The story revolves around a teeny tiny town in Montana, Willow Creek, and their boys' basketball team that has not won a game in 5 years. Sam (an English teacher) is the coach and when 2 new boys come to Willow Creek he recruits them for the team and tries to build up confidence and hope that they might win a game. The team has a total of 6 players and most of the town has given up on them.

There is a lot of basketball in this book, but that is not where the real story lies. The residents of Willow Creek are the story. Their lives, their heart-breaks, their pain, their quirkiness, . . . . and most of all their heart. Holy cow, this book has a whole lot of HEART. I'm not sure I have ever been so emotionally invested in a set of characters -- rooting for them all along the way. The author does a great joy of introducing the residents of Willow Creek, sharing their backstories, and weaving it all together to create the connections that make up a small town.

I ended up really enjoying the book. I smiled & laughed with them, cheered, cringed, shed tears of joy. It's a book about people, good people and it left me with a full heart.