Maryland Madness Basketball

In Maryland Madness' year round participation in select youth basketball, no sector is more competitive than the Amateur Athletics Union (AAU) and Youth Basketball of America (YBOA). It is the goal of Maryland Madness to qualify each of it’s teams for the AAU National Championships each year. AAU/YBOA season occurs in the April 1-August 15 time frame with tryouts for our AAU/YBOA teams taking place in February/March each year. A good portion of our needs for additional players at this time are dictated by the quality of our existing teams and the choice of players not to play in the spring time frame due to their involvement with other sports. 

Neither AAU nor YBOA is a league. Rather, they each consist of one local tournament usually spread over two-three weekends in the April-May time frame. Teams that place high(usually in the top three but that can be adjusted upwardly or downwardly depending on number of teams registered per age class, automatic qualifiers based upon a previous year national ranking and other factors) in the age group tournament qualify for a national tournament held in June, July or August. These national tournaments, which consist also of top finishers from other states, are held in Florida, Memphis, Virginia Beach and elsewhere.

Concurrent with the AAU/YBOA “season”, clubs, such as Maryland Madness, host local/regional tournaments that prepare teams for the primary AAU and YBOA tournaments. Additionally, Maryland Madness enters its teams in several local summer leagues that run in June and July (Rising Star, Silver Spring Boys and Girls Club, Tom Jones DC Summer league, others). As in October-March, our teams practice once or twice a week at least through July for 1.5 or 2 hours each time.

AAU/YBOA play is expensive. Individual as well as tournament registration are required. If a team qualifies and travels to nationals, the outlay per family can become relatively substantial if no fundraising is done.

Maryland Madness is in a position to partially subsidize such trips and does so regularly. Notwithstanding such a subsidization and Maryland Madness' desire to have all such expenses covered through its fundraising, there is never enough to cover all expenses. Therefore, any team that qualifies nationally must be prepared to finance a major portion of its trip either through team fundraising or directly from team parents.