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CoBL Post-Season/Early Offseason Update

04/17/2025, 7:30pm EDT

By Josh Verlin

By Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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(Originally published April 14, 2025)

The end of the season is always a strange time at CoBL, and I never do a good enough job of sharing about what’s going on with the website when there's a lot going on behind the scenes. So I wanted to provide a quick update of what’s going on and what to expect, because I feel like there's been a slowdown since the end of the season, even though there's a lot happening.

The toughest part about this time of year is the mix of postseason content (awards, wrap-ups), combined with the instant start of the grassroots season, along with Donofrio Coverage, while also just trying to catch my breath after the five-month push that is the college and high school hoops season. It's a lot happening at once, and I've also learned over the years I need to take care of my mental health around now, because the offseason is its own grind, and I need a little bit of space between the two to avoid burning out.

So, here’s where we are at with various projects, and when to expect them out on the website:

Our All-Big 5 awards are done. They’ll be running tomorrow (Tues., April 15), for both the men’s and women’s awards. We'll have a little more Big 5 season wrap-up content coming as well, but it could be another week, focusing on some transfer portal comings and goings.
Our area Division III awards are in the works; we’ve narrowed down the teams and are in the process of writing out the awards. Expect those at the end of this week or early next week at the latest. (A note: this year's area D-III awards are being limited to school's within the typical CoBL coverage range, as opposed to the wider range of previous years.)
By far the biggest project every end-of-season is the collection of nominations for high school awards and putting that all together. First come all-state nominations, which are collected by various sportswriters and then submitted to the state writer’s panels; voting for all-state awards are underway, and I know at least the girls’ awards will be coming out later this week. Not sure yet for a release date on the boys’ awards. Due to living in such a basketball-heavy area, our task for gathering these nominations on the boys' and girls' side involves a handful of writers and a lot of communication with coaches.

After the all-state nominations are done, we’re in the process of making sure we have our CoBL All-Area nominations done, and will then be sorting through and making the various boys and girls all-area teams. All-area casts a wider net than all-state, so we still need to garner some extra nominations. This is a process that will take a couple weeks; we’re aiming to have our all-area awards out in early May, but it could conceivably happen by the end of April.
On top of all of that, we also have our big CoBL Girls’ College Exposure Camp coming up on May 10 at Plymouth Whitemarsh High School. With just under four weeks left until camp, we’re in the middle of a big push as we aim for our biggest camp ever (up to 160 girls!). Click that link to learn more and register!

So, the long and short of it is that we’ve got a lot going on. That’s without mentioning all the various transfer portal comings and goings, coaching hirings, and other news that’s continually happening in the region. I know there are a few stories we have yet to get to on the site, like Penn’s hiring of Fran McCaffery as its new head coach, but we’re working on several features behind the scenes, and we'll have a sit-down with McCaffery later this week with a story to come.

My immediate priority in the next two weeks is to finish up Donofrio coverage, focus on the all-area high school awards and catch up on some news and notes from the last few weeks. (I'm also going up to Boston this weekend to visit my one-month-old nephew for the first time!). Once that's all done, we'll be able to focus more on offseason coverage, get to some spring leagues and grassroots events, work on our late summer/fall events, and maybe even update the recruiting profiles on the website.

If you want to help CoBL afford more coverage and the ability to assign more stories out, please consider donating to the organization. We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit, and rely heavily on the public’s support to continue operation. Please see our support page to explore the different ways you can help CoBL going into the 2025-26 season and beyond.