Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Adam Donnelly

HOOP DREAMS

King’s Court 3-on-3 basketball giving Kamloops kids more court time

May 8, 2019 | 6:30 PM

KAMLOOPS — This city has always punched above its weight when it comes to basketball, with the three SSKS provincial championships in the past two years standing as just some of the proof in the pudding. That success has a great deal to do with the dedicated coaches who teach the game in the city, and on Saturday, CFJC Today caught up with one of those coaches who is exploring a new league format, intending to teach the game and keep Kamloops in the provincial basketball conversation.

“You get more touches, more spacing, more opportunities to attack, you’ve got to defend all the time, so really it speeds up the process of development,” King’s Court founder Ryan Porter explained.

Those are the reasons, in a nutshell, why Porter decided to start the Kings Court 3-on-3 Youth Basketball League this spring. The one-time UCC Sun Demons standout saw that kids in Kamloops weren’t getting enough games through school leagues, so he decided to create an opportunity for young athletes from Grade Four all the way through Grade 12.

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“Kids get five games in a season when they play on an elementary school team,” Porter said. “There are usually 12 or 15 kids on a team playing very short games. Every kid plays three shifts, maybe four minutes a shift, and they’ve played four of five games, so they’re really not even getting a taste of basketball. That’s another reason we started this league.”

At King’s Court, the athletes get about 20 to 30 minutes of skill development at the beginning of each session; skills like passing, shooting rebounding, and spacing on the court.

“I really like the skills part,” Aberdeen Elementary Grade Five student Joshua Onyango told CFJC Today. “We do dribbling, and then right after we do skills.”

“It helps you improve in basketball a lot more,” David Thompson Grade Six student Owen Routhier said. “[Like] how to be better at dribbling, how to get more active, and how to make sure the ball doesn’t get stolen.”

Then the players are split into teams, where they play 3-on-3 games under the watchful eyes of the coaches, who can stop games to help the athletes put those skills they just learned to use in the game setting.

Image Credit: CFJC Today

“It’s fun, and it’s more basketball than you usually get to do,” Routhier said.

The kids also enjoy the opportunity to play with new teammates each time they come out.

“It’s like you’ve never played with them before,” Onyango said. “You get to play with them the first time, so that’s kind of fun.”

With close to 150 participants signed up for the inaugural run of King Court, Porter is hopeful he can start building something permanent for the hoops hopefuls of the River City.

“I was actually surprised at the demand for something basketball-related where kids can play in Kamloops,” Porter said. “We have lots of soccer leagues, lots of hockey leagues, every other league but basketball.”

Porter added, “The other thing we want to do is build from 3-on-3 to have full-time leagues in 5-on-5, as well. So it’s not just the school season kids have access to, or it’s not just traveling club teams.”