For a long time, mini basketball goals have been built to basically be disposable after a while. If they’re played on with any regularity, they eventually crack and fall apart. The other problem is that almost all of them were build solely with doors in mind and nothing else. That’s great when the kids are shorter, but as soon as they get taller suddenly that goal is way too short to be used unless you’re got really tall interior doors.
RAMgoal Mini Hoop
RAMgoal has finally come up with the solution I’ve been looking for. My oldest son loves his mini basketball goal, but unfortunately he’s so tall that the over the door goal became too small like 2 years ago. The other problem is that I have a younger son who’s much shorter and the existing goal is actually ok for him. RAMgoal came up with the solution to solve both issues with their adjustable goal. I’ve included the Amazon affiliate link below:
RAMgoal durable adjustable indoor mini basketball goal and ball
By basically making a normal wall mounted basketball goal only about 1/6th the size (but retaining the quality) they’ve made something that will last way longer than a normal mini goal plus adjust as your child gets taller (or if you have multiple kids). When you put it together, the part you notice right off the bat is how thick the rim is compared to all other goals. It’s legit. And heavy. It’s like a real rim in a mini size.
Mounting Bracket
The mounting bracket is decent. It has quite a bit of play with it unless you tighten up the bolts quite a bit. I guess the good part is when I mounted the one bracket slightly crooked, it still worked like a charm, lol. 🙂 The screws that come with it for the wall aren’t super heavy duty, basically a little bit bigger than standard drywall screws but that’s it. Definitely need to screw it into studs, the brackets are 16″ apart to make it easy to do that. The adjustable part works really well, smooth without much play.
Backboard and Rim
The backboard is attached via double sided tape (I originally thought it was magnetic). It’s actually separated a little a couple times but a quick slap puts it right back in place. Luckily not a very hard problem to fix. I assume this is to allow for replacement ones easily should one break down the line.
Like I mentioned above, the rim is solid and thick. The net is ok but doesn’t seem that much different than other mini goals (was hoping for something slightly thicker after the rim was so nice).
RAMgoal Basketball
The basketball that comes with the goal is the nicest basketball I’ve ever seen with a mini goal. It’s just like a mini-leather ball, not the usual rubber ball that most goals come with. The hardest part to adjust to is that the ball is a little smaller than most goals. It would be nice if there was an option to get a slightly bigger ball. Any mini ball would work though if you want a bigger ball.
RAMgoal in action
So how does it work in action? In a word, fantastic. My son is super excited to finally have an 8 foot tall mini goal instead of the one that was barely over 5 1/2 foot before. It’s a lot more challenging for him now, plus now he really has to jump to dunk it. First day he had it I think he played 4 hours on it. The smaller ball was a little awkward for him at first but he quickly got used to it. If you’re going to put it at 8′ though you’ve got to have some taller ceilings, ours are like 20′ in our living room so we’ve got the perfect setup there.
Wrapup
So would I recommend the RAMgoal durable adjustable indoor mini basketball hoop and ball? Absolutely if your child plays mini basketball at all. It will last way longer than a normal goal and might actually save you money in the long run over having to buy replacements. Also you have to be ok with an adjustable goal mounted on the wall, it’s not exactly something that’s easy to take down like the over the door kind.
