No state loves basketball -- especially high school basketball -- more than Indiana does. Each winter high school basketball fever grips the state, with games broadcast every night -- and a climactic championship tournament in March.

Last season, however, Indiana crowned its last all-state champion, marking the end of an eighty-five-year-old Hoosier tradition. Next year, small-school teams -- like the one in the movie Hoosiers -- will no longer have a chance to upset the big-school Goliaths and go all the way.

In Where the Game Matters Most, William Gildea captures all the drama, tension, and excitement of this final all-state championship season. Following the fortunes of four very different teams, he brings to life the traditions, the rivalries, the mounting pressures, and the desperate dreams as the season moves toward a dramatic final showdown in Indianapolis. Here is a brilliant evocation of a place where basketball is not only a game but a way of life.

Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Published: 12/08/1997
ISBN: 9780316519670
Pages: 240
Weight: 1.16lbs
Size: 9.25h x 6.32w x 0.96d

Review Citations: Publishers Weekly 11/03/1997 pg. 74
Kirkus Reviews 11/15/1997 pg. 1685
New York Times 01/11/1998 pg. 15
Library Journal 12/01/1997 pg. 113
Library Journal 12/02/1997