How intense are Community College Sports, specifically basketball?

<p>I didn't play basketball on a team in high school since I was mostly focused on academics. I kind of regret it since I'm pretty good (I'm over 6 feet and can flat out shoot). I'm going to a California community college in the fall and wanted to know a little bit more about basketball at a CC. Is it extremely competitive? How good are the kids who play at CC? Will the coach laugh at me if I say I didn't play High school ball? Any other info? Thanks in advance.</p>

<p>I have watched both our local (Calif) mens and women’s community college basketball teams and the mens is very competitive, in fact they have a lot of international players and out of area super starts. Many of them are recruited to D1 from the team, the women’s program consists of all of the top local talent as well as some from out of area and again all are quite good. I would not let that discourage you from looking into it. If you have talent you ought to give it a go. I expect the only part that will hurt you is not having the “team” experience of set plays, defensive zones and all of the things that come with team play. Good luck to you.</p>

<p>The CC I attended had one of the best women’s programs in California - conference champion almost every year, multiple trips to the state tournament, two runner-up finishes, many players ending up with scholarship offers at D-I or D-II programs.</p>

<p>A friend of mine has a brother who coaches community college basketball. His team is nationally competitive, and he gets calls from pro teams who find promising players and literally send them to his community college in order to play basketball…many of them are athletes who just never focused on studies in high school and were academically ineligible for a 4 year institution, others are foreign and need to study English. my friend said exactly what momof2010 and polarscribe said, that many of them are later recruited to D1, since once you have your associate’s degree you don’t have to go through the high school eligibility thing.</p>