Mike Kunstadt's Fall San Antonio Shootout

I spent yesterday watching evaluating players at Mike Kunstadt's San Antonio Fall Shootout. I wanted to take a second to express my appreciation for he and his staff, Sam Lowe and Blue Zertuche making me feel welcome and give me full access. This is a perfect example of how folks can be friendly competitors, yet be polite to each other in a spirit of cooperation that benefits players.

Their web site is http://www.texashoops.com/

We've agreed to share information and to do everything possible to make sure Texas kids are on the recruiting map. (Especially the area I will concentrate on: Killeen, Waco, Austin, San Antonio and Rio Grande Valley area which is vastly underappreciated.)

I did my best to see as many groups as possible. The full slate of teams was: Austin Westlake, Austin Akins, Austin Bowie, Austin Lake Travis, Belton, Boerne Champion, Cedar Park, Cedar Park Vista Ridge, Converse Judson, Converse Wagner, Flower Mound, Houston St. Pius, McAllen, Pflugerville, Round Rock McNeil, San Antonio Alamo Heights, San Antonio Churchill, San Antonio O'Connor, San Antonio Stevens, San Antonio Taft, San Marcos, Seguin, Sharyland, Wichita Falls Rider.

These FALL GAMES are somewhat smilar to many summer league games. The kids get up and down the court and get after it. My early take on the San Antonio area is that the superior talent this season is at Stevens, Madison,Wagner, and Judson, and I'm going to pick a darkhorse of Southwest HS as well. In the Austin area, my picks would be Pflugerville, LBJ, Westlake to name a few. McAllen HS is clearly the class of the RGV. Of course it could be a horse of a different color when the kids get "coached up" by guys with superior schemes; like Coach Jimmy Littleton, John Hirst, Mike Wacker, Stan Leech, Celester Collier, David Peavey and Mike Murphy to name a few. There are many other quality guys on the sidelines in addition to those mentioned above. Just can't name them all here.

There was some very good early season basketball considering there are a lot of key players on the football field, and I'm happy to say there were a bunch of kids that missed the early games as they were writing their SAT's.

One of the most frustrating thinks is to have a player in the spring of his junior year (or later) that does not have a test score. Parents and players, please listen....THIS IS THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO HAVE TAKEN CARE OF, SO YOU CAN BE A RECRUITABLE ATHLETE. Or, as I like to say, without a score, you're a "SUSPECT, not a "PROSPECT".