Plot
In Richmond, California, Ken Carter becomes the coach for Richmond High School's basketball team, the Oilers, having once played on the team. 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 their teachers for progress reports of their grades and attendance.
Despite anger from the players' parents, most sign the contracts, although several walk out in protest. Timo Cruz is one, a gifted player who also deals drugs for his cousin Renny. Principal Garrison questions Carter's contracts, suspecting the players won't be able to meet his conditions so believes he should stick 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.
When Cruz watches the team win a game, he asks Carter to rejoin the team. Carter agrees, but only if Cruz completes a number of exercises impossible to achieve before Friday. Cruz commits himself to this against the odds. When he comes up short, despite his best efforts, the rest of the team pitches in and does the rest for him. So, he is able to rejoin.
Team captain Kenyon Stone struggles to come to terms with his girlfriend Kyra's pregnancy. The couple have a falling out over his inability to commit to fatherhood. Another player, Junior Battle, skips classes, leading Carter to suspend him from the team. His mother Willa asks Carter to let Battle back on the team, as things have ben hard after her older son Antoine was killed. Carter agrees once 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 to attend a party at a nearby mansion. 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 he intended. Later, Carter discovers that some players have not been keeping to their contracts, by skipping classes and attaining poor grades. So, the 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 forfeiting several games, and enraging the local community. He 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 future options. After Cruz watches Renny get gunned down when a drug deal goes bad, he begs Carter to let him back on the team.
At a school board hearing, 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 refuses 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 stays, and the team soon achieves 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 tournament against St. Francis, but lose narrowly, with the winning basket scored on the final buzzer. Alhough they don't win, Carter is proud the team came together and persevered, gave themselves options, and achieved inner victory. The team celebrates with the community, and we learn several of the key players received scholarships and go on to college.
