Blue Ribbon College Basketball Podcast, Ep. 24: Picking our favorite basketball films with Mike DeCourcy of The Sporting News and film historian Chris Dortch II.

In the newest episode of the Blue Ribbon College Basketball Podcast, hosts Chris Dortch (@cdortch) and Kevin Ingram (@KIngramSports) are joined by Mike DeCourcy (@tsnMike), veteran basketball writer for The Sporting News, and film historian Chris Dortch II—yes, he’s Chris’ son—the executive director of The Chattanooga Film Festival (@chattfilmfest). The mission—to pick their favorite basketball films of all time, two features and one documentary each.

Some of the topics of discussion:

* The actor who played Jimmy Chitwood in Hoosiers was cut from his high school basketball team three times but was an all-state golfer in Indiana and later played at Purdue.

* How Ron Shelton was inspired to quit minor league baseball and become one of the best directors of sports films in history.

* If Keanu Reeves or John Cusak could hoop even a little bit, one of them, and not Woody Harrelson would have appeared alongside Wesley Snipes in White Men Can’t Jump.

* The filmmakers of the great documentary Hoop Dreams spent five years with their subjects William Gates and Arthur Agee and shot more than 250 hours of film for what was originally intended to be a 30-minute PBS show.

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