Last Chance U: Basketball shows that the franchise is versatile in adapting to new colleges and new sports

The Hollywood Reporter

"When the first Last Chance U season premiered in 2016,  it was easy to see what made the Netflix docuseries very good, but not necessarily what made it special," says Daniel Fienberg. "It required a little more time to see why and how Last Chance U has emerged as the most resilient and imitated sports reality franchise of the past decade. What sets the Last Chance U franchise apart is its versatility. It's been so long since it launched that it's hard to remember that in the first two seasons, at East Mississippi Community College, the breakout star was an inspiring academic advisor. The next two seasons, at Independence Community College, were about a hot-headed coach (the initially entertaining, then infuriating Jason Brown) and the way Netflix fame can magnify the worst of personality traits. Producers (and ICC, actually) wisely fled Brown for the recent Laney College season, which shifted gears and became a show about urban gentrification and the role junior colleges can play in changing communities. Somewhere in the middle, Greg Whiteley and company left football behind entirely and, with Cheer, proved that the formula is completely transferable to other sports and to explorations of gender roles in athletics. This is why the two least surprising elements of Netflix's Last Chance U: Basketball are that the Last Chance U formula transfers to hoops without an iota of degradation and that this new incarnation becomes something simultaneously the same and very different from its predecessors. It's one of 2021's early standouts for all of the reasons you expect and a few you don't see coming."

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• Last Chance U: Basketball encompasses everything from Kobe Bryant's death to the COVID crisis: "Last Chance U: Basketball would have been an excellent sports docuseries under any circumstances, but what makes it extraordinary is the fact that it was filmed during the 2019–2020 season, which means that certain real-life events collide with the Huskies’ story," says Jen Chaney. "We get to see the reaction to the death of Kobe Bryant, which hits these L.A. players hard. (On the day of his death, a sign near the locker room reads: 'Today has been cancelled. Go back to bed.') It also doesn’t seem like a total spoiler to say that the coronavirus pandemic eventually affects the team as well, leading to one of the more visceral and moving attempts on television so far to capture the loss and uncertainty that immediately set in as the epidemic began."
• East Los Angeles College's John Mosley wasn't initially interested, but he brings a different vibe as the franchise's first Black coach: “A lot of my friends said, ‘Do you want a camera following you around while you’re competing and in your practices?’" says Mosley “I just never was the one that wanted to be in the spotlight. Plus, the previous coaches (in Last Chance U) had a lot of personality and were phenomenal."
• Mosley's pastor had to talk him into doing Last Chance U: Basketball: “You gotta do it,” Mosley recalled his pastor telling him. “They need to see that side of you. They need to see that message that you try to share.”