Turnpike Basketball Club is committed to creating fair and balanced house league teams. Ideally, our House League games would have no blowouts and no teams would finish undefeated or winless.
However, we are not out to coddle our players. Instead, we believe that balance leads to more fun engagement and less boredom and frustration for our kids. This approach also gives us more opportunity to demonstrate that the concepts of sportsmanship and competitiveness do not have to be viewed as polar opposites.
There are several factors that go into creating well-matched teams within both boys and girls divisions in all age-groups. The success of the team selection process depends on cooperation from the club, coaches, parents and players.
There are several factors that go into creating well-matched teams within both boys and girls divisions in all age-groups:
The success of the team selection process depends on cooperation from the club, coaches, parents and players.
In most cases, each registered player is automatically placed in the league matching his or her grade level.
Additionally, to enhance each player's experience, we also look to invite our most successful House players to join our Travel program in future seasons.
Post-Season Evaluations: At the end of each season, each team's coach is asked to submit player evaluations for the season just ended. Having just completed a full season with the players, it's at this point in the process that the coach has the best insight into a player's ability. The coaches are asked to evaluate the players using the same criteria as the pre-season evaluations. The post-season evaluation is archived until next season.
Pre-Season Evaluations: Prior to the start of each season, Turnpike Basketball conducts player evaluations (or "tryouts"). This affords the coaches of each age group the opportunity to evaluate the players and rank each according to their ability relative to their peers. The evaluation considers fundamental skills, offense and defensive skills and game situation analysis. We provide 2 evaluation sessions and a make-up session and ask ALL players to attend 1 session. All players should exhibit their highest ability of play during tryouts so they can be fairly evaluated. It is critical that each player attends a pre-season evaluation session.
Prior to the start of each season, the coaches come together for team drafts. Each coach is provided a listing of all players in the form of a "draft sheet" that represents their playing ability and corresponding "draft round." The ranking of each player is based on their post-season evaluation (if they played in the prior season) as well as their recent pre-season evaluation. Each coach in the age division selects a number out of hat which determines the order in which they pick their players and we follow that order in a serpentine format until all players are assigned a team. Coaches and assistant coaches are required to draft their children in the draft round in which their player falls. If a coach's player is a first round player - that team does not receive another first round pick. For coaches that are not able to be present during the draft - their team is "auto drafted" for them by assigning the next available highest ranked player.
A few important footnotes to the process: