Gabe Freeman

Sports Editor 

Maxpreps.com, an online high school sports database, serves as a valuable tool for athletes across the nation. The website covers competitive high school sports to a tee, including both rankings and statistics for every team.

Milken sports teams use this website to scout their opponents and prepare for the teams they will face. While the results from every Milken game are posted on the website and each team receives a ranking, only one Wildcat squad chooses to update its team’s statistics, the girls basketball team.

The process of uploading each players’ stats requires time and commitment. In addition, it can potentially give other teams an advantage in scouting. Coach Ivy, the girls basketball coach, has used MaxPreps for 8 years and she is a strong supporter of the website.

“This is a good tool for the players to keep track of their individual stats to monitor their progress or areas to work on,” Ivy said.

Coach Ivy expressed little concern with the potential scouting disadvantage because the stats are merely numbers. In order for a team to truly scout Ivy’s girls, they would have to be at the game to see her team’s offense, defense, inbound plays and overall style of play.

Coach Whiting, head coach of the varsity boys basketball team, chooses not to share his players’ stats, but not only because it helps opposing teams with scouting. He acknowledges that with the addition of the Milken live stream website, teams can already see Milken play. Rather, Coach Whiting has noticed coaches inflating statistics throughout the years or simply being inconsistent. Whiting would support MaxPreps and adding his team’s stats if he was sure they could be accurate, but at this level of competition, it would be very difficult to accomplish.

As for the future of MaxPreps and Wildcat athletics, Jason Kelly, head of the athletic department, supports MaxPreps and hopes to see coaches utilize the website more in the future.

“My preference would be that student managers or assistant coaches take on the role of keeping and publishing stats, but ultimately I leave that to the decision of the head coach of each program,” Kelly said.