Black Club makes their first trip to the east Bay

Our Black Club made their first trip to the East Bay for the Spring/Summer at the 4Ballers Only Easter Showcase and left with some hardware! This one-day event gave us a nice preview against tougher competition we plan to see throughout the rest of the season and we once again left with three tournament championships!

The 6th Grade Hitters took home a championship with wins over HoopSphere and Bay City. It was a sign of major growth, as they beat Bay City by 28 points after losing to them just one weekend ago. Great signs of development for the squad!

The 4th Grade Goers kept their winning streak alive with wins over Team Unlimited and the San Jose Spartans. They’ve opened the season with five consecutive wins against D1 opponents and are riding a nine-game winning streak since leaving for Portland and returning with a national championship!

The 6th Grade Goers took home another championship with wins over Team Breakdown and Bay Area Lava. That’s back-to-back tournament championships for the squad to open the Spring/Summer!

It was also the season debut for our College Prep program as 16U and 17U combined for a 3-1 record. 17U won the top division of their age group with 40-point and 19-point victories. They have an exciting season ahead and will be back competing in the same tournament as Black Club this weekend!

Welcome to Famer

We're excited to release our new at-home workout platform with the Famer App! This will give our athletes curated content to watch for their growth at-home. We'll be sure to have our weekly workout on the app and have your athlete complete each workout to take their game to the next level! Check your email for instructions on downloading and let us know if you have any issues at all.

March Madness Discounts extended

We’ve extended our March Madness discounts for our Team Esface camps to April 8th so all of our Black Club athletes can take advantage! Reminder that all of our current Black Club athletes qualify for our AAU Elite camp which will give them the most challenging and best hoop experience of the summer. This will be the last opportunity to take advantage of our deepest discounts so be sure to use the codes below before they expire:

Buy One Camp, Get One Camp 20% Off Using the Code: HC24FAMONLYMAR20

Save 12% Off One Camp Using the Code: HC24MADNESSONECAMP

March Madness Bracket Update!

Speaking of March Madness, we have to check in on our Team Esface Bracket Pool! We started with 34 brackets and with the Final Four this weekend, there’s only four brackets remaining with a chance to win! All of the possible outcomes are below:

Taiye Sobomehin (6th) Wins If… Purdue wins the national championship or Alabama defeats Purdue in the national championship

Matteis O’Brien (6th) Wins If… UConn defeats Purdue in the national championship

Dash Choy (5th) Wins If… Alabama and N.C. State reach the national championship

Coach Cam Wins If… UConn and N.C. State reach the national championship

Alumni Spotlight: Sophomores selected to WBAL First-Team

We wanted to shout out Pinewood sophomore Caitlyn Kramer and Sacred Heart Prep sophomore Kate Baron who were both named to the All-WBAL First Team this season! Both grew up in our Team Esface Black Club and always welcomed the challenge of playing against the boys. They've now made immediate impacts with their high school programs with Caitlyn even holding a Division I offer to San Jose State! Excited to see their careers continue to progress as juniors and seniors!

Basketball 101: Increase Parent’s Hoop Understanding

For this week’s basketball 101 segment, we wanted to take a look at Purdue head coach Matt Painter who just led his team to the Final Four this season. While it’s been an unbelievable season for Purdue and the first time the Boilermakers have reached the Final Four since 1980, it was just a year ago when Purdue lost to #16 seeded Fairleigh Dickinson in the first round of the NCAA Tournament and Painter was under scrutiny for their performance. He discusses in the video above the value of overcoming that loss and the value it had on this year’s team.

He notes, “You always face things. I think when you face things it’s harder but that’s brings the demons out and really helps you because now you have a little bit more drive, now you’re a little bit more focused, and there’s just more attention to detail than anything.” While losses, even embarrassing ones, can be heartbreaking, it’s always important to see the value in those moments. Like he says, there’s more attention to detail and an extra layer of focus following those outcomes. Humility is a valuable trait in young athletes and it tends to grow in moments of adversity. Whether teams are winning or losing, we hope our athletes can find those areas to bring more detail to their game, as it can shift their entire mindset and focus!

Coming up…

We’ll be entering one of the biggest events throughout all of Northern California this season at the Spring Elite Hoops Challenge. Sponsored by NBBA, Lakeshow, and NorCal Elite, we’ll be gearing up to see some elite competition with a great challenge for our Black Club athletes. Be sure to check TeamSnap for your schedule and please mark your availability on TeamSnap so we know our roster for the weekend. Our College Prep squads will also be competing at the event so feel free to come out and support!

You can view our Black Club tournament schedule for the rest of the season here.

We crave to learn and grow. The best way for us to grow is with your valued feedback. Please use the above link anytime to let us know how things are going (positives and negatives) for the Black Club. There’s an option to get in contact with an HQ member in the link as well. We look forward to hearing from you!