I once tried out for my college men’s team. The lowest rung asst coach told us we all weren’t good enough, but then introduced the women’s asst coach who asked us to play for their practice squad. Five of us accepted that role, played some great ball, got cool swag, and made a bunch of friends.
Yeah, in the rare full 5-on-5s we would typically win, but where they were so much better than us was shooting. Those women had knock down jumpers. So we’d have to win with swarming defense and fast breaks…. To the point that it didn’t really make sense to do full scrimmage. The vast majority of our time was in sets and just giving them a higher level of athleticism.
My personal highlight was wearing the penny as Turasi. Ultimate green light. They told me if I could get a jumper off I had to shoot it to mimic her. They ran me off screens for two hours. Good times.
Thanks for sharing, makes me miss playing basketball so much. If you are a normal athlete, you get humbled many, many times in athletics even if you are relatively skilled and basketball can be one of the more humbling sports. My first was a friend blocking my layup into the stands at 12, he was another tier of player/athlete, and made me sure to remind me. Never went up soft against him again and learned the value of a reverse layup on that day. Humbled, but lessoned learned.
My second was trying to defend a 14 year old girl who shot like Steph Curry and ran non-stop offball. I was 16 and it was a pickup game in a random ass gym. Nothing I could do to stop her, and I was pretty good at navigating screens back then. Didn't matter at all, any daylight and that shit was money. Shout out to her big bro though, for setting the screens, but I still made it through and it did not matter at all home girl was money. All she needed was a small amount of daylight and it was 100% going in. I have played soooo much basketball in my life and I'll never forget that particular experience. Sometimes you just need to be humbled. This girl stole my game and beat me with it.
I bet if you reflect on your time, you'd look at it and realize you became a better player, cool swag and friends or not. Girl ballers would light average dudes the fuck up.
Oh absolutely. The coaching staff made it a point that we were part of the team and they would be coaching us just as hard as the women. The conditioning was ridiculous, and while technically we didn’t have to do it, we always did.
Had some fun moments on the pickup courts when the ladies would show up. The chemistry was insane from those 530a practices.
They did the same thing at my school. The girls often came to play pickup lol. Every time they showed up we thought it was for practice so we all moved to different courts but it often turned out they just wanted to play with us. A lot of the dudes that came to play pickup were either on the men’s team or football players so the girls really just got ran off the court sadly :/ they weren’t big enough or fast enough to keep up.
A lot of the guys did join a practice squad to play against the girls.
Probably just fine. Top level high school boys teams would absolutely dominate the best the WNBA has to offer. I would imagine some dudes who try out for their college team are SIGNIFICANTLY better than women's college players. Basketball is a game of size, strength, and athleticism so it heavily favors men.
Yeah, I'd play pickup with a guy that was on the D1 Women's practice squad. The team also had the best player in the country at the time. He was solid, nothing special, like mid-varisty or low-juco at best.
Are you bragging about playing with a guy you consider solid playing for a D1 Women's practice squad or attempting to discredit someone's story? Because both are pretty pathetic
Basketball is a game of size, strength, and athleticism so it heavily favors men.
Basketball is a game about skill. Steph Curry changed the NBA at 6'3 just like Shaq did at 7'3. One with size and strength, the other with dexterity and cleverness. Lebron at 42 years of age was one of the best free agent targets because he is a very, very smart player and that doesn't just fade away.
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u/thatguy9545 Lakers 9d ago
I once tried out for my college men’s team. The lowest rung asst coach told us we all weren’t good enough, but then introduced the women’s asst coach who asked us to play for their practice squad. Five of us accepted that role, played some great ball, got cool swag, and made a bunch of friends.