BCANY Boys Summer Hoops Festival

The second BCANY Boys Summer Hoops Festival is expected to continue the success that started in the summer of 2011. With the collapse of scholastic basketball at the Empire State Games, the Basketball Coaches Association of New York decided to create an event that would showcase both boys’ and girls’ basketball squads. The event, which will take place August 3-5 at Johnson City High School in the Southern Tier of New York, has already seen growth.

Last year, eight regions throughout New York State participated in the event, including teams from the Capital District, Mid-Hudson, Rochester, Buffalo, Central New York, Hudson Valley, Long Island, and the Southern Tier. This year another team from the Long Island area will be added to the boy’s field, and potentially more from the New York City area. All the teams will try to overthrow the reigning champions from the Long Island region, who beat out the team from the Southern Tier 60-43 in the 2011 championship match.

Mark Woitach, Section 4 Boys Board of Director for BCANY and winner of Coach of the Year in 2010 at Johnson City High School, recently wrote the Upstate Scouting Service that “we expect the (2012 BCANY Summer Hoops Festival) tourney to be as good as last year’s. Hopefully, even better.”

He went on that “last year, a number of college coaches commented that, as a basketball event, it exceeded the Empire State Games.” This enthusiasm from both the directors of the event and fans, it is no surprise that the 2012 tournament is drawing more teams and more attention from higher-level basketball talent.

Along with the talent -loaded games, the BCANY Summer Hoops Festival will also consist feature other events during the weekend, including a slam dunk contest, a three- point contest, a clinic taught by college coaches, and an informative meeting about the recruiting process. Also, there is an event available for younger athletes highlighte by a BCANY taught clinic. There will be information program for parents regarding the entire high school to college transition, as well. The weekend will give players a chance to not only display talent and skill, but to learn about how to handle the difficult decision of where to play at the next level.

To be eligible to be part of one of the regional teams, a player must be going into 9^th-12^th grade at a high school where the coach is a member of the BCANY. Each player must be nominated by his high school coach to be considered for tryouts. Teams must be between 10-12 players and are not allowed to practice more than four times between the July 4^th weekend and the weekend of the tournament. Along with these rules, the game itself is different than a regulation high school game. There are two 18 minute halves, instead of four eight-minute quarters, with five-minute halftimes.

Upstate Scouting would like to thank Mark Woitach for his insight and we wish everyone luck at the tournament. Also, we hope to share a more in-depth article on the players and teams themselves within the next few days.

Josh Skinner, Staff writer