The Final Rankings Are In: Compton Magic Or Team Takeover?

Now that all the live period is over, our finals rankings in.  View them here.

When it comes to IndiHoops rankings, it all comes to down to the shoe circuits. A big part of the rankings is strength of schedule.

Club basketball and AAU rankings, a system we have pioneered over the past five years, has taken this industry from unknown to the mainstream. Before IndiHoops if you wanted to find a schedule, any information or any rankings on internet – you would have found nothing.

We pioneered the transparency and consistency of a ranking system, and because are are so many teams in the industry right now, the market is more saturated than ever before. There was even a copper and brass division championship game in Vegas last year.

Club basketball has exploded over the past couple of years, to the effect that adidas did not have their final event in 2017, the Adidas Super 64, likely because of the spectacle that is Lavar Ball. LeBron James was even denied entrance into the Zion Williamson/LaMelo Ball matchup last year due to safety concerns because there was simply too many people trying to enter the facility. Imagine that.

The rise of AAU basketball has to some very interesting events. The Fab 48, which is always one of the most exciting tournaments in Vegas, staged an epic battle this year. The tournament managed to get Team Takeover to play Compton Magic on their home turf.

Team Takeover Holds The Top Spot

Team Takeover, a flagship Nike program out of Washington DC, was number one going into the week and defended their ranking by winning their respective tournament, Chris Paul’s The 8, the premier Nike bracket to end Vegas, despite experiencing an exhibition loss to the Compton Magic by two points in overtime.

This one-off game, proposed a matchup to mimic a Nike vs Adidas final, which has basically never been done before, and kudos to the Fab 48 for setting that up. However, Under Armour was not included and there was no context leading up to this game, and it was ultimately a one game scrimmage.

Compton Magic, ended up winning in overtime by two points, however Team Takeover’s overall body of work gets them the number one ranking. Because their body of work, despite all of the noise from Compton Magic, who also had a great season, Team Takeover, who won the Peach Jam, went 16-0 EYBL in the regular season, and ended up winning The 8 tournament, which was tougher than Rebound Hoops (a first year event that Compton Magic won), gives them the edge. Compton Magic finishes the season as an extremely close behind number two.

One of the discrepancies of ranking AAU leagues is that they are not an Apples to Apples comparison. Every league is different. Because of this, it is very important to take into account which team has the toughest schedule.

We value winning tournaments and winning big events. The Adidas Gauntlet strength of schedule was simply not as tough as the EYBL this year. Team Takeover’s overall body of work makes them the number one overall team, Compton Magic takes the two spot and DC Premier, the top Under Armour takes the third spot.

Because it was so close, indihoops put out a simple poll asking its targeted audience to who the top 17U team was, with over 1,100 and votes, Compton Magic won that poll.

Team Takeover and Compton Magic ended up having two of the best AAU seasons of all time. They both gave us a great show, but the overall body of work goes to Team Takeover, and Compton Magic had a few slight blemishes on their record. For Example, they lost to a 6-11 team, the Las Vegas Knicks, and lost to a 9-11 Team Carroll.

Team Takeover gets their number one ranking and it remains to been seen if there will be a shoe circuit next year.

This will be our final high school rankings in the format of internal voters. An all new rankings system will be introduced, and will be subjected to scouting and voting – a decentralized system.