college.  I blew out my ankle twice.  If I didn’t pick the school because I wanted to be there no matter what happened on the basketball court – I would have been miserable.  My wife did transfer because she was miserable.  We had both sides of the story.  Mark is spot on.

I hope Mark is around and I remember his words in 2018 when our daughter is making her decision.

In… Remember who has the final decision, Mark shares a great perspective into the process of recruiting for parents.  Who actually has the final decision is really important.

Parenting is tough. That fact is evidenced every day by rebellious kids and surrendering parents who just throw up their arms in exasperation. The approaches to guiding, teaching, preparing and supporting are varied and as daunting a challenge as any adult will face.

Now add to that the twists, turns and decisions that come with the recruiting of a prospective student-athlete and you’ve got a volatile mix that can tip the fragile relationship between a teenager and her parents.

I must confess, I’m not a parent. In fact my single greatest contribution to society may well be that I’ve added no offspring of mine to the population. However, I have had a ringside seat to a multitude of recruiting decisions through the years that have revealed some startling child-parent dynamics.

A lot of athletes go through the recruiting process with their parents at their side and come up with the right decision that makes sense for her future in the classroom, on the court and personally. The tug of war begins when the agenda of mom and dad start to override that of their daughter.

Continue Reading…

Collegiate Basketball Training Academy for Girls

The Collegiate Basketball Training Academy is an intense, high level basketball skills instructional program designed for young women who are serious college prospects.

The drill work is the exact individual instruction work done by major college and professional basketball teams and coaches to help prepare their players for success at the highest level.

Review the schedule and teaching progression for the day BEFORE signing up.  This workout will be intense and demanding.

SCHEDULE & TEACHING PROGRESSION

Interest has already been VERY high.  There were 12-15 verbal commitments for the MAX. 50 spots yesterday, BEFORE the program was even announced.

DO NOT DELAY YOUR REGISTRATION.  We will not be able to go over 50 participants.

Registration is available NOW ON-LINE, or you can click the link below to download a copy of the application.  If you print the copy of the application you must mail, email, FAX or bring it to:

COACH SCOTT ALLEN

ST LEO THE GREAT CATHOLIC SCHOOL

3704 OLD LEE HWY FAIRFAX, VA 22030-1890

APPLICATION

The CBTA will take place on:

Sunday June 6, 2010

AT:

St. Leo the Great School (Fairfax, VA)

3704 Old Lee Hwy,  Fairfax, VA  22030

8:30 am – 6:30 pm

If you have any questions regarding the CBTA, please email us at:   CBTA@allbasketballreview.com

See you on Sunday June 6th!

Paul VI High School – 4th State Championship in a row!

Paul VI High School VISGBA State Champions

The PVI Lady Panthers Varsity Girls Basketball team had an incredible journey this past week playing five games in five days!

It started with a win Wednesday at home against St. Gertrude (Richmond) in the Virginia Independent Schools State Tournament Quarter Finals. Thursday they went to Holy Cross in the Quarter finals of the WCAC tournament and upset them at the buzzer – Devan Fitzsimmons hit a 15 footer with 3 seconds remaining! Then off to Richmond for the VIS Semis/Final. Friday night they beat a pesky Bishop Sullivan team by 24 to move to the final (Blair Koniszewski hit 7 three pointers!!) against Flint Hill. Suffice it to say that they were starting to get tired. But they overcame a very tough FH team in 2 OT’s to capture their 4^thconsecutive State Title!

All tournament team honors for Blair, Maya Singleton, and Jess Long. Jess long was named MVP of the tournament! Mr. Menke (PVI retiring AD) was there for the game and proudly posed for pictures with the team, the seniors, and just about anybody that wanted. He was really proud to have his last basketball championship of his 42 year career!! He will surely be missed at PVI!!

Coach Allen said – ”we are like a driver going down the highway with the fuel light on– trying to go as far as we can before we run out of gas! Well, they finally ran out. In the semi-final of the WCAC tournament at American University.  Elizabeth Seton brought the season to an end. The PVI girls played hard the whole game but it was obvious from the beginning that Elizabeth Seton had the freshest legs. They struggled and lost a very emotional game. It was the last game for Blair and Melissa Westphal our seniors and they really wanted to go out with a win.

The whole team should be very proud – they won 23 games (school record) – 12 conference games (school record) – won the VISGBA state championship, made it to the semi-final of the WCAC for only the 2^nd time in 8 years – won 12 out of their last 14 games and one of the most impressive accomplishments in PVI history – Blair Koniszewski made 103 three pointers this season to lead all players in the Metro area (boys and girls)!!!  WOW! What a year.

The coaching staff and followers of the Lady Panthers are VERY Proud of their dedication and hard work this season as it will be a season that will never be forgotten.   I was able to be present for several practice, workouts, team meetings – this coaching staff pushes and challenges these young ladies.  The team responded, showed their trust and commitment and really came together to put it all together for a strong finish.  Perhaps, if they did not have the worst winter weather in recent history and the schedule wasn’t so jammed up at the end (5 games in 5 days… the NBA doesn’t even to that to millionaires, let alone high school kids) they might have kept going.  I didn’t doubt them.

Congratulations to each of the players, their families and the coaching staff on a great season!