Girls Basketball Team Numbers

B

Blue Jay Fan

Well-known member
How are team participation numbers in your area? There are some fairly successful programs in this area that have seen team numbers fall. There's talk of one team with only seven HS players. Another school, their best player is not playing to focus on volleyball. Another Div III school is having participation issues in all girls sports. More than a few school won't have JV teams. What's it like in your area? What do you think the reason is?
 
 
There've been number problems in a few programs over here in NEO for awhile... you identified the biggest issue, coaches asking kids to specialize/only play one.
 
My school will probably have 15 or 16 players.

A school in my conference reportedly will have only 10 or 11, which means no JV. A team in a neighboring district that we play non-conference apparently is in the same situation. And the AD from that school told me that Liberty-Benton, who is in the same conference, wasn't sure they would have one either.

The reasons for this are probably different at each school, but I suspect in many cases it's a matter of instant gratification. If a kid isn't starting or at least getting a decent amount of playing time, they take their ball and go home so to speak.

And as a sign that this may continue to be a problem, the NFHS came out with standardized procedures for two quarter JV games.
 
In the last 2-3 years I've seen a trend in programs fielding a JVA and a JVB team as opposed to a true freshman team. I think this helps with not having to cut girls and try to keep numbers as stable as possible. This obviously helps the bigger schools more because they just have more girls in general. Maybe it could help the smaller schools as well?
 
MCGal said:
There've been number problems in a few programs over here in NEO for awhile... you identified the biggest issue, coaches asking kids to specialize/only play one.
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It is sad that this happens so frequently across all sports... football coaches telling kids not to play basketball and vice versa. Club volleyball is MASSIVE and definitely pulls girls away from participating in hoops. I saw a girl have to have shoulder surgery because she wore her shoulder down so much from playing volleyball year round with no break... At some point, adults need to realize these are still KIDS and they are still developing physically and mentally. Let them be kids and have different experiences.
 
Various reasons for this, there never seems to be one specific reason.
  • unfortunately volleyball and basketball butts up against each other. basketball season is the single longest season and I feel the toughest for many reasons. The skill set has to be higher, you're banging against the opponent (many girls don't like that).
  • club ball. I've said for ever and ever I don't know why volleyball feels like it needs to infringe on other seasons. Most clubs are having try outs for club seasons coming up, during basketball season. They generally don't get started with tournaments too much until late Jan/ Feb.
  • many years ago, youth leagues instituted "equal play" so all kids played equally. Many players and parents never lost that mindset and are simply not willing to compete for playing time or sit. The "thrill" of just being on the team isn't there anymore.
  • culture. Many schools unfortunately treat freshmen and JV games like second class citizens, and it trickles down. What you see at some smaller schools is you have kids coming out for basketball who've never played before. Imagine two teams of several players like that and it's difficult to watch.
  • Slowly, we're moving closer and closer to kids and parents just playing travel ball and forgoing the school sport. You basically buy a spot on the team, you're guaranteed a certain level of pt.
  • Finally, and the one I see the most is simple burn out. We have to look at school sports for the "average" player, not the elite. The elite players are going to play. How do you get and retain the "average" kid?? Many of these girls have been playing competitve sports since they were in 3rd/ 4th grade. Girls/ young women, when they get 14-15-16 years old are sometimes just done with it all. They want to have a social life, they want to have a boyfriend, drive a car, just be a kid. So many times these kids get into sports 24/7 10-11 months out of the year. Parents have to be really intentional in making sure their kids back off when needed.
 
I think an issue is the fact that basketball only plays 5 players, rotation of 8 or 9, and for a lot of kids, they see that they won't get onto a varsity court so they aren't going to go through such a long season without ever getting to play a serious role. Many schools are offering more sports so their athletic ability might help elsewhere.
 
From tonight, it looked like:

Tallmadge (20)
Manchester (20)
Akron Springfield (12)

Might be more, that was just a count of players from one night in uniform.
 
Southeast Ohio here, Ross, Pike, Scioto county numbers are down. Piketon has 16, D 3 program. Jr high numbers also good, 9 plus for both teams. Other area schools are down though. Bunch of reasons, some listed already, but some I see here, softball also has kids, especially middle and jr high kids doing workouts. Travel softball is big here. The season is to long, kids miss Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks. To many games, 22 way to much. Our volleyball was knocked out sectional finals, and only 3 days before basketball season officially started.
 
Blue Jay Fan said:
How are team participation numbers in your area? There are some fairly successful programs in this area that have seen team numbers fall. There's talk of one team with only seven HS players. Another school, their best player is not playing to focus on volleyball. Another Div III school is having participation issues in all girls sports. More than a few school won't have JV teams. What's it like in your area? What do you think the reason is?
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Yes a MAC school small D - 3 or large D - 4 school will only have 7 or 8 girls on their team. Different sport but another MAC school which made it to the state finals in Vball did not have a frosh or JV vball team and had barely enough girls to field a full softball team. And if this is happening in the MAC I am sure it is happening statewide.
 
I saw a roster today for a D3 school that had 13 players, and 8 of the 13 also make up the entire JV roster. Said roster had a girl listed at 6-2, another at 6-0, and yet another at 5-11. That school also won a state title in softball last spring and is traditionally good at volleyball.
 
My school played a team last night that had only 9 players on its roster and one of those was injured, so they dressed only 8. It was 44-5 at halftime and there was a running clock the entire 2nd half.
 
On Arbiter, I saw a team whose entire girls varsity and JV schedule was listed as "cancelled." The school is a member of the Portage Trail Conference located in NE Ohio. The athletic dept's Twitter generally mentions the results of all the school's athletic contests. There have been no tweets about varsity or JV girls basketball, but there have been tweets about 8th grade games. All signs point to this school either not having a coach or not being able to field enough players for a team.
 
Mr. Slippery said:
On Arbiter, I saw a team whose entire girls varsity and JV schedule was listed as "cancelled." The school is a member of the Portage Trail Conference located in NE Ohio. The athletic dept's Twitter generally mentions the results of all the school's athletic contests. There have been no tweets about varsity or JV girls basketball, but there have been tweets about 8th grade games. All signs point to this school either not having a coach or not being able to field enough players for a team.
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That school only had 4 girls come out for bball this season. Last year they had 20+ in the program but the returning players have chosen to focus on JO volleyball.
 
TheBranch79 said:
That school only had 4 girls come out for bball this season. Last year they had 20+ in the program but the returning players have chosen to focus on JO volleyball.
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Wondered what was going on. As you alluded to, they were never in danger of not fielding a team before.
 
Was looking at the list of D4 teams in the NE District. 3 have already withdrawn from the tournament and are not fielding teams this season due to a lack of numbers: Cardinal, Jackson-Milton, and Lake Center Christian. All 3 withdrew from the tournament in early November. Additionally, Glenville girls withdrew from the D2 tournament last week. There's no telling how many other teams out there might be holding on for dear life but are an injury or two away from having to fold. We've seen this coming for awhile, but I dare say the wolves have finally reached the door.

www.wfmj.com

Girls Basketball: No varsity & JV team at Jackson Milton

Due to a lack of numbers, the Blue Jays can't field a varsity or JV team in 2022-23
www.wfmj.com www.wfmj.com
 
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