The Formula to Play College Basketball
– Think The Game Thursday –

Do you know what it takes to play college basketball? Hundreds of thousands of high school athletes dream of playing college basketball but many don’t understand the work involved to get there. In this weeks video, PGC Director Tyler Coston breaks down the formula to play college basketball.

Interested in learning more? Keep scrolling down – Tyler Coston goes in-depth in our new Think Deeper section.

Think Deeper

939,836 – the number of high school basketball players across the United States this season.
94.2% of those athletes will not play basketball at the college level.

These statistics, when I first heard them, terrified me. I grew up desperately wanting to play basketball at the highest level, but like many players, I didn’t know how to get there. I know what it’s like to want something so badly and to not know exactly how to achieve it. I ended up playing, coaching or consulting at every level of basketball, but I took the long route.

Today, I am going to give you the secret formula to playing college basketball because you need to know the truth about the price you must pay if you want to avoid the pain of your career ending too soon. The first part of the equation is COMPLETELY within your control. Preparation (P). As a high school athlete, this is what YOU can do to prepare to play college ball.

Preparation

Preparation = 5 hours of specific, deliberate training.

Wake Up
1 hour – Early Morning Shooting Workout

Breakfast & Recovery
1 hour – Speed, strength, or recovery workout

Lunch & Recovery
2 hours – Pickup games with the best players you can find. Players who are bigger, stronger, faster than you. Compete against them, steal skills and techniques from their games, and add it to yours.

Dinner & Recovery
1 hour – Skill specific workout – ball handling, working on specific moves, footwork & finishing training.

Rest – to ensure you are realizing the greatest return on your work you MUST sleep 8+ hours per night. Less than that has been proven to limit both athletic and skill performance and sacrifice gains.

Genetics & Chance

I’ve worked with thousands of athletes over the last 15 years, none of whom have failed to play college basketball, when they followed this formula. It’s actually quite simple, but not easy. As the great Rudyard Kipling said, “if you don’t get what you wanted out of life, you either didn’t want it bad enough or you bargained over the price.”

Most players aren’t willing to pay the price.

Two other factors will greatly impact the highest level you play.

1. Genetics (G) – You can’t control your height. Some people have won the genetic lottery, and even with limited training, they will still become college players.
2. Chance(C) – The CHANCE that you are playing at the right time, in the right gym, in the right situation, when the right coach is there recruiting for the position that you play.

You don’t control genetics or chance. Life’s not fair. Desiring fair treatment is the mindset of the mediocre. Control what you can control – your training, your mindset, your habits. If you do that, you can be certain that you did everything you could to put yourself in the best position to get recruited and fulfill your dreams. And the feeling you’ll experience when you sign that dotted line saying you are now a college basketball player, is one of pure joy and excitement because you know you just achieved something that only 5.8 % of high school athletes ever achieve.

-Tyler