Raider6309
Well-known member
Basically every good team gets recruits. The home grown teams get beat out early and the AAU teams take over in regional play
Toledo Christian's girls basketball team landed a local D1 recruit who transferred there after Zia Cooke left Toledo Rogers. The circumstances regarding her "transfer" are more than dubious. Their entire team has been beating up on everyone inside the TAAC for the last two years and has regularly beaten D2 teams and some D1's too. Madison Royal-Davis is instrumental in that.That is not an accurate statement in Div 4. Over the last 10 years, of course other than AC, are not recruiting and still very good. D4 Minster, Fort Loramie, Tri-Village, Legacy Christian could play and beat numerous Div 2/3 teams and have done so. Toledo Christian is up there also but they did end up with one of the better players in the state.
I'm not sure about the current state of the Tri-Village girls program, but some of the better boys teams they've had in recent history I wouldn't exactly call home grown from posts that have been previously made on these boards. That school has gotten their fair share of talented kids to transfer in from neighboring districts in Darke and Preble counties.
Like some of the schools in more urbanized settings that seem to be a magnet for talent, in their rural patch on the Ohio/Indiana border Tri-Village stands out as being much more successful and as having a much stronger tradition than what's around them. Do they recruit? I have no idea, but just because some move-ins occur doesn't mean anything nefarious is going on. The talented and more so motivated parents seem to be good at finding the best opportunities. That's what's really being complained about in regards to Africentric. Columbus, just like most city leagues, is chock full with a ton of horrible teams with limited competition, and for good players at those schools, extremely limited competition in practice. Because the school is "selective enrollment" due to being a concept school based around accumulating college credit, anyone in the Columbus district can go there if they qualify for admission. The enrollment process that's meant to make it a better urban educational school also makes it easy to stack talent in a case like this, whether or not a coach is intentionally recruiting it. To a lesser extent than most urban schools, their enrollment count is probably still slightly inflated and they should be safely in D3 and depending on the year pushing the boundary for getting down to D4.
The schools you mentioned also use the rules to their advantageThat is not an accurate statement in Div 4. Over the last 10 years, of course other than AC, are not recruiting and still very good. D4 Minster, Fort Loramie, Tri-Village, Legacy Christian could play and beat numerous Div 2/3 teams and have done so. Toledo Christian is up there also but they did end up with one of the better players in the state.
In what manner? I am confused by that statement?The schools you mentioned also use the rules to their advantage
I've not studied Africentric or how they enroll, but from where I stand, I don't know that they do anything wrong. Today, a kid can go to virtually any school their parents enroll them in, especially in the city schools where there are no districts. And anyone who's been involved or followed AAU and travel sports knows the pull a coach or group of kids can have.
The downside I see for a school like Africentric is what if you bring in 15 great girls basketball players? They all can't play, actually only about half are going to get significant minutes, so do some leave? I certainly understand the frustration as many of these rural smaller town schools have kids who are home grown and have gone to one school their entire lives.
But from a "fair" standpoint, there's nothing wrong going on.
Great points, I'd say for players 1-10 it works great, my guess is players 10-20-25 it doesn't, and each year you have a new crop of kids coming from everywhere. Does that breed competition, absolutely. There's good and bad to it.There's a good point here regarding team depth, but as someone that's seen some extremely pitiful inner-city girls teams a stud player is probably better off being the 9th or 10th best player at a school like that as opposed to being the best player on one of the many terrible teams in their city league.
Only five are playing at a time, but for the majority of their games there's plenty of playing time to go around as they have a lot of blowouts. The daily practice situation is the real gamebreaker to me. At a place like Africentric you have several players to push yourself against and can get serious competition in small group drills and 5-on-5. A good player on a bad city league team isn't getting pushed by anyone in practice individually and definitely not in group drills or going 5-on-5. It's entirely the kid pushing themselves and being pushed by the coach. That alone to me is a very valid reason for a good player coming up through the youth or junior high ranks to seek their way out of a bad neighborhood program and to find their way to the dominant city program.
Yeah. International’s Boys plays a City League schedule. Which, IMO, is largely beyond their capabilities (although they did beat Whetstone... LOL.) And Intl’s Girls plays in the City League as well (beating East and Whetstone.)I would like to see schools move up if they choose. There is no doubt Africentric would still be a contender in Div 1.
I've always said the CPS should excuse Africentric from league play and let them play an independent schedule. They already schedule top in state and out of state competition then play over matched city teams the next game.
DOCK - Does International play a city league schedule?
It so saddened me when the young lady (30) manager at the GW White Castle was killed at work. She had worked there since age 16 and was obviously a very good employee and role model. I believe this happened last summer.Yup. A coach at Columbus Briggs? Columbus West? Both of which are D1 city schools servicing the infamous Hilltop? Man... you wanna talk about tough. That's tough. If there are 15 fifth-grade girls playing at the schools that feed into them -- you have no real idea if you'll get more than 5. You can't see into the future and figure out what family is facing eviction & has to move, or if there are girls whose guardianship has changed over to their grandparents. Or if there are girls that have no choice but to assume supervision and caretaking responsibilities to their younger siblings because mom is the evening shift lead at White Castle to make ends meet and dad hasn't been involved for five years (or was killed.)
Wasn’t that long ago, even. October 2020It so saddened me when the young lady (30) manager at the GW White Castle was killed at work. She had worked there since age 16 and was obviously a very good employee and role model. I believe this happened last summer.
Why is this only a issue when a public school supposedly does this? But is ok when privates do it
Toledo Christian in boys/girls basketball and Cardinal Stritch in boys basketball.I dont believe there are any private schools dominating D3 or D4.
Maybe not currently in girls basketball but other sports they definitely are. Africentric can’t help what division they are in. They actually lobbied to move up divisions and got OHSAA denied themI dont believe there are any private schools dominating D3 or D4.
Here we go again.. maybe your a parent or a fan of a team that just was beaten by Africentric. This has been discussed many of times on this forum for years. Columbus City schools has a lottery system in place. Most of the better basketball players that come out of CPS middle schools go to Africentric for academics and athletics, it is a stem school. Further more and more importantly, the program and school has given multiple African American students the opportunity to attend college and further their education for free. I get it that some may say that they are not on the same playing field as the other small D3 schools. But, most will argue the same for the big school divisions. Private, Catholic, vs Public... Cleary unfair for the public schools right?! Lastly we live in the day in age where growing up in the same school district and playing together up until high school is dinosaur. AAU and club sports dominate high school sports across the board, so what we see now is families taking their kids out of a bad high school program and placing them with a better program. Why? because their kid is an investment. Why punish your child by having them play with a bunch of kids they may grew up with that dont care or the numbers are low. Look at the girls basketball numbers across the state its pretty sad. All the while a family has spent thousands of dollars on club ball and trainers. The parent in my opinion have that right to give their child the best chance to succeed. Its the nature of the beast nowadays. Sorry for the dissertation!!!!Can someone explain to me why a team like this is allowed in the OHSAA? Not one kid on their team went to school there as a 1st grader. How is a team comprised of local kids supposed to compete with that? Quite honestly, they can recruit from anywhere in the world?
They probably have nice kids on their team, but AAU and club produced teams don't really belong in the OHSAA tournament. Sadly, these kind of teams have been allowed to prosper in our current OHSAA.
Toledo Christian in boys/girls basketball and Cardinal Stritch in boys basketball.
Those losses are nearly always to d1-d2 teams. Many of their wins are to the tune of 9X-1X against teams in their actual division/conference, with a couple of them involving TC holding their opponents to single digit points. They may not be "dominant" in you eyes, but they don't really belong in d4 with the state of play there.Toledo Christian girls are dominating D4 girls basketball? They have never made it to the final four? They got beat last year in the Regional finals and have lost, I believe about 5 games this year. Yes they might make it to the final 4 this year but that is not a guarantee.
Not sure they are going there for a better education, college readiness scores typically fall into the bottom 25% of the state. Furthermore they consistently score below the district average on state test. Now if you arguing that going there will increase the likelihood of getting a basketball scholarship, I would agree.Here we go again.. maybe your a parent or a fan of a team that just was beaten by Africentric. This has been discussed many of times on this forum for years. Columbus City schools has a lottery system in place. Most of the better basketball players that come out of CPS middle schools go to Africentric for academics and athletics, it is a stem school. Further more and more importantly, the program and school has given multiple African American students the opportunity to attend college and further their education for free. I get it that some may say that they are not on the same playing field as the other small D3 schools. But, most will argue the same for the big school divisions. Private, Catholic, vs Public... Cleary unfair for the public schools right?! Lastly we live in the day in age where growing up in the same school district and playing together up until high school is dinosaur. AAU and club sports dominate high school sports across the board, so what we see now is families taking their kids out of a bad high school program and placing them with a better program. Why? because their kid is an investment. Why punish your child by having them play with a bunch of kids they may grew up with that dont care or the numbers are low. Look at the girls basketball numbers across the state its pretty sad. All the while a family has spent thousands of dollars on club ball and trainers. The parent in my opinion have that right to give their child the best chance to succeed. Its the nature of the beast nowadays. Sorry for the dissertation!!!!
The disproportionate number of division 1 scholarship athletes coming out of AFC is startling. Seriously, I've never seen anything like it in my life (Tennessee, Minnesota, Rutgers, Texas Tech, Pittsburgh, Indiana State and an offer from Ohio State to one of their freshman)...just in the past 3 years. There are schools that would never see that in 3 lifetimes.Here we go again.. maybe your a parent or a fan of a team that just was beaten by Africentric. This has been discussed many of times on this forum for years. Columbus City schools has a lottery system in place. Most of the better basketball players that come out of CPS middle schools go to Africentric for academics and athletics, it is a stem school. Further more and more importantly, the program and school has given multiple African American students the opportunity to attend college and further their education for free. I get it that some may say that they are not on the same playing field as the other small D3 schools. But, most will argue the same for the big school divisions. Private, Catholic, vs Public... Cleary unfair for the public schools right?! Lastly we live in the day in age where growing up in the same school district and playing together up until high school is dinosaur. AAU and club sports dominate high school sports across the board, so what we see now is families taking their kids out of a bad high school program and placing them with a better program. Why? because their kid is an investment. Why punish your child by having them play with a bunch of kids they may grew up with that dont care or the numbers are low. Look at the girls basketball numbers across the state its pretty sad. All the while a family has spent thousands of dollars on club ball and trainers. The parent in my opinion have that right to give their child the best chance to succeed. Its the nature of the beast nowadays. Sorry for the dissertation!!!!
Well I'm hoping the OG lady titans can slow them down on Saturday ?The disproportionate number of division 1 scholarship athletes coming out of AFC is startling. Seriously, I've never seen anything like it in my life (Tennessee, Minnesota, Rutgers, Texas Tech, Pittsburgh, Indiana State and an offer from Ohio State to one of their freshman)...just in the past 3 years. There are schools that would never see that in 3 lifetimes.
Only thing that could slow them down is the late covid start this year.
Those losses are nearly always to d1-d2 teams. Many of their wins are to the tune of 9X-1X against teams in their actual division/conference, with a couple of them involving TC holding their opponents to single digit points. They may not be "dominant" in you eyes, but they don't really belong in d4 with the state of play there.