elitebball

Congratulations Memphis Flight on your 5th place finish at nationals and a tremendous season, which included 2 super regional titles and the TN State Championship. It has been a pleasure being with all of you for a great ride this year. Can't wait for the next 2 years.....

Not bad at all. Congratulations to the coaches, girls, and parents on a job well done (again).

It has been a great showing for Tennessee teams this year. However, I think you may be mistaken on the 4th place finish for Team Pride in the 9u division. I don't believe they placed in the Elite 16 in that age group. Tennessee also had many high finishes in the AAU Div 2 tournaments, including the 13u Memphis Elite finishing 4th and the 16u Memphis Flight finishing tied for 9th. It's quite possible Tennessee will once again lay claim to the Clinton Cup for the most successful organization overall at AAU Nationals. Both Team Pride and Memphis Elite/Flight had several teams place, more than I believe other organizations across the country. Maybe Commander has done the calculations and can enlighten us. Congratulations to all of the teams for a great job....

With that being said, those coaches and others should move on from any issues they have with Showtime 7 and not get caught up in any animosity towards another team just because of their name.

Just for the record, there is no level of animosity with the Memphis Flight towards KGC. There is some bad blood between members of the Tennessee Flight organization and the KGC coaches because of past incidents. but to transfer that to this team makes no sense. The only thing dramatic or emotional about this game is it is either the next step towards staying in contention for a national championship or going home. It needs to be kept in that context.....

You hit on some good points. If you are hearing from college coaches on your girls i would venture to say it is due in large part to the aau and college exposure they have gotten. Not to mention the improvement they achieve from playing against top competition. We can debate where kids get more exposure, high school or exposure events, but i believe most would agree that most college coaches find out about kids on the exposure circuit, not in the high school gyms. With all due respect to Millington and the fine job you have done, i haven't seen many college coaches at your games, although i expect i will as your girls continue to draw interest. The work that is being done by local organizations to take these girls to the exposure events and showcasing our Memphis talent will pay huge dividends as we see the number of girls going to school on college scholarships increasing. To think that high school ball alone will achieve this is naive in my opinion as your highness...... I believe you were made aware of the aau schedules for this summer, not just the national tournaments,and with the conflicts we had with you last year, we went out of our way to accomodate you and the other high school coaches. Obviously you take exception to my comments and I'm sorry you feel that way, but I would hope as a coach you would understand the importance of team chemistry, and the difficulty of just showing up at a national tournament and jelling with your teammates. That's probably why you are spending so much time with your girls this summer, to get them to know one another and to get them playing as a team. If it is indeed the girls choices and you don't pressure them not to play aau or go to their teams tournaments where there is a conflict, then i am fine with that. Otherwise, you would be monopolizing their time. Sorry if i hit some raw nerves with you....

Might be a good idea to let your girls have a break from their school team so they can honor their commitments to their aau teams. With exposure events coming up in July many of the better players will need to get in front of the coaches to increase their chances of getting scholarship offerts. Looks like you played substantially more games in June than the average coach does. If you don't know what you have now I doubt one more tournament will do it. Knowing there were efforts made by the aau organizations to accomodate the high school coaches in June, it would seem like you would return the favor and not schedule games in July. If more coaches monopolize their players like you have this summer i fear the TSSAA 50% rule will be extended to summer basketball. Just my thoughts.

Great job Flight. Congratulations to all of the coaches and players for your #5 finish. We are proud of you.....

Great job by our Tennessee teams. Congratulations to the Tn Ladies (#13), Memphis Elite (#7), and TN Team Pride (#3) for representing us so well.

Congratulations on what I hope will be the first of many strong showings by Tennessee teams at nationals. Great job coaches and girls......

I don't understand your points. I said we were blessed with a lot of talent in this area and we definitely are. There are other clubs in this area but we are the largest, actually the largest in the state. Between our organization and the others here we have hundreds of girls participating in AAU. That is why we have multiple teams in many age groups, and some of those teams choose to compete at the D2 level. I don't agree with your statement about D2 teams just being for school teams, although some certainly are. D2 on the AAU national level is very competitive and the teams that choose to compete in that classification do so because they feel they are best suited to that level of competition, a cut below D1 but still very competitive. That is what D2 was created for. As to the statement about teams being "recruited", we post tryout dates and locations and the girls show up. Certainly some girls at the highest level are approached about playing, but for the most part we market our program and those interested respond. I'm sure this is true across the state. I am not personally in favor of school teams playing together in the summer, and I think the folks at TSSAA would agree with me. And as to Div 1 teams winning Div 2 tournaments, the fact is our Div 1 teams competed very well at the D1 level and our Div 2 teams did likewise at the D2 level. Which is a credit to the girls and coaches.......

No that's not allowed. These are completely different girls and coaches. We are blessed with a lot of talent in the Memphis and West Tn area, so we have multiple teams at many age groups and some of them compete as D 2 teams. Div 2 starts at 13u for the TN state tournaments.

I know that Team Memphis Elite/Flight won the 13u and 14u divisions, and finished 3rd in the 16u division. Congratulations to the girls and coaches for an impressive weekend.

And modest too....lol. Maybe we need you to start coming out with predictions like ptguard12....

You are correct. You guys have a great group and I have the utmost respect for your coaches. I know both the 10u and 14u teams will represent Tennessee well at nationals. Best of luck....

Well said. Let's move on and wish all of these great kids and coaches good luck at nationals

I agree. It is unfair to those two and the rest of the players on their teams. It takes a total team effort to be successful, and both of these teams are loaded with talent. I expect both teams to represent Tennessee well at nationals, as well as the other teams that have qualified.

Taylor Hall is an excellent player and had a big scoring game for KGC against the Flight. How much do you think KGC would have lost to the Flight by if she didn't come over last year from the West VA Thunder team? Stupid question? My point, exactly......

I agree that KGC is a class act so it's a shame you're dragging down that reputation with your comments. I agree that had KGC beaten the Wings on Friday night, they would have most likely been in the finals against the Flight. However, I can't see where that would have impacted the result of their match-up with the Flight. The Wings are a talented team that made it to the finals last year, and the fact they played KGC to an 8 point game in the 3rd place game should demonstrate that Friday night wasn't a fluke. If you really believe the "Insell/ref conspiracy theory", why would they want to arrange things where one of their own teams had to play KGC in the semi-finals. Lauren had a big scoring game against KGC, but those familiar with her will tell you it is not uncommon for her to have more assists than points. She is the ultimate team player, and it's a shame people can't appreciate that Tennessee has such a talented athlete in its midst, instead of trying to find things wrong with her. And to answer the other question about her and UT, she has verbally committed which at this point in time is all she can do. It's just too bad we have to wait for 3 more years to see her in orange.....

I think I remember you predicted the strong finish by the Memphis teams. Good call.......

Check your dates. Nike nationals begins at the end of the 14u AAU nationals. It would be a great problem to have if the Memphis Flight made it so far in the AAU nationals that she had to go directly to Nike nationals. Don't know where you're getting your information, but all of this has been well thought out. And by the way, the Flight 14u team is a tremendous team without Lauren playing, as evidenced by their runner-up finish in the TN Miracle Tournament in a nationally competitive field, so for anyone to suggest anything different is disrespectful to the other girls. Certainly, they are even better with her. Lauren is not the only girl out there playing for a Nike team and a different AAU team. So I don't know what "politics" you think are going on at this age group that you reference earlier.

I agree with your points. KGC has been at the top at this age group for several years, so it was expected the road to the championship would go through them. They have represented Tennessee well at nationals since these girls were 10, and I expect they will continue to do so this year. They have a great group of players, coaches, and families.

Don't have the scores but i believe most of the margins of victory are pretty close: 9u: TN Team Pride def Team Memphis Elite by 2 13u: TN Flight Trotters def Team Memphis Elite by 5 14u: Memphis Flight def TN Team Pride by 15 15u: Memphis Flight-Miles def Memphis Flight-James by 12