Hoops College · Charlotte
Six Saturdays this winter. Skill work, then live play.
Ninety minutes a week for high school players — forty-five of skill work, then thirty of coached five-on-five. Run by a staff that trains 200 athletes a week in Charlotte.
For high school players — 9th through 12th — trying to:
- Earn more minutes than you're getting now
- Keep developing while your season is going on
- Keep playing this winter, with or without a school team
- Come back next season in a bigger role
- Learn what you need to do to get to the next level
- When
- Saturdays, November 7 – December 19 · 3:30–5:00 PM
- November 21 runs 6:00–7:30 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.
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.
The first block ran this fall. Most of the players in it asked to do it again, which is why there is a second one.
Saturday afternoons, in the middle of the season
Saturday afternoon is usually the one window a high school season leaves open — teams practice on weekday afternoons and play on weeknights. That is why the block sits there.
Six Saturdays is still six Saturdays, and one or two will collide with something: a tournament, a holiday weekend, a game that runs long. 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 leaves in December a better player than they walked in as.
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.
- 0:10–0:55Skill blockForty-five minutes of the work that a team practice never has time for: handling under pressure, finishing off either foot, shooting off the catch and off the dribble. Taught, then run against a defender who is allowed to take it away — because a skill that only works unguarded is not finished yet.
- 0:55–1:25Live playThirty minutes of five-on-five and small-sided games, coached and stopped. This is where the hour before it 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 skill work and a third of it is live. Nobody is standing in a line waiting for a turn — fifteen players and ninety minutes means your player has 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:
- Handling the ball under pressure, with either hand.
- Shooting off the catch and off the dribble, tired.
- Reading what the defense gives, and taking it, instead of deciding before the ball arrives.
- Playing off a teammate: spacing, screening, cutting, and reading the help.
Two of those are things a player can only build on their own time, and two of them only exist inside a possession — which is why the Saturday has both halves in it. How far a player gets down the list in six weeks depends on the player. What we can tell you is what the ninety minutes gets spent on, and that it is a short list on purpose.
All six Saturdays
- 1Saturday, November 73:30–5:00 PM
- 2Saturday, November 143:30–5:00 PM
- 3Saturday, November 216:00–7:30 PM
- 4Saturday, December 53:30–5:00 PM
- 5Saturday, December 123:30–5:00 PM
- 6Saturday, December 193:30–5:00 PM
One date is different. Saturday, November 21 runs 6:00–7:30 PM, not 3:30–5:00 PM.
No session November 28. That is Thanksgiving weekend — three Saturdays before it and three after, and the price is for all six.
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.