FAQ

First, Please subscribe to our newsletter as we actively email notices about important information about our teams, tryouts and when registration links are available.

Second, please find the sections within this FAQ page titled "Why should I play for OSA?" and "Team Tryouts" for more detailed information.

• If your player is Pre-K-2nd grade, please start on our Camps page. We believe in teaching fundamental basketball at the early ages to create an enjoyable experience for these young players as they learn the game we all love.  You may also contact us or watch for updates on our home page about our Junior Crusaders program.
• If 2nd-12th grade, please check periodically for tryout information posted on our home page or Teams pages for either the spring/summer season or fall/winter season each year. Tryouts are held twice a year.  Our March tryouts are held for our Spring/Summer teams (3rd which is 9U through 17U) who compete during the months of April-July.  August tryouts are held for our Fall/Winter teams (2nd-8th grade) who compete during the months of October-February. We also offer a loyalty program that allows players to sign up for the whole year (both spring/summer season and fall/winter season) at once for a discounted price and guaranteed roster placement for both seasons.
• Our basketball teams practice twice per week during the season with games on the weekends. Each OSA team has about 8-10 players on it at a similar skill level to maximize development opportunities.
  • Skills Training is a differentiator at OSA.  We offer skills training for each of our players during the season and separately during camps.  Please contact us today to learn more.

*if in 2nd grade, you can choose to start either with Camps or with Tryouts.  This is an in-between age where some parents feel comfortable starting on teams in 2nd grade and some would rather just work on skills.  Either way we are ready to support you.

We would be honored to host your team at one of our independent tournaments or leagues.  Please send us a message through our Contact OSA page if you would like more information sent to you or want to talk with us over the phone about our leagues and tournaments.  You can also view all of our upcoming tournaments on our Tournaments & Leagues page on our website.

If you are a program director/coach of a 2nd-8th grade team(s) looking to compete in our Fall/Winter Pella League or independent tournaments, we suggest you visit our Tournaments & Leagues page to review available options and register your program/team(s).  The best time to register for Fall/Winter events is during September/October each year.  We also would like to get to know you better and understand how we can best serve your team(s).  Please reach out to us on our Contact OSA page so we can connect with you.

If you are a program director or coach of a 3rd grade-17U team(s) looking to compete in the Spring/Summer, we suggest you visit our Tournaments & Leagues page to review available options and register your program/teams(s).  The best time to register for Spring/Summer is during February/March each year.  We also would like to get to know you better and understand how we can best serve your team(s).  Please reach out to us on our Contact OSA page so we can connect with you.

Also, check out the bottom two sections of this FAQ page for more detailed information that relates to you.

We are actively seeking more referees to work as an independent contractor for OSA leagues and/or tournaments. This is a fun way to enjoy the game of basketball while getting paid. You are making a great impact within the Omaha & Council Bluffs communities when you referee youth sports.

If interested, please contact Montsho Wilson, Director of Officials, at montsho@osahoops.com.

Referee opportunities:

* Fall 3V3 League

* October-December each year for Session 1 of Pella League

* January-February each year for Session 2 of Pella League

* November-February each year for our tournaments 

* April-July each year for our tournaments 

* June each year on Friday’s only for our 3V3 league

* June High School team summer league

* September-October High School team league

We are always interested in talking to someone willing to coach. Including if that means you are looking to build your coaching resume for future coaching opportunities at the high school or college level. We have a long track-record of success in developing coaches to reach their career goals at the high school, college and professional levels. Coaching opportunities could range from head coach, to assistant coach, to practice only coach. We'll help place you based on your interests and availability. Contact Tim Brotzki, President of OSA at tim@osahoops.com today to start that conversation.  

Also, every coach for OSA gains access to the Thriving Coaches University system from Advisor Game Plan with Doug Woodard. This system was developed by Doug Woodard, legendary basketball coach, who made the focus of Thriving Coaches University around how to develop players as a youth sports coach. We can all learn from this material regardless of your experience level as a coach.

We believe that having a coach that is experienced and has coaching resources available to help them grow as a coach is vital to your player's development. This is why we have partnered with Advisor Game Plan and Doug Woodard, legendary Bellevue West basketball coach, to provide each OSA coach with an experienced mentor and the following:

1. Monthly small group consulting calls to help each coach grow and share ideas together - come be part of the community of coaches
2. Access to coaching lesson videos to help each coach improve their skills - hundreds of resources available
3. Practice assistance from Doug Woodard - at least once a season Doug will be on site giving pointers and observing to provide feedback to coaches so they can be the best coach possible
4. Podcasts - Doug hosts two podcasts interviewing coaches and diving deeper into coaching topics. Each OSA coach will have exclusive access during the season to learn ideas from some of the best high school and college and professional coaches in the region.

Our full-time Boys Director, Ty Duin, and our full-time Girls Director, Joe Tynon, are here to create a family experience for everyone playing on an OSA team.  They get it, want it, and have the capacity to do it by being full-time employee's of OSA.  They want to get to know you and your player and create our small town, family focused expeirence when you play for OSA.

We also have a full operations staff team, marketing and social media team to highlight your player, and many other supporting roles.  All of these are led by our President, Tim Brotzki.  

Please reach out to our amazing people anytime to ask questions or just make a deeper connection.  We want to get to know you and serve you to the best of our ability.

NXTSTAT is a sports science program that will contribute to each athlete's overall sports experience. We believe it is a competitive advantage for our players long term to have access to the sports science data that NXTSTAT provides our athletes. Force plates will be used to collect objective data and unique technology to deliver the results for you to view through your phone.

As young athletes participate in more and more competitive programs, sports and seasons, their bodies are put under more and more demand. NXTSTAT helps ensure “doing more” is done as safely and efficiently as possible for each athlete’s individual body and career goals.

Sports Science + Player Profiles with progress reports that you can choose to share with your trainer, medical professional, or even College Recruiters or Professional Scouts.

Check out www.nxtstat.com for more information.

"The profiling and benchmarking of athletes is a critical part of the process for informing training and programming. It also allows a complete picture of the athlete to be developed, including physical, psychological, technical, and tactical aspects. This has implications for athlete performance and injury prevention. Therefore, using data to inform short- and long-term decisions to support athlete development is also necessary.” 
— Essentials of Sports Science, National Strength and Conditioning Association.

We believe in holistically helping our athletes. This would include the importance of a free check-up assessment by an athletic focused chiropractor.  Essential Motion offers our athletes a free evaluation as a preventative measure or if you experience a minor injury or are recovering from an injury.  Please visit them at the UBT Sports Complex on the 1st floor of the building and make sure to tell them you are an OSA player.

We are thankful to have best-in-class facilities in the region for practices and games. In Omaha, specifically in Elkhorn at UBT Sports Complex and Council Bluffs at Iowa West Field House, this is a unique opportunity for you as parents to have consistent locations to drop off multiple players for practice, and it is an opportunity for players to practice in the best environment for their development. It is probably underestimated when you consider the camaraderie that happens between all of our coaches and so many parents by all being in these large facilities together.  

Even better is the environment it creates for games at our events.  This gives the opportunity to our patrons to watch their siblings games, other friends games, or other OSA teams games during the same visit on a weekend event.  It minimizes the driving around to 4 different facilities in a weekend and creates a more consistent experience for everyone who enters our doors.  

OSA is the proud financial sponsor for ETG, and our staff volunteers countless hours of time to serve the players and their families that are a part of ETG around the region.  You can learn more about ETG here https://www.etgmidwest.com/ .

We are the sponsored Adidas AAU program in Nebraska!  It is a great mutual relationship that allows us to provide our players and their families with access to the best gear while connecting us into the Adidas community of programs to collaborate with other top notch programs in the country for competition and idea sharing.  

We purchase a Hudl subscription for our National High School level teams to make sure your games are posted in front of hundreds of college coaches. OSA records your games, posts them on Hudl, and puts you in the position to be seen by college coaches. This is another layer of how we promote Nebraska based players to get national interest.

Yes, this takes us extra effort and coordination, but that extra work that we put in for your best interest is worth it!

We understand that most parents want good competition at the right level for their player so that they can develop, and would prefer to play locally as much as possible - minimize travel cost and time. We also want to minimize travel for you especially in the winter weather months. We have the connections and access to get our OSA teams into local events with excellent competition to minimize travel. Here is how we are able to accomplish this:

1. We host many OSA leagues and tournaments right here in Omaha and Council Bluffs, but also have a great relatinoship with Supreme Basketball in Lincoln, and other clubs in the driveable region with events in locations like Kearney, Grand Island, Columbus and other Nebraska communities as well as Des Moines, Sioux City, Sioux Falls, and Kansas City. These are very organized tournaments that pay attention to all the details with our proprietary bracketing system.  If one of our partner tournaments does create a bad experience for you, please share those details with us so we can work with our partners to have the best tournaments in the region to attend.
2. We pay attention when making our schedules to minimize the repeat teams that we play.
3. We can attract out of state talented teams to come to play in our events in Nebraska through our relationships with out of state clubs who will travel their teams to our events.  
4. We invested in AI (artificial intelligence) bracketing technology to increase the accuracy of competitive bracketed games into the future.

Our teams will travel when there are great opportunities that can't be matched locally for your team, however we want you to know that we are aware and focused at minimizing travel costs for you. Contact our staff today to learn more about our event plans. We are focused on minimizing travel while not sacrificing on finding great competition to play against in well organized events.

We use technology to efficiently communicate proactively with our players parents/guardians. You can expect constant proactive communication of upcoming events, upcoming practice schedules, upcoming opportunities, etc. from us and your coach.  

For one example, we have invested in using The Play App as a messaging app that all our coaches use to communicate with the parents on the team. It's free to all coaches and parents to use when they play for an OSA team.

We also recognize that communication mistakes do happen. If you see a repeat pattern of poor communication somewhere within our organization, please contact ask@osahoops.com and let us know how we can improve.

Our goal for tryouts is to place all players of all skill levels on the appropriate team for them to continue to develop their skills in the best environment.

When you accept an invitation to join a team, each team will practice two times per week from late September to late February and play in multiple tournaments and our Pella league, session 1 and 2. Tournaments for each team will be chosen between coaches and parents communicating so that we can partner with you on aligning schedules to the best of our ability.

There are two ways to join a fall/winter OSA team - #1 you can join our loyalty program in March which guarantees you a roster spot on a fall/winter team and then team placements will be finalized in August, or you can join tryouts in August for joining an OSA fall/winter team.  Registration links for all the above teams open up in January each year on our website.  Also, please subscribe to our newsletter so you are up-to-date on all announcements or changes from year to year.

Our goal for tryouts is to place all players of all skill levels on the appropriate team for them to continue to develop their skills in the best environment.

When you accept an invitation to join a team, each team will practice two times per week from late March-July and play in multiple tournaments to be determined in combination with OSA and your coach and parent interactions after teams are set.

For boys of all ages and youth girls (2nd-8th), tryouts are held in March each year. Registration links for all the above teams open up in January each year on our website. Also, please subscribe to our newsletter so you are up-to-date on all announcements.

For high school girls, tryouts are held in late September or early October each year and finalized with a make-up tryout in March each year.  Registration links for all the above teams open up in August each year.

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Spring/Summer:

9U-13U = 28.5 basketball and 10ft hoops

14U-17U = 29.5 basketball and 10ft hoops

Fall/Winter:

2nd-3rd grade = 27.5 basketball and 9ft hoops

4th-8th grade = 28.5 basketball and 10ft hoops

Over the last couple years, we have seen an increase in independent coaches reaching out to us asking for help.  They are looking for support from our staff with all the work it takes to run a team and if they can bring their independent team under the OSA umbrella for that support.  The answer is yes you can and you can keep your roster intact. We focus on maintaining team chemistry while providing a supportive environment that enhances your collective skills. Join us, and let’s keep your team spirit alive while elevating your team!  Please contact Tim Brotzki, President or Joe Tynon, Girls Director, or Ty Duin, Boys Director to brainstorm what this would look like.  ask@osahoops.com 

• Benefits or reasons why other coaches have chosen to do this?
  • Our full-time operations staff will do all the work of organizing player registrations, tracking down payments, registering your team for tournaments, etc.  You get to focus back on what you love...coach basketball without all the other administrative headaches.
  • Practice space is free in our facilities if you are affiliated with OSA.  No more practice rental payments.
  • Practicing at a facility like UBT Sports Complex or Iowa West Field House is a collaborative experience.  Coaches building relationships with other coaches and collaborate to help each other.
  • Adidas gear access - jersey's, fan gear, etc. is all available to anyone in the OSA family.
  • Communication and technology offerings.  We will help you with consistent communication to your players and their families and grant you access to our cutting edge technology suite.

Please visit our Camps & Training page for more info.

• Basketball
• Water bottle
• Basketball shoes (ideally if these could be shoes your player carries in and switches to wearing instead the facility only, this will help us keep our basketball court flooring in good shape)
• Ready to learn attitude

There are many reasons to register your independent team in our OSA Tournaments, and here we pulled the top 5 most common reasons shared with us by your peers:

1. Best-in-Class facilities for any league in the region.  90%+ of our games are played at UBT Sports Complex in Elkhorn and Iowa West Field House in Council Bluffs and Bellevue Lied Center in Bellevue, and Bowlero Courts in Elkhorn.  Having these multi-court facilities creates the following benefits:
   1. The energy and environment of walking into a game in a multi-court facility is unmatched.
   2. Less driving around town for multiple kids games - also less likely to miss a kids game when another kid is playing in a different location.
   3. Watch your friends play or show your support for other teams within your program.
   4. Concessions are available for your convenience at UBT Sports Complex and Iowa West Field House.
   5. We strive to create a family friendly experience for all people entering our doors.  Please help us by showing respect and good sportsmanship throughout all the competitions.
2. Full-time operations staff at OSA is ready to serve you and create a best-in-class league experience.  Jaden Santoni is our Operations Manager, who can help you with any questions or logistics.  While you also have Joe Tynon, Girls Director, and Ty Duin, Boys Director, and Tim Brozki, President of OSA, all available to help serve you in your experience with our tournaments.
3. The best competition in the metro plays in our Tournaments consistently.  This creates the opportunity for all teams to play in a bracket with similar competition, while also having your shot at playing the best at your age group to showcase what you are able to do.  
4. Social Media and Marketing staff are an investment we have made to help showcase the experience of playing in our tournaments.  You will see them around at most games sharing tournament updates throughout the weekend and stories throughout the whole tournament season.
5. Full-time Director of Officials, Montsho Wilson, works hard to organize the best Officials in the metro to referee our tournament games.  Having two officials on every court for every game is our highest priority, while training each official to be their best and create the best fan/coach experience possible.  We understand that there will always be disagreements around basketball calls, but creating an accountable experience to keep calm, respectful interactions and respond appropriately in the heat of competition is our goal to create an amazing experience for everyone involved.  

Yes, but the type of award can very per event type.  Here is a breakdown of how it typically works for our events.

1. Independent Tournaments & end of league tournament for winter session of Pella League - typically there are gold medals for the champion of each bracket. In unique sponsored tournaments, we give out championship t-shirts to the champions of each bracket. 
2. End of League Tournament for Fall Session of Pella League - we have a trophy for each player on the team that wins the championship. 

Awards will be at the scores table for you at the end of your game if there is a decisive bracket winner.  However, if you cannot find your award after the game, there may be games left to finish in your bracket before a champion can be clearly identified.  Please be patient with us and talk with the local site director at the front table to determine results and how we can follow-up with you later if awards are due for your team once all games in your bracket are finished.

Fall/Winter:

2nd grade = 27.5 basketball and 9ft hoops

3rd grade = 27.5 basketball and 10ft hoops

4th-8th grade = 28.5 basketball and 10ft hoops

Spring/Summer:

9U-13U (3rd-8th grade) = 28.5 basketball and 10ft hoops

14U-17U (9th-12th grade) = 29.5 basketball and 10ft hoops

Tournament schedules draft 1 will be posted to Tourney Machine (please download the app on your phone https://tourneymachine.com) on the Friday one week before the tournament start date (so usually 7 days before the start of the tournament).  Please check back for a finalized schedule by the Wednesday before the tournament start date as sometimes a court location or time could change.

Remember, we will work with you to the best of our ability to avoid your conflicts if they are submitted prior to the team entry deadline.

Please see tournaments pricing and registration process on our Tournaments & Leagues page or talk to us ask@osahoops.com and we will be happy to work with you.

Please contact us and we will be happy to walk you through our admission price schedule for the different events we host in the fall/winter or spring/summer seasons. Please message us on the Contact OSA page on this website.

There are many reasons to register your independent team in the Pella League each fall and winter, and here are the top 5:

1. Best-in-Class facilities for any league in the region.  All games are played at UBT Sports Complex in Elkhorn or Iowa West Field House or Bellevue Lied Center.  Having these multi-court facilities creates the following benefits that high schools or middle schools do not:
   1. The energy and environment of walking into a game in a multi-court facility is unmatched.
   2. Less driving around town for multiple kids games - also less likely to miss a kids game when another kid is playing in a different location.
   3. Watch your friends play or show your support for other teams within your program.
   4. Concessions are available for your convenience.
   5. We strive to create a family friendly experience for all people entering our doors.  Please help us by showing respect and good sportsmanship throughout all the competitions.
2. Full-time operations staff at OSA is ready to serve you and create a best-in-class league experience.  Jaden Santoni is our Operations Manager, who can help you with any questions or logistics.  While you also have Joe Tynon, Girls Director, and Ty Duin, Boys Director, and Tim Brozki, President of OSA, all available to help serve you in your experience with Pella League.
3. The best competition in the metro plays in the Pella League.  This creates the opportunity for all teams to play in a bracket with similar competition, while also having your shot at playing the best in your age group to showcase what you are able to do.  
4. Social Media and Marketing staff are an investment we have made to help showcase the experience of playing in our league.  You will see them around sharing league updates and stories throughout the season.
5. Full-time Director of Officials, Montsho Wilson, works hard to organize the best Officials in the metro to referee Pella League games.  Having two officials on every court for every game is our highest priority, while training each official to be the best and create the best fan/coach experience possible.  We understand that there will always be disagreements around basketball calls, but creating an accountable experience to keep calm, respectful interactions and respond appropriately in the heat of competition is our goal to create an amazing experience for everyone involved.  

*Don't forget that Pella League Fall Session has an end of League Tournament combined with Supreme Basketball's CYBL League teams from Lincoln and Central NE included in it's registrations price.  This Tournament is essentially a State Championship for youth teams as it has the collective group of competitive teams in the region all participating in this end of league tournament.  Remember, this tournament is only for teams registered in Pella League or Supreme's CYBL League (it is not open to independent registrations).  The feedback around this innovative idea has been overwhelmingly positive and is a special event that programs look forward to each year.

Our fall/winter league is called the "OSA Pella League" and has two sessions both with a guaranteed 7 league games and an end of league tournament.  

The fall session runs from October-December each year with a 3-game guarantee tournament included in the league price as the end of league tournament.  This fall session end of league tournament is special and we call it The State Championship.  You must be enrolled in either the OSA Pella Fall League or the Supreme CYBL League in order to be eligible to play in The State Championship tourney.

Our winter session runs from January-February each year with a single elimination tournament included in the league price as the end of league tournament.  

Fall/Winter:

2nd grade = 27.5 basketball and 9ft hoops

3rd grade = 27.5 basketball and 10ft hoops

4th-8th grade = 28.5 basketball and 10ft hoops

League schedules are posted to our events hosted on Tourney Machine (please download the app on your phone https://tourneymachine.com). 

Please see league pricing and registration process on our Tournaments & Leagues page. 

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