About Factory Basketball
Travel Basketball Done Different.
Factory Basketball is a competitive youth basketball organization based in Westland, Michigan, serving athletes and families throughout Metro Detroit and Southeast Michigan. But we're about much more than simply putting teams on the court. We built Factory Basketball around the belief that a travel basketball program should provide athletes with development, competition, opportunity and a positive culture — all working together.
Our goal isn't simply to build successful teams. Our goal is to Build Better Athletes.
Player Development Comes First
Team practice is important, but individual development requires more. Factory athletes have access to year-round professional training through The Factory, our dedicated basketball and athletic training facility in Westland. In addition to team practices, athletes can work on specific areas of their game through specialized training in shooting, ball handling, finishing, footwork, off-hand development, strength, speed, vertical development and more.
This allows athletes to train according to what they individually need to improve, rather than relying exclusively on team practices for their development. We believe the best development system combines team basketball with focused individual training that addresses the specific needs of each athlete.
Building Stronger, More Durable Athletes
One of the biggest reasons we made the commitment to open our own facility was something we were seeing far too often in girls basketball: serious knee injuries, particularly ACL injuries. Female athletes have been reported in sports-medicine research to experience a substantially greater risk of ACL injury than male athletes in comparable sports, with some research reporting rates approaching 9.5 times higher in certain populations and circumstances. We believed we needed to do more than simply accept that as part of girls basketball.
So we made injury-risk reduction a fundamental part of the Factory development model. Our Pre-Hab Strength Program focuses on building strength, stability, mobility, balance, movement quality and athletic performance, with particular attention to the physical demands placed on basketball players. Providing that training consistently was one of the major reasons we committed to having our own facility.
The results within our program have been remarkable. In nearly eight years since implementing our Pre-Hab program, we have seen a dramatic reduction in ACL injuries, and none of the athletes who participated in our strength program have suffered an ACL injury during that period. No training program can guarantee that an athlete will never be injured, but we believe preparing athletes physically should be every bit as intentional as preparing them to shoot, dribble or defend.
Why We Opened The Factory
That philosophy ultimately led us to make one of the biggest commitments in the history of our organization: opening our own training facility. The Factory wasn't opened simply because we wanted our own basketball court. We wanted an environment where we could control the entire development process, including the ability to consistently provide the Pre-Hab strength and injury-risk-reduction training we believed our athletes needed.
Having our own facility also allows us to provide opportunities that simply aren't possible when a travel basketball organization depends entirely on rented gym space. Team practices, skills training, strength and speed development, open gym, shoot-arounds, video review and classroom sessions can all work together as part of one integrated development system.
The Right Competition & Exposure
We believe athletes improve by being challenged, but that doesn't mean every athlete or every team should play the same schedule. Factory teams compete at levels appropriate for their development, and we work to place athletes in environments where they can grow, compete and experience success.
Our highest-level Orange teams compete in strong regional and national exposure events, including events from organizations such as Lady Ballers Insider, Grassroots Tourneys, Must See Tourneys and major national events such as Run 4 the Roses. The objective is simple: put our athletes in environments where they can compete, improve and be seen.
A Positive Team Culture That Matters
Basketball is important, but the experience our athletes have while playing it is even more important. We have worked deliberately to create a culture built around effort, accountability, teamwork, improvement and respect. We look for athletes who want to get better, are willing to work and understand that being part of a team means putting something bigger than themselves first.
We want our athletes to enjoy playing together. We want them to support one another, build meaningful relationships and learn lessons that extend far beyond basketball. Our goal is to help develop better players while also helping prepare young athletes to become confident, accountable and productive adults.
Preparing Athletes for College Basketball
For athletes who aspire to play college basketball, development and exposure must eventually lead to opportunity. Since our first graduating class in 2018, more than 50 Factory athletes have gone on to compete in college athletics, including athletes at the NCAA Division I, Division II, Division III, NAIA and JUCO levels.
But we don't believe the goal should simply be to say an athlete "played college basketball." The goal is helping athletes find the right opportunity at the right school — academically, athletically and personally. College is a four-year experience that can influence the next forty years of an athlete's life, and finding the right fit matters.
It All Comes Back to Player Development
There are no shortcuts. Great facilities, competitive schedules and exposure events only matter if athletes are willing to work. We provide the coaching, training, competition, resources and environment, and the athlete provides the effort and commitment.
Put those things together, and remarkable improvement can happen. That is the system we have built, and it is why everything we do comes back to one simple goal: Build Better Athletes.
Are You Ready to Be Factory Trained?
Find the right team, learn more about our program, and see what makes Factory Basketball different.