Orlando Comets

(KB - 07/03/05) AAU has released the pool schedules for AAU 16U nationals at Disney starting July 11, 2005.

First off, SG is not and does not pretend to be an expert in the AAU. b.1988 division. We know as much about the AAU 16U division as any given referee knows about making traveling calls in the NBA: We're blind. We don't know the teams, we don't know the players, we don't know the coaches.

But we DO know how AAU pools are situated. We know how AAU teams earn seedings. Beyond that, we can't really say who will beat whom when AAU 16U Nationals start in a couple of weeks. We will simply say we hope the whole tournament comes down to a single game between the Hollywood Suns and the Orlando Comets and leave it at that.

But before we get to that point, lets talk about what we can derive from last year's finish and this year's seedings. 

According to the AAU website, SE Tennessee Shelbyville Sports Shop won 2004 AAU 15U Nationals last year. That win earned a #1 seeding for the SE Tennessee association, not the Shelbyville team.

A quick check of the 2005 AAU 16U teamlist shows that Shelbyville isn't attending AAU Nationals this year. We don't know why they elected not to defend their crown. They may not have qualified this year. They may have broken up. But a more logical conclusion would be that Shelbyville elected to sign with a shoe company and is obligated to attend that shoe company's events. As teams get older, that seems to be the trend.

In Shelbyville's absence, TN Team Flight has inherited the #1 seed. They are the top seed in Pool A. Team Flight evidently won the Tennessee association championship this year. Tennessee routinely sends progressively stronger teams to AAU nationals, so it would be unwise to assume that Team Flight is any less formidable a team than Shelbyville.

The same logic applies to the #2 seed. The NY Gazelles finished second last year and earned a #2 seed for the Metropolitan association. No team from that association is attending AAU 16U Nationals this year. The #2 seed therefore falls to...the NorCal Heat from California?!?

Yes. They are the top team in Pool Q. They received the #2 seed after the Gazelles elected not to return AND EBX elected not to return. EBX would have earned the #3 seed based on their third place finish last year. They didn't return and Norcal inherited their seed. And since the #2 seeded association didn't send a team, Norcal moved up into the #2 spot.

See how that works? We won't go down the list of last year's finishers and explain how each team received their seed. Using the above methodology, you can do that yourself. We will mention that the top seed gets assigned to the first alphabetic pool(A), the second seed gets assigned to the last alphabetic pool(Q), the third seed gets assigned to the SECOND alphabetic pool(B), the fourth seed gets assigned to the SECOND TO LAST alphabetic pool(P), and so on. That's how seeding works.

Rather than continue this lesson in AAU A-B-C's, let's talk about how the Comets and Suns are seeded.

The Comets are the fourth ranked team in Pool I. The Suns are the sixth ranked team in Pool G. Notice we said "ranked" and not "seeded". Neither team is "seeded". Seeds are only passed out to AAU associations based on last year's finish. Since neither team competed at AAU 15U Nationals last year, the ranking earned by the Suns and Comets is done by a random assessment of their capabilities. 

It's ridiculous to assume that two teams that only have two losses between them this AAU season can be ranked so low. But AAU doesn't know that. They, too, have to fly blindly with teams that don't have an AAU track record.

The Comets are pooled with Tennessee Elite, who obtained a #4 seeding (not ranking) via inheritance from Tennessee Team Pride. (Team Pride is attending this year. They must have finished behind the TN Elite in their AQT this year). The Comets are also pooled with the Ohio Blaze, who finished out of the money at the Garden City Roundball Classic last weekend. Those are the only observations we can make about this pool. As we said, we are not in any position to make predictions about the 16U division.

We do know that the Hollywood Suns are pooled with a fairly decent team. The DBL Phoenix out of Philly finished tied for ninth last year and they ain't nuttin' but nice. Whether they can beat the Suns is not a matter for conjecture here.

But let us assume that both teams win their pools. The winners bracket matchup would have the Comets facing the Suns in the Elite 8. The teams can only separate across the bracket if one of them loses in pool play.

The Suns beat the Comets Red at 2005 Disney Spring Fling. We want to see the rematch.

2005 AAU 16U Pool Play Scores

(The photos to the right are of this year's 16U class when they were 13U players in 2002)