Anyone covering YDF ?

[BrooklynSaints]

Is anyone covering this years Womens Youth Development Festival ?

Its always great to see all the high school greats compete under one roof. Could result in adjustments in rankings. I'm anxiously awaiting updates.

[scoutnwhoops]

Glenn is on his way there today and I'm heading down there tomorrow. We'll be in full force.

[raindevil]

Yahoo! YDF is already my favorite time of the summer, and your coverage will make it even more enjoyable.

[scoutnwhoops]

We're hoping to give you results, player evaluations and hopefully video interview with players as well.

Anyone here give Brazil a chance at winning any of the games?

[YourCrimsonNightmare]

Nope, zilch, nada. American girl's basketball is growing at such an astonishing pace due to the overall density of talented competition, that I cannot believe that Brazil can find 12 players in that vast country to beat any of our three collections of 12.

But we'll see. No we won't. It just isn't happening, not now, not this year.

I was at the FIBA site earlier today, and discovered that soon they are going to have U17 world championships for girls. That's younger than ever before, and a testament to the growth of the game.

FIBA America's U16 Championship for Women is scheduled for November 1, 2009

[intelligenthoodlum]

USA Basketball didn't invite Brazil up here to win games, sports fans. They brought Brazil up here to get the USA girls competing against some REAL athletes!
The IH knows nothing about this particular Samba squad; but it's rare that an American team, of the female gender, in any sport, of any age group, has been as athletic as ANY corresponding team from Brazil.
The IH remembers some years ago, when an 18U team from Brazil did an exhibition tour of the USA. They had five girls 6'3" to 6'6", who weighed anywhere from 180 to 220 pounds, and not an ounce of fat on any of them. And each one was more athletic than ANY guard or forward any team from the USA had...

[YourCrimsonNightmare]

The closest comparison I could find anytime recently regarding the relative states of Brazilian and USA young women's programs was the 2004 FIBA Americas U18 tournament that the USA won. Puerto Rico was second, Canada third, Brazil fourth, failing to qualify for world play in 2005.

USA results were: USA 128, Argentina 43; USA 143, Bolivia 24; USA 124, Puerto Rico 49; USA 99, Brazil 38; USA 121, Puerto Rico 56.

Brazil results were: Brazil 96, Guatemala 34; Brazil 91, Dominican Republic 45; Canada 54, Brazil 52; USA 99, Brazil 38; Canada 47 vs. Brazil 43.

This isn't to suggest that Brazil won't be much better now, but Brazil will be facing better USA players too. It could be argued that a combined USA squad is considerably more formidable than split squads, and I could counter that depth of talent in young players in our country is so impressive that there isn't that much of a drop-off from a national team when you split up 36 of the best players into 3 teams.

Brazil's biggest problem won't probably be size or athleticism, but the greater advancement of skills and technique that will be apparent in the USA squads. No offense, but our young women's teams have been destroying the best that the world could counter with for some years now, and I don't think that will change in the short-term future.

[raindevil]

The Blue team just beat Brazil 102-43.

I guess that answers that question.