Hoops College · Charlotte

Six Saturdays to get your player ready for tryouts.

Ninety minutes a week of coached team play — reads, decisions and live five-on-five — run by a staff that trains about 200 athletes a week here in Charlotte.

For high school players — 9th through 12th — trying to:

Make the team for the first time
Make varsity, or move up from JV
Earn real minutes
Start — and hold on to the spot
Come back as the player the coach builds around
Learn what you need to do to get to the next level

When: Saturdays, September 19 – October 24 · 5:00–6:30 PM
Where: Mosaic Church, 10624 Metromont Pkwy, Charlotte, NC
Cost: $129 for all 6 weeks
Size: 15 spots

$129 covers all 6 weeks. Secure checkout.

Have a question first? There's a place to ask one at the bottom of this page.

Train & Play flyer — six Saturdays, September 19 to October 24, 5:00–6:30 PM, Mosaic Church, 10624 Metromont Pkwy, Charlotte, NC, $129 for all six weeks

Who you'd be handing your player to

Hoops College trains about 200 athletes a week in the Charlotte area. Small group, individual, strength work, team training — seven days a week, year round. Train & Play runs at Mosaic Church rather than at our own gym, and it is the same staff who run everything else.

Aram Parunak founded it. Twenty-six years coaching, nineteen of them in college basketball across NCAA Division I, Division II, USCAA and prep school. He has coached All-Americans, won a national championship, and put players into professional careers overseas. He now spends most of his week with players in Charlotte, which is a different job, and the one this program is built around.

If you want to know how we work before you commit six Saturdays, the cheapest way to find out is to try a session. A small group intro at our own gym is $10. Same coaches, an hour of the same work, and a closer look at us than a seat on the sideline would give you.

You have a fall sport. We know.

Most families in this program are running a football, soccer, volleyball or cross-country schedule through October. The 5:00 PM start is late on purpose — it sits after almost every Saturday game and gets your player home by 7:00.

Six Saturdays is still six Saturdays, and some of them will conflict. Here's what happens when one does:

Miss a week and you keep your spot and your price.

Text the coach and we'll know to expect them the following Saturday.

We'll get the work back to them.

A player who misses can join a weekday small group that week to catch up on what the group covered, at no extra charge.

The value holds at four or five sessions.

The skill work builds on itself, so more is better — but a player who makes four of the six still shows up to tryouts with something they didn't have in September.

If you already know your player will miss three or more, call before you register and we'll tell you honestly whether to wait for the next block.

Ninety minutes, same shape every week

Fifteen players, capped.

0:00–0:10Warm-up and ball handlingTwo balls, both hands, moving. Every week, so it compounds.
0:10–0:40Teaching blockThirty minutes on one idea, taught, then run against a defense that is allowed to take it away. What to do when the help comes. Where to be when the ball is on the other side. When the shot is the right answer and when it's the pass. Skill work happens inside the possession rather than beside it.
0:40–1:25Live playForty-five minutes of five-on-five and small-sided games, coached and stopped. This is where the idea from the teaching block gets tested the same day it gets taught, against players trying to beat it — which is the whole reason the two are in one session.
1:25–1:30CloseOne thing to work on before next Saturday.

Half the session is live. Nobody is standing in a line waiting for a turn — fifteen players and ninety minutes means your player touches the ball for most of it.

What the six weeks are aimed at

Across the six Saturdays, the work keeps coming back to four things:

Reading what the defense gives, and taking it, instead of deciding before the ball arrives.
Spacing — where to be when the ball is somewhere else.
Playing off a teammate: screening, cutting, and reading the help.
Defending as five: help, rotate, recover.

That is the list a high school coach is watching for on the first day of tryouts, which is why it is the list we work from. How far a player gets down it in six weeks depends on the player — what we can tell you is what we'll be spending the ninety minutes on, and that it is a short list on purpose.

All six Saturdays

1Saturday, September 195:00–6:30 PM
2Saturday, September 265:00–6:30 PM
3Saturday, October 35:00–6:30 PM
4Saturday, October 105:00–6:30 PM
5Saturday, October 175:00–6:30 PM
6Saturday, October 246:00–7:30 PM

Note the last one. Saturday, October 24 starts an hour later than the rest — 6:00–7:30 PM.

Mosaic Church, 10624 Metromont Pkwy, Charlotte, NC. Park in the main lot and come round to the back of the building — that is where the gym door is. A coach will be at it the first week.

$129 covers all six. One payment, nothing after it. Fifteen spots, first come.

Have a question before you register?

Ask it here and Aram will answer it himself, usually the same day. A real question gets a real answer — whether your player is ready for this group, whether the dates work around your season, what to bring, anything else.