First-year program Heat Check may be one of Georgia’s better 12U teams this season.

Founder and head coach Jerome Weaver, who was a coach with the Georgia Stars 11U Blue last season, got the idea for his own team because of the training sessions he did with players. “I did a lot of individual training and I took the individual training I did and put it towards coaching,” Weaver said.

So far Weaver’s plan has looked good as Heat Check already has two bids to AAU Nationals as well as a bid to YBOA. They won an AAU Super Regional in Jacksonville and finished top-4 in the Power Surge AAU Super Regional in Suwannee. In Jacksonville they beat one of Florida’s top 12U teams, the North Florida Spartans, 48-36 for the championship. They also won the YBOA Dacula Open last weekend, in which Weaver says they won games regularly by 40 points and won the championship by 15.  He says they currently rank second in YBOA.

While Weaver feels his team has proven that they can play with the top teams in AAU and would like to face 12U teams like the Georgia Stars Black, Atlanta Celtics Black and Worldwide, he thinks the AAU Nationals might not be the route to take for his first-year program. “I want to get a chance to get a national title and we have a better chance of doing that in YBOA,” he said.  “We might do YBOA Nationals and win that and comeback next year and do AAU.”

Weaver says if his team plays YBOA, they will play up at 13U in the State Tournament. They did not participate in the 12U AAU State Tournament, but is in the same pool as Worldwide in D1spects’ Spring Showdown, April 23-25.

DEFENSIVE MINDED

Weaver teaches the mental aspect of the game, which he believes is the most important and also puts a heavy emphasis on defense. “We are a defensive team. My coaching philosophy is defense first,” he said. “Offense is easy. Anybody can do that. The whole aspect of basketball is can you stop the other player.”

Weaver says his team probably practices offense once a month and the type of defense he runs is ran at the collegiate and pro levels. Despite devoting little time to team offense, he thinks he has some skilled offensive players. While he is not looking for individual accolades for his players, he feels that they are underrated. “We got a couple of players on our team that deserves to be in the top 10 of their class and they’re not ranked right now,” Weaver said. “They said that they are out to prove themselves.”

At least three of Heat Check’s players played well when they participated in D1spects’ Battle back in March. Skilled 5-foot-10 center/power forward D’Marcus Simonds, slasher Kevon Tucker, and Kai Lambert each had good moments over the first two days of the tournament. Even so, Weaver thinks his team has come a long way since then. “That was our first tournament and everybody didn’t know how to play together,” he said. “Now they’ve really gelled.

WELL TRAINED

Weaver says the training he conducts is important because of how isolated kids can be living in the suburbs and because of new technology keeping kids indoors. “I give them drills to do at home [so they can] try to incorporate them into their lifestyle,” Weaver said. “At least 75 percent of the things that they do are towards basketball. Whatever you do the majority of your day that is what you’re going to be good at.”

“Basketball is a learned sport. Michael Jordan got cut from his high school team. That means he learned how to play basketball.”

Anyone looking for training can visit www.heatcheckbb.com . You can also follow Heat Check on Facebook.