AAU is back: 10 things we liked at the Great 8 Showcase
How great is AAU basketball? It is, I am happy to report, still really great. After an absence of 11 months that felt like 11 years, we were back in the gym at an AAU event this past weekend in Ames, Iowa for the Great 8 Showcase, watching 36 hours of the greatest game on hardwood. It was a whirlwind of activity, a buffet of basketball bliss and the most fun I have had since the opening day of the state high school tournament in March.
Let’s face it, life hasn’t been much fun in 2020. All of us are starved for activity, entertainment and anything that resembles normalcy. It was well worth the trip to central Iowa for a little bit of all of the above. I arrived at the All Iowa Attack Fieldhouse around 10 on Friday morning, just in time to watch Addison Mack, Bree Bowman, Jordan Ode and the rest of North Tartan 2025 Nike. The weekend wrapped up around 4:30 Sunday. In between we saw some great players and great games and met a lot of great people. Here are the top 10 things I liked best about the Great 8 Showcase.
The atmosphere
The building was buzzing with excitement all weekend long. Yes, there was a little trepidation involved, as well. Normally a crowded gymnasium full of boisterous fans and hard-working athletes is a fine thing. In the era of COVID-19, however, it’s also a little bit daunting. Tournament organizers did a cursory check of everyone’s temperature on the way into the building but other than that it appeared to be pretty much business as usual for an AAU event. I’d say about 10 percent of the people wore masks, most of them parents from Minnesota where we seem to be a little bit more concerned about the hazards than other folks are around the Midwest. The other 90 percent wore big smiles instead.
The athletes
There are some great athletes at high school games but they are relatively few in number. Walk into the gym at an AAU tournament for the first time in nearly a year and it becomes apparent very quickly how much bigger and more buff the top college basketball prospects really are. The gym in Iowa was chock-a-block full of physical specimens. At a hair over 5’8 I almost always feel small around high-end basketball players, The feeling was much more pronounced after such a long absence!
The families
Some scouts and basketball media like to spend an AAU weekend tucked away in a quiet corner as far away from parents as possible. They bury themselves in notes and rosters and the like and seldom say a word. Not me. I love to meet the families at AAU events – to learn more about their talented kids, discover who they are and where they are from, and to build relationships that can be a source of lots of important information down the road. This weekend I met some really nice people. One of them even brought me a cup of coffee when it was most desperately needed. (Thanks Nicole!)
The Fieldhouse
AAU events in Minnesota are generally held at big suburban high schools. I’m not sure where our sport would be in the state if not for the expansive facilities at Hopkins, in Chaska and Chanhassen, and of course the venerable high schools of Bloomington. Across the country, though, privately-owned facilities and convention centers are the norm. Many such venues are impressive but none more so than the All Iowa Attack Fieldhouse in Ames. From the classic gymnasium design reminiscent of those at Duke or Butler, complete with large windows and red brick, to the retro stadium seating and the four hardwood courts, it’s darn near perfect. Open in 2014, a decade after the founding of All Iowa Attack, the Fieldhouse is now the gold standard. I’m told some really smart people with pretty deep pockets are working on something similar for the Twin Cities. That would be amazing!
The intensity
There are no passengers in AAU. If players don’t bring a sufficient level of intensity to these high-level encounters they will not only get exposed, they will likely be obliterated. Every kid on the floor in the top divisions dreams the college basketball dream in vivid technicolor, and they are doing everything within their grasp to achieve it. The pace. The physicality. The sheer will to win. It’s impressive. Even late Sunday afternoon, when they had nothing left to give after playing four games in 24 hours, the girls were giving it whatever was still in the tank.
The passion
If there’s one thing pretty much everyone who participates in girls basketball at this level shares it is an intense passion for the game. Players put in a ton of work to be the best they can be. Coaches spend endless hours coaching and game-planning and organizing to get the most out of their teams. Parents sacrifice time and money so their kids can participate. Event organizers work long hours to make things go according to plan. We may have all been exhausted by Sunday night but the sentiment was universal: it was great to be back in the gym.
The rivalries
There are some terrific rivalries in high-level AAU ball in the Midwest and a few were on full display this weekend as Minnesota’s North Tartan did battle with All Iowa Attack, Wisconsin Flight and others. Watching the day’s final game play out I was trying to imagine how many times coaches Gerard Coury of North Tartan and Dickson Jensen of AIA have faced off on opposite sides of the court. It’s a big number. After playing some great basketball all weekend, the new-look North Tartan 2021 EYBL team simply ran out of gas and took it on the chin in its final game of the weekend. Although he was hiding it well, I’m certain Coach Coury was not happy. Coach Jensen, who also happens to own the Attack and the Fieldhouse and probably half the city of Ames, was loud and boisterous and intense as always. Of course North Tartan will be back and will win their share. That’s what rivalries are all about.
The growth
Many of the kids we watched this weekend we have been watching for years. They have grown up before our very eyes. The Minnesota players we know well, of course, but there are plenty of familiar faces on the Iowa and Wisconsin teams, too. It always amazes me in the spring how their games have grown and their bodies, as well. I remember seeing Hannah Stuelke of Cedar Rapids as an uber-talented 7th grader oozing with potential. This weekend she was a dominant force for the Attack, an incoming junior with an Iowa commitment and a whole lot more game than back in the day.
The college coaches
There were precious few college coaches in the building this weekend, and they were all of the NAIA, D3 and JUCO variety. Thanks to an edict from the NCAA – a ruling that appears destined to screw the incoming senior class out of countless opportunities – the D1 folks weren’t around. They were there in spirit, however, and they were watching online via the roof-mounted, fisheye cameras. And they were communicating constantly with those of us in the building. Right now we are their eyes and ears and we are doing the best we can to feed them accurate information that can help close the gap being perpetuated by the powers-that-be in college basketball.
The phenom
Over the past couple of summers most of the AAU buzz has been centered around Paige Bueckers Paige Bueckers 5'11" | CG Hopkins | 2020 State MN of Hopkins (UCONN), who has now graduated and moved on to college basketball. Her departure has opened the door for another Internet sensation to take center stage as Jada ‘Lil Bullet’ Williams brought her circus act to the big top in Ames. Williams not only plays for the Missouri Phenom, she is the Missouri Phenom. The 5’7 point guard from Kansas City has impossibly quick feet and hands, ball-handling abilities that will knock your socks off, and an understanding of showmanship well beyond her years. She has hundreds of thousands of video views on YouTube and nearly 9,000 followers on Twitter where you’ll find her under the handle @MrsMac0606. She’s got a long way to go to catch up to the hype train created by Bueckers but Jada is well on her way. She’s definitely got the game to back it up. On Saturday Williams was guarded by Ivane Tensaie Ivane Tensaie 5'7" | CG Concordia | 2021 State MN (Concordia Academy) of North Tartan 2021 Elite, an experience that the Ivane deemed a lot of fun which pretty much sums up how we feel about the whole weekend.
Let the dissecting begin
Some evaluators like to crank out copy all weekend, writing courtside, pounding the keyboard into all hours of the night, tweeting constantly. Not me. I’ll put out a couple of tweets to let you know I’m there but that’s all the writing I do at the actual event. I prefer to take it all in, focus on the game action, meet as many great basketball people as possible and try to digest it all.
On Monday morning, in addition to trying to get back to work at my day job, I begin the process of sorting all of the information out so I can share it with you in a cohesive manner. That’s exactly what we will do over the next few days as we dissect the Great 8 Showcase from a variety of angles and tell you who did what in Iowa. The Ames event wasn’t the only AAU tournament this weekend. Just up the road in Cedar Falls several teams from the Minnesota Fury and Minnesota Stars took part. We’ll follow up this week with folks who were there and bring you info on the top performers from Minnesota.
As usual you’ll need to be a Prep Girls Hoops subscriber to read the player evaluations so now would be the time to take care of business.
Top photo: The best match-up of the day on Friday featured Maren Westin Maren Westin 5'8" | CG Becker | 2023 State MN (Becker) of Minnesota Comets Elite (left) and Kennedy Klick Kennedy Klick 6'0" | CG Maple Grove | 2023 State MN (DeLaSalle) of North Tartan 2023 Nike, both top 10 players in the class of 2023.