The same year Bob Knight was coming to power at Indiana, a lesser known -- but no less mercurial -- coach was setting up shop 2,000 miles to the west. Dick Harter left a nationally prominent college basketball team at the University of Pennsylvania for a rebuilding job at Oregon and the expressed intention of challenging the sport's reigning power, UCLA. What evolved was a program that recruited nationally and didn't apologize for an extremely physical style that featured players diving on the floor for loose balls, battering the opposition under the boards and on occasion, overstepping the standards of fair play. The so-called "Kamikaze Kids" quickly became revered around their Eugene home base and reviled through much of the rest of the Pac-8 Conference. At a time when the league ranked at or near the top in the country competitively, several coaches were outspoken critics of the Ducks' tactics, including the sainted John Wooden of UCLA. This is the story of that fervent era, from the sizzling love affair between the program and the local fans to the contentiousness that swirled around Oregon and its furious approach to playing basketball.

An ALA-YALSA Best Book for Young Adults New Bonus Content: -Q&A with Walter Dean Myers -Q&A with screenwriter John Ballard -Teaser chapter from On a Clear Day -Excerpt from 145th Street All eyes are on seventeen-year-old Lonnie Jackson while he practices with his team for a city-wide basketball Tournament of Champions. His coach, Cal, knows Lonnie has what it takes to be a pro basketball player, but warns him about giving in to the pressure. Cal knows because he, too, once had the chance—but sold out. As the tournament nears, Lonnie learns that some heavy bettors want Cal to keep him on the bench so that the team will lose the championship. As the last seconds of the game tick away, Lonnie and Cal must make a decision. Are they willing to blow the chance of a lifetime?

Davis recounts the dramatic story of how two legendary players--Earvin Magic Johnson and Larry Bird--burst on the scene in a 1979 NCAA championship that gave birth to modern basketball.

While trying to prove that he is good enough to on his high school's varsity basketball team, Nick must also deal with his parents' divorce and erratic behavior of a troubled classmate who lives across the street.

A vibrant, unconventional, highly opinionated guide to the triumphs, joys, struggles, and heartbreaks of the modern era of the game, for every obsessive basketball fan who loves to hate hot takes The Joy of Basketball celebrates the meteoric rise of basketball over the last quarter century by ignoring the bland, traditionalist binary of wins or losses. Instead, the book's focus is on everything else. Using text, charts, and illustrations that upend conventional jock wisdom, the book details the most incredible players in history, draft flops, long-limbed oddballs, superteams, the international talent wave, brawls, scandals, the rapid evolution of contemporary gameplay, coaching, fashion, crime, positional erosion, tragic tales, memes, and the sacred Kardashian Blessing. Bouncing between witty graphics and keen sociopolitical observations, The Joy of Basketball is a subversive sports manifesto camouflaged as a colorful reference book for your coffee table.

As the popularity of women?s basketball burgeons, Karra Porter reminds us in Mad Seasons that today?s Women?s National Basketball Association, or WNBA had its origins in a ragtag league twenty years earlier. Porter tells the story of the Women?s Professional Basketball League WBL, which pioneered a new era of women?s sports. ø Formed in 1978, the league included the not-so-storied Dallas Diamonds, Chicago Hustle, and Minnesota Fillies. Porter?s book takes us into the heart of the WBL as teams struggled with nervous sponsors, an uncertain fan base, and indifferent sportswriters. Despite bouncing paychecks, having to sleep on floors, and being stranded on road games, the players endured and thrived. ø Karra Porter brings to life the pioneers of the WBL: ?Machine Gun? Molly Bolin, who set lasting scoring records?then faced an historic custody battle because of her basketball career; Connie Kunzmann, a popular player whose murder rocked the league; Liz Silcott, whose remarkable talents masked deeper problems off the court; Ann Meyers, who went from an NBA tryout to the league she had rebuffed; Nancy Lieberman, whose flashy play and marketing savvy were unlike anything the women's game had ever seen. ø A story of hardship and sacrifice, but also of dedication and love for the game, Mad Seasons brings the WBL back to life and shows in colorful detail how this short-lived but pioneering league ignited the imagination of a new generation of female athletes and fans.

From the early days of YMCA leagues to the modern game of the Timberwolves and Lynx, sports historians and basketball fanatics Hugunin and Thornley offer the complete story of the North Star State's most popular game.