Another basketball film

Thankfully this doesn't appear to be along the lines of "The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh" so watch for it at your local theater or Netflix it:

This Is Basketball, Boys; It’s Not Rocket Science
Nathan Leemay
New York Times
May 16, 2008

Well now, if this isn’t just the cutest thing I don’t know what is. “Quantum Hoops,” a documentary by Rick Greenwald, tells the story of the California Institute of Technology’s men’s basketball team — a topic that in the context of college sports is approximately as farcical as the history of aspiring semioticians among the contestants on “America’s Next Top Model.”

Established in 1919, the Caltech Beavers (so named after “nature’s engineer”) cull players from one of the most rigorously selective, academically demanding universities in the world. These boys are quite literally rocket scientists — or, more accurately, double majors in rocket science and applied math.

David Duchovny, who narrates this wry, good-natured picture with affable bemusement, informs us that Caltech lays claim to both the highest ratio of Nobel Prize winners to faculty and a men’s basketball team that at the time of filming was distinguished by a record 243 consecutive conference losses dating to 1985. Mr. Greenwald follows the Beavers’ try at breaking that losing streak during the final week of the 2006 season, while chronicling the handful of ups and many, many downs in the history of a team remembered less for its athletic prowess (or even competence) than for once including the father of modern computational fluid dynamics.

and

Quantum Hoops (documentary)
Reviewed by Elliot V. Kotek
(February 2008)

The documentary follows the Beavers of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) - a school that, despite a rich history, a once-winning team (mostly in the 1950s), 31 Nobel Prize-winners and alumni of the ilk of Linus Pauling, Richard Feynman, the Richter scale's original Richter and It's a Wonderful Life director Frank Capra, hasn't won a conference basketball game in twenty-one years. However, after years of flailing, the Beavers are looking better - not good, just better - and Greenwald catches them at a time when they're being only mildly beaten as opposed to their previous sound humiliations, when hope has replaced hopelessness, and, as Coach Roy Dow so eloquently puts it, it's not impossible that they'd win, only improbable.

Greenwald's mastery of this format is evidenced by not only his mixing of Ken Burns-type techniques, but also his story-telling confidence. Not only does Greenwald tell his tale in the present, featuring the current crop of players both on and off the court, but he presents a comprehensive and compelling backstory. The helmer takes into account the surroundings - the school, its traditions, its policies and its colorful academic and sporting history - and also puts the key seasons into the context of what was happening contemporaneously on the world stage. Greenwald really relates the discipline of these players to both their academic and sporting lives, and draws poignant parallels between the search for a scientific breakthrough and the repetition and resolve that is both inherent and important to a win.

You do not have to be a basketball fan to fall in love with this movie, and fans of Einstein, Stephen Hawking and the San Antonio Spurs are assured equal enjoyment. The movie allows you to root for an underdog who's simultaneously somehow both a nerd and a jock. And it's no leap to suggest that, thanks to Quantum Hoops, the Caltech Beavers may well have a full legion of fans next season.