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When Vionise Pierre-Louis walked down the red carpet at Lloyd Noble Center on senior night nearly two weeks ago, she was flanked by her mother, brother and Kimberly Davis Powell.
Without Davis Powell, her AAU basketball coach, the Lake Worth, Florida, native isn’t sure she’d be at Oklahoma.
A late bloomer, Pierre-Louis learned the game from her brother in eighth grade. After a season of travel ball, she found Davis Powell and her AAU team.
That’s when Pierre-Louis’ basketball career took off.
“(My first team) just put me at the block and told me to layup and rebound,” Pierre-Louis said. “(Powell Davis) was a blessing. She took me under her arm, and she helped me travel and play in front of coaches. She taught me the game every single weekend from eighth grade on to my senior year.
“Still, to this day, I still call her on the phone late night and I send her film and ask her questions. She’s been the backbone, my second mother basically.”
AAU — the Amateur Athletic Union — has been around since 1888, but the participation in youth basketball to supplement high school teams has skyrocketed in recent years. While it helps some kids, like Pierre-Louis, with exposure, not all Big 12 women’s basketball coaches are sure that its popularity is beneficial to recruiting.
Though AAU helped Oklahoma coach Sherri Coale find Pierre-Louis, she believes the volume of games played by these teams has fundamentally changed the mentality of women’s basketball players.
During her college career at Oklahoma Christian, Coale remembers gyms around the metro filled to the brim with men and women on Friday nights. Teams would be drafted and play in a single-elimination tournament until just one team was left standing.
“If you didn’t win and your team went out, you watch someone else play,” Coale said. “Nobody wanted to do that.
“Kids now play all these games, they travel to all these places, they stay in great hotels and it’s just incredibly different. The opportunity is great, but it takes away some of the sweat equity and the fact that something’s on the line every time you play. That changes. That’s not the kids’ fault. That’s the system’s fault.”
Texas women’s basketball coach Karen Aston likes the AAU circuit, but agreed with Coale that it isn’t as effective as it used to be.
“AAU is what it was years ago when I first started recruiting, and I really enjoyed that, because you played for your state,” Aston said. “There was camaraderie in the teams and there was a competitive spirit in the fact that they were playing for a gold medal. I do think it’s a bit watered down right now.”
For youth basketball to truly help groom players for basketball on the next level, she said, it’s important to have championship games.
Some AAU circuits, like Nike’s Elite Youth Basketball League, or EYBL, founded in 2010, have title games. In EYBL, the season culminates with the finals at the Peach Jam, an annual summit of elite college basketball players held in South Carolina.
Pierre-Louis is a product of EYBL team Essence, a program that primarily pulls players from Florida, Georgia and Alabama.
“You’re playing in Nike nationals with elite, elite teams,” she said. “Every game matters. Just like it would (at the Big 12 Tournament). So I think that taught me a little bit coming into the Big 12, too.”
Brandon Clay, the owner of Peach State Basketball and creator of BrandonClayScouting.com, believes AAU basketball benefits college coaches.
“Financially, it is significantly more cost efficient than trying to watch the prospects at their various high schools and also provides a setting with quality competition on multiple courts at the same time,” Clay wrote in an email. “It’s much easier to make a well-informed scholarship offer decision on a player’s talent when they’re competing with and against other prospects who will potentially play at NCAA Division I programs.”
Iowa State coach Bill Fennelly agreed, but noted that the teams have to be carefully managed.
In September, some employees of EYBL were reportedly subpoenaed by the FBI in the wide-ranging investigation of fraud and payments to elite men’s college basketball recruits.
“In the women’s game, it has helped the growth of the game,” Fennelly said. “It has expanded opportunities. You just hope it’s continued to be done right. We need to be careful that it’s monitored right. I know the NCAA is always looking at those things.
“At least in our state, it’s giving kids an opportunity to be seen at a high level, rather than at a small high school. It has changed recruiting. I don’t think it’s going to go away. There’s always going to be nuances and adjustments to the model, but I think there’s going to be something like this. It’s just a matter of how it’s managed, and hopefully it’s managed correctly.”
Without Davis Powell, her AAU basketball coach, the Lake Worth, Florida, native isn’t sure she’d be at Oklahoma.
A late bloomer, Pierre-Louis learned the game from her brother in eighth grade. After a season of travel ball, she found Davis Powell and her AAU team.
That’s when Pierre-Louis’ basketball career took off.
“(My first team) just put me at the block and told me to layup and rebound,” Pierre-Louis said. “(Powell Davis) was a blessing. She took me under her arm, and she helped me travel and play in front of coaches. She taught me the game every single weekend from eighth grade on to my senior year.
“Still, to this day, I still call her on the phone late night and I send her film and ask her questions. She’s been the backbone, my second mother basically.”
AAU — the Amateur Athletic Union — has been around since 1888, but the participation in youth basketball to supplement high school teams has skyrocketed in recent years. While it helps some kids, like Pierre-Louis, with exposure, not all Big 12 women’s basketball coaches are sure that its popularity is beneficial to recruiting.
Though AAU helped Oklahoma coach Sherri Coale find Pierre-Louis, she believes the volume of games played by these teams has fundamentally changed the mentality of women’s basketball players.
During her college career at Oklahoma Christian, Coale remembers gyms around the metro filled to the brim with men and women on Friday nights. Teams would be drafted and play in a single-elimination tournament until just one team was left standing.
“If you didn’t win and your team went out, you watch someone else play,” Coale said. “Nobody wanted to do that.
“Kids now play all these games, they travel to all these places, they stay in great hotels and it’s just incredibly different. The opportunity is great, but it takes away some of the sweat equity and the fact that something’s on the line every time you play. That changes. That’s not the kids’ fault. That’s the system’s fault.”
Texas women’s basketball coach Karen Aston likes the AAU circuit, but agreed with Coale that it isn’t as effective as it used to be.
“AAU is what it was years ago when I first started recruiting, and I really enjoyed that, because you played for your state,” Aston said. “There was camaraderie in the teams and there was a competitive spirit in the fact that they were playing for a gold medal. I do think it’s a bit watered down right now.”
For youth basketball to truly help groom players for basketball on the next level, she said, it’s important to have championship games.
Some AAU circuits, like Nike’s Elite Youth Basketball League, or EYBL, founded in 2010, have title games. In EYBL, the season culminates with the finals at the Peach Jam, an annual summit of elite college basketball players held in South Carolina.
Pierre-Louis is a product of EYBL team Essence, a program that primarily pulls players from Florida, Georgia and Alabama.
“You’re playing in Nike nationals with elite, elite teams,” she said. “Every game matters. Just like it would (at the Big 12 Tournament). So I think that taught me a little bit coming into the Big 12, too.”
Brandon Clay, the owner of Peach State Basketball and creator of BrandonClayScouting.com, believes AAU basketball benefits college coaches.
“Financially, it is significantly more cost efficient than trying to watch the prospects at their various high schools and also provides a setting with quality competition on multiple courts at the same time,” Clay wrote in an email. “It’s much easier to make a well-informed scholarship offer decision on a player’s talent when they’re competing with and against other prospects who will potentially play at NCAA Division I programs.”
Iowa State coach Bill Fennelly agreed, but noted that the teams have to be carefully managed.
In September, some employees of EYBL were reportedly subpoenaed by the FBI in the wide-ranging investigation of fraud and payments to elite men’s college basketball recruits.
“In the women’s game, it has helped the growth of the game,” Fennelly said. “It has expanded opportunities. You just hope it’s continued to be done right. We need to be careful that it’s monitored right. I know the NCAA is always looking at those things.
“At least in our state, it’s giving kids an opportunity to be seen at a high level, rather than at a small high school. It has changed recruiting. I don’t think it’s going to go away. There’s always going to be nuances and adjustments to the model, but I think there’s going to be something like this. It’s just a matter of how it’s managed, and hopefully it’s managed correctly.”