"...It is a long, grueling, unglamorous slog through nameless gyms across every time zone, and it is arguably the most important three weeks of the offseason in college basketball. Coaches can’t contact recruits or their families, but they can watch their AAU teams play other high-level AAU teams and crystalize opinions of whether to pursue them further. You get only 13 scholarships; you must use them wisely.
There are five such evaluation periods each calendar year – two Friday-to-Sunday windows in April and three Wednesday-to-Sunday windows on consecutive weeks in July, beginning this week. Coaches can watch players from Wednesday at 5 p.m. to Sunday at 5 p.m.
The third and final week in July is easy; everyone converges on Las Vegas for a flurry of AAU and junior college games on every available indoor court in Clark County. Not so the first two weeks.
Some coaches will fly to Atlanta on Wednesday for the Adidas Uprising Gauntlet Finale, then drive 2½ hours to North Augusta, S.C., for the Nike Nationals or further north to the Under Armour All-American Camp in Charlotte, then fly to Los Angeles for the weekend for more prep events or St. Louis for the Mullen’s Junior College Showcase. There’s another Adidas event in Indianapolis, and dozens of smaller tournaments in practically every other city.
The middle weekend has major events in Milwaukee, Las Vegas, Atlanta, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. Who you want to see becomes as important as where and when you want to see them..."
You haven't lived until climbing into a car that's been parked for hours outside a Las Vegas gymnasium in the late July sun.
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