Overview
Michael Mancino’s middle school basketball team is what you might call “vertically challenged.”
They have the skills, but what they lack in height has cost them the first two games of the season. So when Michael and his team meet Dikembe Obiku, a new student from Nigeria, they are sure they’ve found their saving grace. Dikembe is athletic and taller than most of the teachers, but there’s one problem: He’s never played basketball before! Their chances of making the ultimate comeback seem impossible. That is, until Michael discovers an old issue of Sports Illustrated about the similarly “vertically challenged” UCLA Bruins who won the 1964 NCAA Championship with an aggressive and hard-to-beat full-court zone press. Can their team learn a thing or two from these Davids and take down their own Goliaths in the next game? In the afterword, readers can learn more about the 1964 UCLA Bruins.