Measurement and benchmarking is key to focusing your energy, time, and effort in areas that will have the biggest impact.

Body

• What is your height and weight versus the conference you plan to play in and versus other players on your future team that play your position? If you are under sized, what superpowers do you need to work on to overcome that?
• What are your strength stats? (Bench, squat, deadlift, leg press) you need to know your numbers and how they stack up to others that you are competing with or even others at your position at the next level. That will help you prioritize where to focus. Lock in and dominate your focus areas.
• Power stats (power clean, standing broad jump, Vertical, vertical leap, shot put) make sure you have proper instruction on how to do these movements safely. It is very easy to hurt your back going too heavy before you have learned the right technique. Power will be extremely important for vertical jump and speed. This is what separates athletes. (Strength x velocity)
• Endurance (400m, 800m, 1,500m, beep test) there may be other sport specific movements for your sport for example in basketball free throw and back to centre and back to far free throw and back to far baseline and back. You should also know your VO2 max and how it stacks up. You can’t compete if you are tired; your coach can’t keep you on the court if you are lacking endurance. Build a plan to improve this to a point where you can play an entire game. Track interval work of 200m and 400m is likely the best for this.
• Agility (3 cone shuttle) strength and power can help with this. You will also need strong ankles and explosive calves to help here.
• Speed (40m, 100m, 200m) or whatever other distances are standard and can be tracked. Shorter distances will help with power longer with speed endurance and both are important.
• Sleep duration, quality, causes. Get some sort of sleep tracking device that can ensure you get enough quality rest. Understand what your natural sleep amount is when there is no alarm. Get as close to that number of hours as possible. Understand what impacts your sleep. Get off your phone 1 hr before bed, don’t work out just before bed if you can help it, careful eating a huge meal just before bed.
• Nutrition (pre-post-in-off season phases) Pre Game, in game Post Game recovery, maintenance, hydration and electrolytes? Understand your macros and specifically how you carb load and the amount of protein you are getting. Build a clear plan with meal timing for game days including half time and recovery meals. Water, and electrolytes are also important.
• Therapy – physical, physiotherapy, ankles, knees, massage, cold and heat, recovery, pliability, chiropractic. There should be proactive preventative therapy. In basketball to help prevent ankle injuries and ACL prevention as well. Overall therapists mentioned above should help with a rest recovery plan for you. Understand what is covered with your benefit plan and work out a plan to maximize the use for the year.

Mind

• Mental coach and psychologist to help with your strengths as a player and build resilience and confidence specific to you.
• Analyze Film: performance reviews on your own games. What are your performance goals in the stat categories you have? Are you trying to improve your passing? View the game film through a passers eyes. What are you noticing on your reads? Are you squaring up and taking what the D gives you or are you just passing to the next player without being a threat yourself? Are you picking up on what side the D is giving you? and adjusting accordingly? Do you see the weak spots for shooting in the zone defence Based on the game you just played, did you miss any box outs? Were you communicating switches on defense?
• Film: watch schools you are interested in and also the best schools to compare and contrast. What systems do they run. Where would you fit in the offensive schemes? What players are most similar to you on their team? What do their stats look like and how do they fit in in the overall offense? How does the team defend? what type of zone coverages do they use? Do they press at all? What kind of inbound plays do they run? Do they get more points from the paint or from the three-point line? Do they run a lot of screens that open up short range jump shots do they get a lot of points in the paint etc.
• Get a vpn and espn+ to watch as many schools as you can. Favourite the teams and players you are interested in tracking and keep track, watch them.
• You may need a US address or send a gift subscription from a Canadian card to yourself to set this up.
• Understand what schools the top recruits are going to, and also what date the majority of the recruits in a given class commit and sign to the school they eventually go to.
• Make sure you understand the recruiting rules. The time windows were communication is allowed and not as well as the signing periods, etc..

Skills

• Shooting – what are your percentages from different places in the floor? Where are you best? Worst? Where should you work to improve your game? What is the difference between your practice and game shooting percentages from these spots?
  • How much time are you spending on the shooting machine and what are your stats as you have each session? Are your sessions focussed on the areas that need most work?
  • Finishing drills – where do you finish best with what hand? from what location on the floor? How can you continue to practice those shots and finishing drills as well as others where you are not as strong?
• Timed drills for your handle, left vs right are you able to move through a sequence of more and more complex handling drills with both hands and improve your times.

Coaching

• System understanding, offence, defence, presses, inbounds. Relative defensive standing and performance, 3pt frequency and percentages
• Positional depth chart, roles of each player on the team and how they use their guards and big players in relation to their forwards?
• Positional strengths, opportunities, stats, FT%, 3pts, reb per game etc. and potential role relative stats.

Investment what are you spending on:

• Nutritionist
• Trainer
• Gym rentals
• Physio
• Therapy ie massage
• Food and nutritional supplements

Schools

– What is their basketball ranking?

– School ranking for the program you are interested in?

• What is the athletics budget for the school? Does the school have a football program or a men’s basketball program that bring in the majority of the funds for the university that can be spread across programs like women’s basketball?
• What conference? What is their average team ranking of the conference?

• Location, Drive distance, Fly dist
• Do they take the bus or fly to games.
• Population of the city and the school and the program.
• Costs what is covered? Tuition? Books? Meals? Residence?
• Weather
• City or country location?
• SAT requirements? GPA
• Remaining years on coaches contract? is the coach new in the last 3 years? What about the assistance?
• Players year(s) in your position
• Tournament performance or ranking
• Coaching staff philosophy or assistant aspirations and family situations.
• How many assistants are there? What are the roles? What schools did they come from? Do they have any children? how old are their children? What are their children involved in? Canada basketball support. Will they allow you to leave for international tournaments
• What is the graduation rate how many women have gone on to play professional basketball from the team?
• Typically, how many credits are taken during the season and is it possible to take credits from home over the summer?
• What does the therapy staff look like? How many are full-time? How many are part-time? Is there a strength and conditioning coach?

These are just a few things to consider when preparing for a division 1 scholarship offer, and conversations with coaches who are interested in you and your abilities.