FAQ’s – North Creek Basketball

2024-2025 North Creek Select Basketball Club Fact Sheet

Eligibility: To play for North Creek Select Basketball, players must:

Live (or have a parent who lives) within the North Creek HS pattern and attends an elementary/middle school in that pattern
Or lives in Northshore School District HS feeder pattern and attends an elementary/middle school in that pattern that feeds into Woodinville, Bothell, or Inglemore HS. In this case a player must be cut from their respective feeder program’s tryouts with written confirmation from that feeder program, AND the North Creek program must successfully achieve a waiver from the Eastside Travel League which implies North Creek has exhausted its possibility to fill the team roster with North Creek feeder pattern players able to participate at the select level.
Or have a parent who works for the Northshore School District and intends to attend North Creek HS and/or currently attends an elementary/middle school in the NSD or another private school.
Any player not meeting the above criteria will not be able to participate in NCSB.
Evaluators and coaches must be made aware at tryouts that a player is an exception to the 1st bullet, as otherwise a waiver may not be achieved.

4th-8th Grade Teams: Plan for teams this seasons is for boys and girls grades 4th-8th. The only deviation from this will be due to lack of ability to fill the team, or lack of coaching availability. Currently for this season we have coaching roster filled, so the only expected deviation would be from lack of ability to fill the team.

With the exception of 4th grade teams, players are highly discouraged to tryout for teams one grade higher.

For the 4th grade teams, we are more flexible on this policy though players in the 4th grade will typically be chosen over 3rd graders. You need only to sign up with the appropriate bday and grade at registration.
For grades 5th-8th, if you believe this is the right thing for your player a discussion will be required. Please ensure you inform the proper members of the board a priori to the tryout. The 3 board members are: Seth Jensen, Adam Asher, and Alix Ravenel. Send an email to: seth@northcreekbasketball.com>

A player is not allowed to tryout for younger grades, nor for a team 2 grades higher.

We run one team per gender/grade. Rosters are intended to be 10-11 players. Any teams retaining more than 11 players will be required to inform prospective players that are developmental up front, during the selection and confirmation process. Specifically, playing time likely will be severely limited on expanded rosters for those players that are selected in the last spots. That is, it is expected those players to get little or no playing time will be informed up front so their family can make an informed decision on participation. This situation can often work out well for developmental players as they enjoy all the practice time with the team. But transparency up front helps set everyone’s expectations and avoid tension later in the season. This communication is up to the coaching staff of that team.

On rare occasion when we have a larger cohort with deeper talent and enough coaching capacity we run two teams in a single grade/gender. This 2nd team will typically play in another league as multiple teams in a single grade are not supported in the primary league and the other league’s level of competition is a better fit for player development. This is to the discretion of the board and is done by exception only. Given gym availability this season, this will not be possible.

Tryouts:

For this season, tryouts are scheduled for Sunday Sept. 22nd and Monday evening September 23rd at North Creek HS. Specific times will be communicated through TeamSnap.
After the first tryout on Sunday, players that are deemed not ready to play at the Select competition level will be informed. These players are not to return to Monday’s tryout. Players otherwise are expected to go to both tryouts.
If a player is not able to attend Sunday’s tryout, they must attend Monday’s tryout. If for some reason that can’t occur, please contact the board at info@northcreekbasketball.com
After Monday’s tryouts, players will receive one of the following communications:
- An email requesting confirmation of participation on the team – an offer to be on the roster. It is requested that players confirm their participation for the season within 2 business days as the season ramps up quickly.
- An email informing the player they are not selected for the roster.
- An email informing the player that while they are considered players that could be successful at the select level of competition, there are a limited number of roster spots. The team needs to confirm players from the initial round of roster selection, or the player would need to consider a developmental position on the team. Further communication with such players will be taken on a case by case basis.

Team Fees: Team fees are $825 plus approximately $150 for the jersey package. Returning players may use some or all of the uniforms they already own if they choose.

Coaches are parent volunteers and/or community members without kids on the team who receive a small stipend at the end of the season to offset the costs of travel and organizational time. o Scholarships can be requested. If you do so, please contact seth@northcreekbasketball.com. Scholarships do not pay for jerseys. We ask that you specify if you need a full, ¾ or ½ scholarship. Again, we are a non-profit organization. We value player participation over budget, but ask you consider what you really need the program to scholarship.

Season Schedule: The season runs from October through Mid-March.

Practices will begin as soon as Oct. 7th, depending on team practice schedule

Each team will have two 90-minute practices per week. Players in fall sports are asked to try and make at least one practice per week, until the fall sport ends. At that point they must attend both practices.

Practices will primarily take place at either Skyview MS or Leota MS; occasional conflicts may cause practice to move to other gyms in the Northshore area, and/or shift practices later (also will be shortened).

Players need to be committed to make all practices (except for sickness or special circumstances). Players who will regularly miss practice because of other sports practices or extracurricular activities need to make arrangements with the head coach and playing time in games will be affected. Because this can affect team dynamics we request you share this with coaching staff before the final selection process.

League play games begin December 7th. Games will be Saturdays and/or Sundays through the second weekend of March. Home games take place at North Creek HS or Skyview MS. Away games take place at gyms at high school and middle schools for the other King County teams in the league.

There are no league games MLK (Jan 18-19) or President’s Day (Feb 15-16) weekend.

Tournaments: Teams will play in one tournament, funded by the program. Tournaments are weekends (sometimes including Friday games). Tournaments potentially could take place November weekends, Thanksgiving weekend, Holiday Break, MLK Weekend and/or President’s Day Weekend. Tournament schedule is per-team based and is driven by the coach with the support of the program.

It is to the discretion of the team to play in additional tournaments. Tournament fees will be paid for by the team.

The season is typically a total of 25 games, plus or minus. During pre-season tournament play and league play there is no overnight travel required.

The league ends its play with an end of the season tournament. The girls tournament is March 1-2. The boys tournament is March 8-9.

Some teams will qualify for the Middle School State tournament. This tournament is at the end of the season and is hosted in Spokane, WA in mid to late March. Teams will nominally know whether they qualify for and intend to participate by January. If the team qualifies it is to the discretion of the head coach with support of the program.

Holiday Breaks: There are no mandatory practices or games over the Holiday Break. Practices may also be impacted by school closures/holidays. This is not under control of the program. Teams will need to pay attention to middle school extracurricular schedules to stay abreast of any changes.

There are no mandatory practices during midwinter breaks. There will be games the weekend at the end of the break.

Safety: The North Creek Basketball Club follows all federal, state, local and league COVID guidelines. There are currently no guidelines in place, but protocols will be changed if required to do so.

Volunteer Opportunities: We are a volunteer led organization. If you are interested in volunteering, please contacts us at: seth@northcreekbasketball.com

2024-2025 budget summative disclaimer: For those families that are returning from last year’s season, unfortunately you will experience some differences based on the significant fee increase from Northshore School District. Gym rental fees have significantly increased since last year, building on increases between 2023 & 2024. As a board, we have done our best to minimize the impact of the gym rental fees, but to do so we have made the following modifications:

Tryouts used to be two full Sundays. We are now one Sunday and one shortened Monday evening.
We will be playing games as much as possible on Saturdays (Sundays are quite some more expensive).
Games will be played two at a time on the North Creek HS main court – the AUX gym will not be rented.
The team fee will only include one tournament. Should a team elect to play in additional tournaments, the team will need to fund their own entry fees.
Kickoff of the program will be via remote meeting, and not in person.