It’s an American problem. Over here kids just grow into their bodies quicker and just become athletes who can hoop but lack fundamentals. Which is why when they make the NBA not alot of them have long careers.
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The Decline of Terre Haute High School Athletics
- Thread starter sycamore tuff
- Start date
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I'd say that's a chunk. You're not playing outside in the Summer but when the sun drops, people do come out. Right now it's 60 and windy so it's not really optimal hoops weather. We usually get 320 days of sunshine so you're not far off.
I'd say though, Indiana high school teams would wipe the Vegas schools off the floor 90% of the time save for the cheating prep schools and maybe one or two of the publics. Lots of long athletes, but skill and team game not on par.
Maybe if Bitcoin ever goes to $10M a coin, I can found a Sycamore Basketball Academy in the Haute for kids to play year round.
The dirty little secret is that it's mostly all about who your parents know at these big schools in Terre Haute. Generally the basketball rosters at North and South are mostly made up of coach's, teacher's, lawyer's, doctor's, and politician's kids. You can't tell me the best 12 boys are on either team's squad out of the 1000+ boys in each school. If you aren't apart of the good ole boys club in Terre Haute then you're better off sending your kids to West Vigo, Northview, Rockville, etc, if you want your kids to have a shot.
I honestly saw a lot of kids this week trying to make plays and failing to succeed. Lots of 3's taken but actual basketball skills otherwise not great. Any kid hoping to play D-1 should dominate in a tournament at this level every game. Several good players but no physical specimens with basketball skills in my opinion.
That has always happened to some degree (usually end of the bench guys) but if you think there are some studs that didn't get put on the squad, I'd find that hard to believe. If so, do you have some names?
SycamoreBlue3209
The Newsom Level
I must have just slipped by then! How did Woelfle let a bum like me on his team??!
Geeze dude, you don’t always have to play the victim/underdog card. I went to North for 4 years and can’t think of a single kid that put the work in and had the talent, but got cut. Sure, there were some skilled athletes that didn’t make it to their senior year, but that was due to grades, behavior, lazy, and yeah some time poor support system/family structure…but Woelfle or any coach around here wants the best players or their team, of course you see some favoritism in playing time, but I have also seen him put in a lot of time and effort into trying to help underprivileged kids.
You gotta get your head out of the sand…all those occupations you mentioned definitely help provide a better support system for a kid, but if you can play and are a good teammate/student/person…you will have a spot on the team.
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sycamore tuff
The Renn Level
And sometimes the talented kids make the team but don't play much because they might make the coach's boy look bad.
Having been around West Vigo for many years I can say that no star players ever came there for athletics. They were either disgruntled for some reason, had baggage either behavioral or otherwise, or were not good enough to play at North or South. The only exceptions were coaches or teachers kids who were at West Vigo already.
Southgrad07
The Renn Level
I normally agree with many of you regarding posts on here..this is comically bad from my perspective..but happy new yr yall!
I'm nearly 40 years old and haven't "played" basketball in 3 years and I could win tournament MVP. That tournament is weak tbh. Real weak. People that feel like that is disrespectful, get in the gym everyday and change the narrative around here. North and South have weak ass teams and they are the two biggest schools in the tournament, quite frankly it's rigged and they should win it every single year. Wolfe runs a good program but no reason they should be losing to Northview like that - Wolfe has continuity and culture, outside of the Renn kids the talent is not good.
But... Northview gonna Northview and they are running good athletic programs from the youth on up. But this situation is no different than Lincoln Hale - literally, unless you are doing it at the 4A level or doing it in AAU I'm not interested... 234 posts on this Luke Brown thread https://sycamorepride.com/threads/21-in-pg-luke-brown-stetson.39193/page-12#post-358368
Ya all love a good local kid that goes off in the Pizza Hut Classic. Look, I've been guilty of it myself - but it's a new year I've changed and you still can too.
I agree that no one I saw looked D1 quality, but you aren't winning the MVP
. Northview is definitely running a great department over there. Their football team also beat both North and South in the fall too.SycamoreSuperFan
The Sycamore Level
I think the main thing is if any kid has a chance of being a D1 athlete, their parents are moving them to Indy to compete with and against higher level players. I played soccer and see this all the time. People would drive 3 hour round trip 2-3 times a week just for practices. While the kids I know that did this still played for south, I’ve heard from the coach of players thinking they are “too good” for South.
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EvilleSycamore
The All-MVC Level
I agree that no one I saw looked D1 quality, but you aren't winning the MVP
Well it sounds like Northview is ready to join the OVC in 2025!!!sycamore tuff
The Renn Level
I think North and south are going to join MSU in conference USA.
BigShotBob
The Sycamore Level
I have maybe watched 10 high school games in my lifetime. This isn’t a post at all to bash the kids because I know they work hard. And I wont say names/ but I “coached” 2 of the kids that played in the championship game when I volunteered at the YMCA for a few years. They were LIGHT YEARS ahead of everyone else and a grade or 2 younger for a decently competitive league.
So I was interested and turned the game on tv to watch. But it just seems like they got taller and the competition caught up with them. Just a bunch of thin frames taking 40 seconds off the clock to get a shot up.
So I was interested and turned the game on tv to watch. But it just seems like they got taller and the competition caught up with them. Just a bunch of thin frames taking 40 seconds off the clock to get a shot up.
DyedBlue
The All-MVC Level
I read with interest the comments about sports specialization by high school athletes.
I doubt Northview is unique compared to other area schools, but it does seem to have multiple multi-sport athletes. I expect other schools do also.
I found six of the boys basketball ball players on the football roster, four on last spring's baseball roster, four on the track/XC team. I didn't find a roster for tennis, wrestling or golf.
Avery Perry, 6'1" starting G/F for Northview was a varsity three sport athlete as a freshman starting in football and baseball and sixth man in basketball. He missed most of his sophomore year due to injury.
As a junior he was back for football, is busy with basketball and I expect he will be back behind the plate this spring.
School team success is still VERY important to these boys and girls. Go to some games and enjoy that commitment.
I doubt Northview is unique compared to other area schools, but it does seem to have multiple multi-sport athletes. I expect other schools do also.
I found six of the boys basketball ball players on the football roster, four on last spring's baseball roster, four on the track/XC team. I didn't find a roster for tennis, wrestling or golf.
Avery Perry, 6'1" starting G/F for Northview was a varsity three sport athlete as a freshman starting in football and baseball and sixth man in basketball. He missed most of his sophomore year due to injury.
As a junior he was back for football, is busy with basketball and I expect he will be back behind the plate this spring.
School team success is still VERY important to these boys and girls. Go to some games and enjoy that commitment.
It's the New Year... Everyone's hurt feelings clock reset to 0. Let 'er rip.
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Back to the original topic, I just searched a couple recruiting sites and while I found profiles for a handful of guys from THN/THS, I didn't see offers listed for any of them. Also, there isn't a single Haute kid with a profile on Verbal Commits, Rivals or 247 that I can find... just the PrepHoops network site.
Side question... If they are just a couple bad classes currently, are there any up and comers in middle school?
Side question... If they are just a couple bad classes currently, are there any up and comers in middle school?
I have maybe watched 10 high school games in my lifetime. This isn’t a post at all to bash the kids because I know they work hard. And I wont say names/ but I “coached” 2 of the kids that played in the championship game when I volunteered at the YMCA for a few years. They were LIGHT YEARS ahead of everyone else and a grade or 2 younger for a decently competitive league.
So I was interested and turned the game on tv to watch. But it just seems like they got taller and the competition caught up with them. Just a bunch of thin frames taking 40 seconds off the clock to get a shot up.
I've seen 4 varsity HS games this season. I don't mind the long possessions as long as they're working to get a good shot off. To me that's just good old fashioned basketball. The talent level isn't spectacularly great or anything, but it's still very entertaining to watch if the teams are competitive with each other.
Personally I also like the fact that you can get a 32 minute HS game over with in an hour. College ball has so many timeouts it's beyond ridiculous. I know it's because of TV, but more times than not it kills any momentum a team gets on.
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There’s a lot of doom and gloom on here but North is 9-2 with wins over Bloomington South, Castle, Mooresville and Indy North Central. They just didn’t shoot the ball at all in the classic. Also, most of their players are Sophomores and Juniors so they’re a year away. Woefles a good coach but they do play a boring style of basketball.
I’m not sure what’s in 8th grade, actually 7th grade West Vigo is loaded and Sarah Scott is close to them and a lot of those teams players play AAU together. Otter Creek 7th grade hasn’t won a game in 6th or 7th. Otter Creek 6th grade was undefeated this year and really wasn’t challenged.
When I graduated from South in 1988, we had never had a losing season in basketball. Now, losing seasons are the norm. So sad...