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There is plenty of high-school basketball talent in the state of Mississippi, but it doesn’t always receive attention. The major focus of http://www.marcrowe.com/">Marc Rowe’s Adidas Crossroads of the South Basketball Camp is highlighting those players in our state that teams might overlook. The camp took place this past Saturday, Sept. 24, at Ridgeland High School and featured some great basketball talent from seventh through 12th grade.

“We have wide areas of our state that are really rural areas and a lot of small towns,” Rowe said. “Sometimes those kids get lost in the recruiting shuffle, or the press overlooks kids because they don’t have a chance at some exposure.”

Rowe was quick to note that a major part of college recruiting is the press that a player receives. Now, with websites such as Scout.com and Rivials.com, there are more opportunity to get noticed, but players still need a place to get that exposure.

“I traveled the country to see other camps like this one, but we didn’t have one for our state,” Rowe said. “That’s when I started this. I came back in 2008 to help kids across the state. We have kids from near Memphis from the north and all the way to the Gulf Coast from the south.”

This is the eighth camp that Rowe has held, and it might have been the biggest, as well. Rowe said 40 young athletes had preregistered, and another 60 athletes showed up that morning to take part in the camp.

The morning session consisted of tests for physical numbers and drills to help improve skills.

Players were tested in the vertical jump, shuttle speed, full-court dribble and burst. Each player did all four tests twice. Knowing these times can give upperclassmen numbers to show scouts and college coaches, and it gives younger athletes an idea of where they need to improve.

Watching the children go through the four tests, Rowe’s coaches did their best to make sure each child had the chance to put up the best numbers that he could achieve. That sometimes meant restarting a drill or a receiving a little coaching before the second run.

After the tests, coaches worked the athletes out in drills designed to help ball handling, shooting, defense, footwork and other areas.

Each coach worked his drill repeatedly until the athletes learned how to correctly perform the task. The coaches gave praise and pointers as needed as they ran the drills.

There was plenty to be gleaned from watching the drills. Nearly every young athlete struggled at following through on his shoot.

Most of the players short-armed their follow-through, which meant their shots hit the front of the rim. There were other follow-through problems, as well, such as the athletes not holding form until their shot hit the rim.

Mid-range jump shots stood out as a positive trait if you watched the drills for any length of time. Watching basketball at nearly any level, you will notice that players can make shots at the rim or the three-point line.

The 10- to 15-foot jump shot has been disappearing in the NBA since the 1990s. College basketball soon followed, and now, it has trickled down to the high-school level.

Before the camp took a lunch break, each coach took time to address the players. While most of them hit on the same themes, there was some standout advice.

For one, nearly every coach praised the attitudes of the young athletes at the camp. A player can go a long way with a good attitude and show that he or she is coachable. It was good that these coaches took time to shed light on something that every player was doing right.

The coaches pointed out that most of the players did a good job of paying attention and that nearly everyone gave a good effort. Again, it was nice to hear some praise for the players to let them know that they are on the right track.

Children love playing games, but some don’t work on the skill part of the game enough to get better. Coaches told the participants they need to work on dribbling, shooting, ball handling and other fundamentals if they truly want to be the best players their abilities will allow.

Coaches asked the players to figure out why they play basketball, meaning that each young athlete should think about what he wants out of the sport.

Some of the best advice was telling the players to network with each other, getting to know the other players off the court and to spend time learning from one another.

While basketball was the focus, coaches also told the players to explore other sports and other interests, since playing basketball might not be where some of their best talents lie, and they could be great at other things.

Finally, each coach told the players to work to become good defenders. While it might not take a player to the NBA, playing solid defense can take someone far in basketball. Good defenders can get offers for college scholarships and even offers to play overseas.

Come back tomorrow to check out numbers from some of the players’ four test drills, player interviews and final thoughts from the games that were the main focus of the afternoon session.