Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Last Chance U: Basketball’ Season 2 on Netflix, Where The East Los Angeles Huskies Push For Glory

After years of covering hard-knocks, now-or-nothing stakes in junior-college football, last year Netflix’s “Last Chance U” brand branched out into basketball, with a new series covering the East Los Angeles College Huskies. Now, Last Chance U: Basketball is back for a second season that brings back a number of familiar faces and introduces some new ones.

LAST CHANCE U: BASKETBALL SEASON 2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A lone player practices his shot and ball-handling on a fenced-in outdoor basketball court late at night, interspersed with clips of players talking about how much the sport means to them. Serious, intense instrumental music plays; from the get-go, it’s clear that basketball is more than just a game.

The Gist: The first season of Last Chance U’s foray into junior-college basketball introduced us to the world of East Los Angeles College, a school where many of the players didn’t expect to end up, but one where head coach John Mosley is going to get everything he can out of them. It might not be Division I or the D-League, but Mosley expects championship performance out of his players. He might just have to yell a bit to get that point across, though, and that makes for a heck of a show.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? By now, Last Chance U is a standalone brand, and you should know what you’re getting: stirring, heart-rending stories from the often-unseen edges of the sports world.

Our Take: COVID was brutal for anyone playing organized sports. But while it was a major disruption to professional and top-level college athletes, it was basically cataclysmic to players on the margins of the big-time, the highly-talented high school players who were on the bubble for getting a scholarship when the pandemic hit.

Those marks are all over the current East Los Angeles College roster; it’s a team full of guys who didn’t picture themselves ending up here, but are still hanging on, hoping to keep their hoop dreams alive. “We’ve got about ten kids that definitely would’ve been at a Division I (school) if this was 2018,” speculates assistant coach Ken Hunter. In brief introductions at the beginning of the first episode of the new season, a number of the players confirm this belief, talking about scholarships that disappeared or opportunities that were missed when family members took ill. Other player struggled for reasons beyond COVID–off-court issues or conflicts with coaches that caused them to crash out of traditional college opportunities and end up hoping to regroup at ELAC.

“You get a vision in your head of how your life’s supposed to go,” one player laments, “and then when it doesn’t happen that way, you kinda feel like your life’s being put on hold until you meet other people’s expectations.”

Huskies Head Coach John Mosley–and his top assistants, Hunter and Rob Robinson–have expectations. They’re determined to get those careers back on track, and turn this mismatched bunch of players on a championship trajectory. But it’s not going to be easy.

“The day you walk in, you’re proving something,” Robinson observes. “If you’re not a good shooter, you’d better prove it. If you’re undersized and think you can play with bigger guys, you’d better prove it. If you think you’re better, then come in and do it.”

Where Robinson and Hunter provide a quieter, steadier tone to their coaching, head coach Mosley brings the fire, as demonstrated in one early scene where he erupts with frustration at his players’ lack of hustle in practice. “You are at East LA College!” he screams. “Why aren’t you like “man, I gotta get the hell outta here? The frickin’ walls are dirty! I gotta get outta here!’ But you got it all figured out, and you don’t see this is the play” – he mimes a hustle play – “that gets you a scholarship! This one! Not this one,” – he mimes a more half-hearted attempt at the ball – “that don’t earn you nothing!”

Mosley clearly believes in his players’ potential, and seems to want the best for them, but if that happens, it’s going to be on his terms, “I don’t care how corny you think it is,” he lectures in practice, “you’re gonna do it my way. I have a choice! You don’t have a choice! I have seventeen other choices, you ain’t got but one, and that’s my choice!”

Sex and Skin: No sex or skin, but there’s some harsh language (and music) that might be inappropriate for younger viewers.

Parting Shot: The team regroups in the locker room after an embarrassing loss to begin the season, with a long drive home to Los Angeles ahead of them. “It’s time to get desperate, get a level of urgency going,” Mosley notes in a rueful comment to the camera, “That’s part of my job too, I gotta do a better job of making these guys desperate for their lives. Otherwise, ain’t none of us gettin’ out, nobody’s moving on, nothing good’s gonna happen unless they’re desperate to get the hell out of here. And they ain’t there yet.”

Sleeper Star: Among a team full of varied backgrounds and personalities, guard Demetrius Calip II stands out, with the expectations of a father who played in the NBA and a flashy social media presence that earns a “Hollywood” nickname from the coaches.

Most Pilot-y Line: “When I’m playing basketball, everything goes away,” one player notes at the very beginning of the first episode. “Everything. It’s peaceful out there, like… I think that’s why I love it so much. It’s my therapy.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. Last Chance U has long been one of the best brands in sports documentaries, and Season 2 of the basketball version brings everything you’re looking for out of it.

Scott Hines is an architect, blogger and proficient internet user based in Louisville, Kentucky who publishes the widely-beloved Action Cookbook Newsletter.