New hoops film takes shot

In “Coach Carter,� Samuel L. Jackson plays a no-nonsense coach who transforms a high school basketball team from a bunch of boastful losers into championship contenders. But because his players don’t keep their promise to maintain their grades, he padlocks the gym and benches the entire team.

Inspired by a true story, “Coach Carter,� which opens Friday, is just the latest entry in the time-honored basketball movie tradition.

The 1986 “Hoosiers� arguably ranks as the Michael Jordan of basketball movies. It was one of those great, true underdog stories with Gene Hackman playing a high school coach with a less-than-perfect past who teams with the town drunk (Dennis Hopper in his Oscar-nominated performance) to lead a small-town Indiana high school team to victory in 1954.

Far from a slam dunk, though, was 1994’s stolid “Blue Chips,� directed by William Friedkin. Set in the world of college basketball, the film revolved around a stalwart coach (Nick Nolte) who finds himself having to break recruitment rules to stay competitive.

There have been plenty of comedic basketball movies like 1979’s “Fast Break,� with Gabe Kaplan as a rabid New York basketball fan who becomes coach of a small Nevada college team, and “The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh,� also from 1979, about a hapless Pittsburgh basketball team that becomes a winner with the help of an astrologer and new players. The film features basketball legends Julius Erving, Meadowlark Lemon and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Fantasy also has figured in the basketball arena, most notably with Disney’s 1961 classic “The Absent-Minded Professor.� Fred MacMurray plays the title character, who concocts an anti-gravity substance named Flubber. When the college’s basketball team flounders during a game, the anti-gravity goo is ironed onto the soles of the team’s shoes and the players literally win the game by leaps and bounds.