Prospect Camp Gives Hope to Local Talent

This past weekend, Saint Rose held its annual Prospect Camp, where players from near and far gather hoping to earn a scholarship to the college.   Three days of intense basketball workouts give the hopefuls plenty of chances to show what they can do, not only to Saint Rose coaches Brian Beaury, Mike Long, Sr., and Mike Perno, but also to our own Upstate Scout recruiting staff.

Back in 2007, Shea Bromirski was discovered at Prospect Camp and verbally committed to play college ball for the Golden Knights before he packed his bags to head home after the weekend. That, however, is rare.  Head coach Brian Beaury says he’s only signed a handful of players early, with most coming later in the high school season, as players wait and see if they can garner consideration from Division I schools.

Most of the players who were in attendance hail from Saint Rose’s back yard, although a few made the trip from New York City, as well as other areas from outside of Section II. Upstate Scout was on hand to see a few players who have a serious chance of playing at the next level. How many are scholarship players? Tough to say. There are currently 344 schools that offer Division I basketball, each with 13 scholarships.  282 colleges play in Division II; each of them has ten scholarships that they are free to distribute however they want.  Division III schools cannot give athletic scholarships, but can give need-based aid.  Excluding Junior Colleges, 626 schools in the country can offer money to athletes. If you take into account that only two or three scholarships are available each year, not even 2,000 kids from any given high school class will receive a scholarship to play college ball.  With over a million basketball players graduating from high school each year, 0.002% are scholarship-caliber players.  Throw in two-year schools and NAIA, and that number may increase to half-a-percent. That’s not too many and means about only one kid every four years from the Prospect Camp will receive an offer.

Regardless of scholarship or not, there were some legitimate college-level players at the Prospect Camp this week. On the last day of the camp, coach Beaury gathered the kids and told them that “there are many opportunities to play out there, you just have to find them.”

Mike Long, Jr. – Staff Writer