AAU Programs are More Important Than Ever

In normal years, November and December are months where basketball prospects are focused on their high school team. On developing their game within that program. However, 2020 is anything but a normal year.

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to impact high school sports across the country, AAU programs have become more important than ever as, in many cases, they offer the only competition for many players. That sentiment was echoed by Team Spartans Director and head coach Joe Chatman.

"AAU is always important but I think this year, it's been extremely important," Chatman said. "It's important because a lot of our guys, Donovan's (Clingan) team in particular, our 2022 national team, none of them are playing high school ball right now. Even the prep kids. The prep school kids, their last scrimmage was over a month ago.

"So you're talking about kids not getting up and down. No practices with their high school team as normal. So for me, as director and head coach of the program but in particular this team, one of the things we've tried to do is every week or every other week we've been trying to work out. I know a lot of my guys do things on their own because I check in with them daily. And we've never done this in the winter season because it's high school basketball.

"Like this Saturday we're going to be practicing and working out. It's just important for these kids to play and get up and down a little bit. We film it. We're going to have some pretty important coaches there, not from a college standpoint but a prep school standpoint. I invite a lot of our high school coaches to come if they want just to see what their kids are doing.

"A lot of these high school coaches, if they workout with their kids, it has to be individual workouts. They can't do any team things right now because their principals won't allow it. So that's been a major adjustment for us because we've never done anything from basically November to the end of February, we've always shut it down."

At the end of January, Clingan and Team Spartans will be participating in the Pangos Fantastic 40 invite only event. It will provide several AAU and Prep programs the opportunity to compete against other top competition. These AAU programs continue to look for new and creative ways to help develop their players in the midst of a pandemic.

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