Between conference championships and the NCAA Tournament, college basketball in the month of March is both the most emotionally draining and exhilarating time of the year.
From the tip-off of the Patriot League Tournament to the Final Four, it?s a roller coaster ride of miracles, letdowns, lucky charms, unforgettable moments and memorable characters. Even in a down year, there will be a handful of games, shots, highlights and stories that seem to be straight out of the movies.
Except they aren?t taken from Hollywood at all.
For whatever reason, there is no definitive movie about college basketball that encapsulates the beauty and excitement of it. Instead, there only seem to be a handful of movies on the sport to begin with, and none of them does it any justice.
Take these five college basketball movies, and I assure you you?d be hard-pressed to find a better one out there. And that?s a sad truth.
5. The Air Up There
The fact that ?The Air Up There? makes the list of college basketball movies is a testament to just how lacking the genre is. Kevin Bacon plays a college recruiter journeying in Africa to find the next great basketball player. The link to the sport is shaky at best, and a game played on a concrete court in some third-world country is about as close a simulation to college basketball gameplay that we get.
4. Love and Basketball
?Love and Basketball? is a chick flick that follows the career of a hotshot player, which for one season at USC briefly contains his college career. In between romantic scenes of the player?s relationship with a female player, the movie paints a very negative picture of life as a college basketball player, which includes the temptations of going pro and a life that?s filled with alcohol and cheating on your girlfriend. And, one more time, it?s a chick flick.
3. Blue Chips
Perhaps the only one of the bunch that actually dives into the depths of college basketball, ?Blue Chips? is the story of Western University coach Pete Bell and his attempt to bring the team back to glory through illegal recruiting. Unfortunately, the movie paints too bleak a picture of the sport. Sure, college hoops has had its problems, but not every team pays off players to attend school. Rampant point-shaving isn?t going on either. On the plus side however, Shaq, who plays a Western recruit, isn?t terrible in it.
2. Glory Road
Texas Western?s upset of Kentucky in the 1966 National Championship to become the first team with an all-black starting lineup to take home a title is uplifting, based on a true story, and completely forgettable. It?s just a little too clich? for me and doesn?t do anything to separate itself from underdog-based basketball stories. If anything, it trivializes the team’s achievement.
1. The 6th Man
So, this is what?s left as the best of the bunch. Believe it or not, ?The 6th Man? is about a ghost that takes his former team to the Final Four. As ludicrous as it sounds, the movie tops the list because it?s the only one to depict the excitement and atmosphere of the modern-day NCAA Tournament. Scenes from the tournament are actually pretty exciting, and it sets the standard (albeit a very low one) for how the Dance should be depicted. Still, the fact that a Marlon Wayans picture is the best college basketball movie out there shows just how desperately a new one needs to be made.
That, pathetically enough, is the list of the best college basketball movies ever made. The sport and month that produced Bryce Drew, Christian Laettner and the 1984 North Carolina State Wolfpack ? and a movie that includes a basketball-playing ghost is the best the industry can do. It?s hard to believe that this is the case, since the format of college basketball has so much potential for a hit movie.
You can lose every game all season and still make it into the NCAA Tournament by winning the conference championship. A No. 16 seed has never beaten a No. 1. Upsets happen every year. It?s not hard work to come up with a great college basketball movie premise, and it?s bound to make an enormous sum of money.
Maybe it?s better that there isn?t a great movie out there, though. After all, the true-to-life stories of college basketball are exciting and emotional enough as is, without the help of Hollywood. You don?t have to go to the movies to see inspirational stuff this month. You just have to turn on CBS.
Mike is a sophomore majoring in political science. If you?d like to suggest a different movie that should have made the list, or have written a screenplay loosely based on George Mason?s run to the Final Four, he can be reached at [email protected].
