Team camps have become part of college basketball teams.
New Mexico State University opens its team camp this weekend at NMSU, with 30 teams scheduled to play eight games each Friday through Sunday.
"Our goal was to get 32 teams and we are sitting at 30 right now,"
said men's basketball program specialist Ryan Dozier, who has worked with coordinator of player development Gerald Lewis in organizing the camp. "From all of the high school coaches that I have talked to, everyone seems excited about it and we think it's going to be a good tournament."
The Aggies should benefit from the University of New Mexico canceling its camp this weekend, attracting some northern teams to join local schools Mayfield, Oñate, Las Cruces and Mesilla Valley Christian.
The number of teams is encouraging, given the Aggies staff had a late start.
"We couldn't get going until mid-April, and by then teams had committed elsewhere,"
Dozier said. "It's a great starting point and hopefully next year we can grow it because we want the team camp to be our main camp."
Dozier said that there are two teams from Arizona, as well as teams from Texas scheduled to show up.
Mayfield head coach Tommy Morrow has brought his team to the NMSU camp under former coaches Lou Henson and Reggie Theus. The Trojans enter this weekend's camp after hosting 40 teams in their own team camp last weekend.
"You just hope to improve in the summer and to be competitive,"
Morrow said. "You have to take the summer with a grain of salt since kids are traveling with their families throughout the summer. It is hard to recover from a bad summer. If you have a bad summer, it's a really bad sign. We consider the summer to be the backbone of our program."
Mayfield is also traveling to the Gold Crown Foundation tournament in Denver, Colo., next weekend and to La Cueva's Land of Enchantment tournament June 27-29.
"In the summer, you just need a good schedule and to get a good schedule, you have to have quality teams and enough quality teams so that you can match up well and get some competitive game,"
Morrow said. "Blowouts don't really help either team."
The SonBlazers are entering their third camp in as many weeks and their first appearance at the NMSU camp. The SonBlazers have attended the Texas Tech camp in the summer, but that camp was also canceled.
MVCS head coach Terry Adler said competing against 5A level competition will be good for his team.
"I'm looking at incorporating new boys into our program so that they can learn our plays and our offensive and defensive schemes,"
Adler said. "It's also a chance for our boys to develop in a 5A setting."
