Plot
In Richmond, California, Ken Carter becomes the coach for Richmond High School's basketball team, the Oilers, having played for the team thirty years earlier. Initially, the team is rowdy, rude, and disrespectful.
Carter gives the team contracts to sign and obey, requiring them to sit in the front rows of all their classes, and maintain a 2.3 (C+) grade point average. He also asks the school's staff for progress reports of the players' grades and attendance.
Despite anger from the players' parents, most players sign the contracts, though several team members walk out in disagreement, including Timo Cruz, a gifted player who also deals drugs for his cousin Renny. The school's principal, Principal Garrison, questions Carter's contracts, suggesting that the players will be unable to meet his conditions and that he would be better off sticking to coaching basketball.
Carter begins a strict, disciplinary training regimen for the team, focused largely on conditioning and teamwork. His son Damian joins the team, switching from the private school St. Francis, to play for his father.
Cruz witnesses the team win a game, afterwards asking Carter to let him rejoin the team. Carter agrees, but only if Cruz completes a number of exercises impossible to achieve before that Friday. Cruz commits himself to this against the odds. When he comes up short on that Friday in spite of his best efforts, the rest of the team pitches in and does the shortfall of exercises for him. He is able to rejoin.
Kenyon Stone, the team's captain, struggles to come to terms with his girlfriend Kyra being pregnant. The couple have a falling out over Kenyon's inability to commit to fatherhood. Another player, Junior Battle, skips classes, leading Carter to suspend him from the team. Junior's mother Willa visits Carter, asking him to let Battle back on the team and explaining that things have been hard after her older son Antoine was killed. Carter agrees after Junior apologizes.
The team continues to train and improve, bonding with Carter and becoming undefeated in the regular season. After winning the Bay Hill holiday tournament, the entire team sneaks out of the motel and attend a party at a nearby mansion while Carter is speaking to his wife on the phone. Carter discovers their absence, crashing the party to round up the team.
Carter berates the boys on the way home, though Cruz points out the team are now winners as Carter intended. Later, Carter discovers that some players have not been keeping to their contracts, due to skipping classes and attaining poor grades.
A livid Carter locks the gym, directing the team to the library where they will study with their teachers until everyone's grades meet their contracts' terms. A disillusioned Cruz quits the team again. Carter enforces his lockdown, garnering media attention after he forfeits several games, and enraging the local community. Carter reasons that the boys have no other options in Richmond aside from crime or sports, and he is hoping their commitment to their studies will give them better options in life.
After a drug deal goes bad, Cruz watches Renny get gunned down in front of him. Distraught, Cruz goes to Carter, begging to be let back on the team. The school board holds a hearing, where Carter explains that sending his players to college and a better life is more important than basketball, and promises to resign if the lockdown is lifted. Though Principal Garrison and the board's chairwoman vote in his favor, every other councilor votes to end the lockdown.
Carter prepares to leave, but discovers the team is refusing to play, choosing to continue with their studying and hold to their goal. Cruz, whom Carter had repeatedly asked "what is your deepest fear," answers by quoting from A Return to Love .
Carter decides to stay, and the team soon succeeds in their academic goal. Kenyon reunites with Kyra, learning she had an abortion. She said to him that she had a choice to make and she made it, for herself. They make up, and Kenyon asks Kyra to come with him to college, to which she agrees.
The team play in the State Quarterfinals match against St. Francis, but lose narrowly, with the winning basket scored right on the final buzzer. Though they did not win, Carter expresses his pride that the team came together to persevere, give themselves options, and achieve the "ever elusive victory within." The film ends with the team celebrating with the community, and captions telling the fate of several key players who receive scholarships and go on to college.
