Practice twice a week. The benefit for the 15s is they practice with and against the circuit 17s. So twice a week they are running against JJ Caldwell, Greg Shead, Kameron McGusty, TJ Atwood, Jeremy Peck, etc. You can't find that kind of competition locally. After that, playing up against 16s doesn't seem that bad ;)
I caught the Defenders 17u Circuit team's games against Franchize last night and Nike Pro Skills EYBL team this afternoon. Sick amount of talent in those games. And the size you saw from the 5A and 6A teams from Dallas at state.
Jaylon Williams - Cleveland
Jomard Valsin - Kelly
Jakobe Dill - Kelly
Trey Keller - Memorial
LiJon Smith - West Brook
Alex Catt - Orangefield
Other players are: Hunter Quick - 6'8 - Brazosport; Jordan Mays - 6'4" - Houston; Damay Jones - 6'2" - Pasadena Dobie; and Tayjon Martin - 5'9" Cy Fair
Defenders 15u circuit team is 3-0 so far playing up in 16u. Just beat a team by 33 that lost earlier this weekend to Dwight Howard 16u on a buzzer beater. Jaylon Williams from Cleveland is a straight up beast.
When I used to go to Vegas every year for opening weekend of March Madness, this is a game I would have put 25% of my gambling money on, even though it's day 1. Butler getting points? Gimme a break.
Definitely agree our bigs are better. But I am confident we will be able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory...if we don't accomplish that today.
Not sure what's up with them today. Hopefully that carries over if we beat Butler. They beat Duke twice so it's not like they haven't been successful against size.
Way too much size on the circuit team. Different game. Brady has a very good team and does a great job with them. But they lost a couple of times last summer to Team Sneed in that tournament. Same Sneed team got beat pretty badly by the Defender elite team that was the age group under this 17u team. Along with the Hoops EYBL team, they will be the best 2 teams in Houston. Repectfully, wouldn't be very close and that's no disrespect to Brady's team at all. I haven't looked lately, but at one point this season, the Defenders Circuit team had 5 of the top 10 and 7 of the top 20 players ranked in this year's junior class...