Background:

The Red Wolves are a Hillsborough-inspired developmental 7-12 girls basketball program that meets 1-3 times a month to play basketball and have fun.

The goal of the Red Wolves is to over-prepare age 7-12 local girls to play middle school basketball by getting together 1-3 times a month to practice and scrimmage around the year, and occasionally play in weekend tournaments around 3-4 times a year to measure overall development in competitive games.

The Red Wolves invite any girls to join who live in Hillsborough or have played Orange County Recreation ball and want to keep developing their skills in semi-regular practices and scrimmages around the year.

The Red Wolves were founded by Shayne Giuliano, a basketball coach with 10 years and 20+ seasons of youth recreational coaching experience in Hillsborough coaching from ages 4-14 up to middle school. Shayne was inspired to found the Red Wolves after coaching his daughter in basketball for the first time in 2022 as a 9 year old, learning Violet loves to learn and improve in the game of basketball, has a ton of fun making new friends playing basketball, and realized there were no similar fun and balanced developmental programs within Hillsborough year-round that Violet could join without over-committing to travel AAU teams that sacrifice life balance for winning.

Team Information:

The Red Wolves are a registered AAU team for insurance purposes that practices 1-3 times a month in Hillsborough. The actual schedule is coordinated by Coach Shayne for convenience of all families so that all practices are fun and convenient with at least 10 players in attendance to not distract or conflict with other important things in these young ladies' burgeoning lives.

The cost to join the Red Wolves program is only $16 per player per year of insurance so players can join competitive practices and scrimmages and play in quarterly tournaments, with additional fees averaging $20-30/tournament when the Red Wolves play in weekend tournaments around 3-4 times a year.

Uniform fees run around $115-150 dollars, and can vary depending on when you join. Red Wolves uniforms are reversible so the players can scrimmage without being distracted by pennies, and so the Red Wolves don't need multiple uniforms to play in occasional tournaments.

The team meets 1-3 times a month around the year near downtown Hillsborough to develop skills and scrimmage 5 on 5. 

Each player will also have an individually tailored get-better-when-no-one-is-looking plan to focus on skill and strength development.

Team size is at least 10 so every practice can end with a competitive 5-on-5 scrimmage. 

If interested in joining the Red Wolves, email shayne@hillsboroughredwolves.org. 

Skills and Playing time:

Skills development will focus on shooting form and range, triple threat skills, dribble skills, passing skills and rebounding skills.

Like at Orange County Recreation, during tournaments the Red Wolves will follow a fair share playing time policy with mid-quarter substitutions through the first three quarters, with the fourth quarter more freeform with a focus on player matchup substitutions to close games competitively.

The Red Wolves are also a broadly aged team welcoming players aged 7-12, similarly to the Orange County Recreation spring all-girls league. 

Occasional AUU tournaments allow the Red Wolves to measure overall improvement rather than a singular focus on winning every game in every tournament. Parents who believe that winning at all costs is the best way to develop young women into balanced adults need not apply.

Offense and Defense

On defense, the Red Wolves will learn three defensive schemes: 1) full court Triangle-and-Two zone press defense, and 2) Full court woman-to-woman defense, and 3) a 2-1-2 zone defense.

On offense, the Red Wolves will learn fast break offense, a simplified motion offense, a more traditional 3-2 set with 3 wings and 2 bigs, a small set of plays the wolves will practice to perfection, and pick and roll actions to create easy buckets and open shots.

The Red Wolves Goal

The goal of the Red Wolves program is to take talented and passionate Orange County Recreation female players and provide them with year round structure and consistency in a friendly family-centered environment to over-prepare them for middle school basketball so they can develop and continue to pursue their passion for basketball at higher levels while developing new friendships without sacrificing everything else exciting going on in their lives around the year.