He keeps up a breakneck pace that squeezes in as many stories as possible. You can almost hear the squeak of sneakers and smell the stale popcorn. Feinstein’s joy in stepping away from the media glare of the big-name teams is infectious. Others, such as players and coaches from schools like DC’s storied historically black college Howard to Virginia’s tiny Longwood University, are barely known outside of their own campuses. Some of the people Feinstein meets-like Loyola University superfan Sister Jean, the 98-year-old nun who became the team’s unofficial mascot during their 2018 trip to the Final Four-are cult figures for hoops fans. Sportswriter John Feinstein spent a whole college basketball season visiting the little-known campuses of these so-called Cinderella teams, providing a much different picture than you get from watching SportsCenter highlights.
With his trademark humor and invaluable connections, John Feinstein reveals the big time programs you've never heard of, the bracket busters you didn't expect to cheer for, and the coaches who inspire them to take their teams to the next level.Įvery March, there’s at least one underdog team that shakes up the world of college basketball by unexpectedly beating an elite squad. These are the gifted players who aren't handled with kid gloves-they're hardworking, gritty teammates who practice and party with everyone else.
Every once in a while, one of these coaches or players is plucked from obscurity to continue on to lead a major team or to play professionally, cementing their status in these fiercely passionate fan bases as a legend. This time, Feinstein pulls back the curtain on college basketball's lesser-known Cinderella stories-the smaller programs who no one expects to win, who have no chance of attracting the most coveted high school recruits, who rarely send their players on to the NBA.įeinstein follows a handful of players, coaches, and schools who dream, not of winning the NCAA tournament, but of making it past their first or second round games.
John Feinstein has already taken readers into the inner circles of top college basketball programs in The Legends Club.
Thirty years ago after changing the sports book landscape with his mega-hit, A Season on the Brink, #1 New York Times bestselling author John Feinstein returns to his first love-college basketball-with a fascinating and compelling journey through a landscape of unsung, unpublicized and often unknown heroes of Division-1 college hoops.
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