High School Basketball Seasons

So we've wrapped up high school football season. We're a little sad to say goodbye to what has made Friday nights an even every single week but don't worry, high school sport fans, Basketball season is right around the corner. Now we make the transition from outdoor field to indoor court which works just fine since the weather is turning ugly. Let's take a look at the average prep basketball season and what we can expect.

With all the different school schedules out there in the U.S., the sports season still feel about the same. Most schools have some kind of summer program to keep the players in shape and work on basic drills although tryouts usually don't start till later in the fall. One issue is that some of the football players have to quickly ramp up for basketball especially if they were in the playoffs for football. As good a shape as you need to be in for football, it's no preparation for basketball. There's usually a brutal period of getting your "legs" back for the intensive play of high school basketball. Let's look at the average season setup.

On average, a high school will generally have about 25 games in pre-season competition. Basketball is generally considered a winter sports and with the first games beginning around the start of December. The final regular season game typically takes the season out to mid February so it's a good 2 1/2 months. Of course, if your team qualifies, post season or playoffs will take off from there will continue up to 4-5 games depending on how your athletic league is structured and of course, how long you team stays in based on performance since it is one and done situation. There are more than double the number of games that football has which makes sense since more than 1 football game per week would cause injury issues for players. High school basketball players will typically play 2 games per week and it's not always on the same day the way football tends to be. It's not uncommon to have a mid week game and also a weekend (usually Friday night) game as well.

Basketball is generally thought of as a winter sport and therefore, it can conflict with other winter sports. The three biggest winter sport that it competes with are swimming, wrestling, and ice hockey. Wrestling definitely attracts football players who are looking to stay in shape not to mention further skills that can apply on the field and swimming has a distinct following that are probably in the water all season of the year. As for ice hockey, depending on where you live, it can be a dominant sport if not the dominant sport in spite of basketball's popularity.

One of the big distinctions of prep basketball is that we're indoors. Both football and baseball are outside. Being a winter sport, basketball forces the action indoors for most parts of the U.S. where winter weather can be inclement. We're fine with that since the high energy of the game itself is only magnified when forced into a small pressure box of excitement that makes up most high school basketball gyms.

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