In case you hadn't noticed, there have been some big changes in the world of internet related recruiting sites. Rivals as we once knew it is now gone.  Most of their network sites, at least those functioning about a month ago, have now either gone to independent sites or have disappeared, either temporarily or permanently.  We know that people have had trouble navigating the net, finding their favorite sites, but most of them are still out there, and indeed, most of the best ones were never with Rivals anyway. 

To make life a bit easier we updated our "Recruiting" links.  But that wasn't enough.  So yesterday we set about the business of updating a lot of stuff on SoCalHoops that for one reason or another, hadn't been updated in months.  First, we cleaned out the "Tournaments" and finally set the calendar for 2001.  Now this may or may not greatly relieve some people (judging from the amount of e-mail we received about the fact that the tournament listings weren't "current"),  but for those who pay a little closer attention, you'll also notice that we installed a feature last year which allows tournament organizers to post their own tournament details in a nice little calendar.  See a yellow highlighted date?  That means there's an event. 

Next we did an update of our 2001 Summer Camp listings.  Not a complete overhaul, but just some tweaking.   We're not done, but you'll find most of the bigger and better camps and such:   Double Pump West Coast All Stars, Superstar, Fullcourt Press All-West, Snow Valley, Five Star etc.  If we don't have complete info right now for everything, we've provided the necessary links so you can get what you need. Hopefully, if you're a player or a parent of a player, this will help you to plan a productive and fun summer.

The next portion of the site we tackled yesterday was the "News" links section.  Woefully out of date (in fact we hadn't updated it in more than 4 years), we've now brought everything back to working order, and in the process even managed to find some really nice new sites, and we're also providing headline news courtesy of Moreover.com.  Want links to just about every e-zine which has anything to do with basketball?  We've got em.  Want newspaper coverage of just about every team, league, or prep player anywhere in the world?  Got it.   Scores, stats, even betting lines?  Got 'em  (not that we encourage betting, but. . . .).

We're going to continue to give SoCalHoops a slight, but evident facelift in the next few weeks.  Hopefully you'll like what you see.