Netflix Series ‘Last Chance U: Basketball’ Returns for Season 2

Last Chance U: Basketball is back. Season 2 of the basketball documentary began streaming on Netflix on Tuesday, and the series will once again focus on the East Los Angeles College (ELAC) basketball team. The first season premiered on March 10, 2021, and focused on the team’s COVID-shortened 2019-2020 season. 

“Directed by Greg Whiteley, Adam Leibowitz, and Daniel George McDonald, the series picks up a year after COVID caused an abrupt and emotional end to ELAC’s championship run in 2020,” the official synopsis states. “Head coach John Mosley is eager to get back on the court with an almost entirely new roster of Huskies, including talented but troubled D1 level athletes looking for a last opportunity to make it. Off the court, players get vulnerable sharing their personal struggles of family instability, mental health, homelessness, and more. Over 8 episodes, viewers will follow the team’s journey as players work to overcome personal demons and fight for their spot on the court.”

Season 2 of Last Chance U: Basketball takes a look at the teams, 2021-22 season since the 2020-21 season was canceled due to COVID. The new season includes eight hour-long episodes, and the series is produced by GQ Studios, Endgame Entertainment, One Potato Productions, and Boardwalk Pictures along with Netflix. 

Whiteley is the executive producer of Last Chance U: Basketball which is a spinoff of the football docuseries Last Chance U, a series he created as well as another Netflix docuseries “So the disadvantage in basketball is you better hope the 12 or 13 players that are on the roster, that you can find four or five that are interesting,” Whiteley told The Wrap in 2020. “Because I think you need about four or five kids in whatever show you’re doing in order to justify six, seven, eight episodes. I just think it helps to have that number. That’s the number we’ve settled on each year, regardless of the sport or the activity.”

“But I will say in basketball…it’s really great to be able to film a closeup of a player’s face while they are in action doing the thing that they love. There is just so much emotion that is going to– there’s only so much emotion that’s going to come through a face mask in the field of play, but on a basketball court, it’s almost as though you can read every thought in that player’s mind.”