The Final Four

February 15, 2012
Volponi's latest combines in-the-moment action, basketball history and the points of view of four college ballplayers with very different lives. The frame story here is a white-knuckle NCAA championship game between Michigan State's Spartans and the underdog Trojans from Troy University. Television interviews, news articles, radio transcripts and segments narrated from individual players' perspectives lay out the minute-by-minute action of the game and the context and personal histories surrounding it. Readers meet talented but arrogant Malcolm McBride, who plans to leave Michigan State for the NBA immediately after his freshman year, second-tier player Michael Jordan (MJ), whom Malcolm berates for not living up to his namesake's prowess, Crispin Rice, who became a viral video sensation when he proposed impulsively to his cheerleader girlfriend after a dramatic play on the court, and Roko Bacic, who lost a journalist uncle to an attack by Zagreb mobsters. No story or character is simple: Malcolm, for instance, is both sympathetic and perilously self-centered, and his argument that the NCAA profits unfairly from student athletics will provoke debate among readers. The pace of the game lulls a bit in the middle but picks up again in the tense and unpredictable finale. Compelling characters and solid sports action. (Fiction. 12 & up)

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Starred review from March 1, 2012

Gr 8 Up-The fates of four college basketball players come together as their teams meet in a semifinal game of the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Malcolm McBride and Michael Jordan (who bears the burden of being named after the game's greatest player) are members of the vaunted Michigan State Spartans while Roko Bacic and Crispin Rice play for the underdog Troy University Trojans. Their stories are told by means of flashbacks, journal entries, newspaper accounts, and TV interviews weaving in and out of the play-by-play. Brash, outspoken Malcolm, who grew up in a crime-ridden Detroit housing project and whose sister was killed in a drive-by shooting, makes no secret of his desire to secure a lucrative pro contract after one year of college basketball. For Roko, basketball is his ticket to a better life after his escape from war-torn Croatia. Michael's self-confidence has suffered from his inability to live up to his famous name, and Crispin is having second thoughts about a hasty (and public) proposal to a possibly faithless girlfriend. Malcolm, Michael, and Roko come across as being especially complex, multifaceted, driven individuals. Malcolm is in many ways the least likable but most compelling of the protagonists. He boldly speaks truth to power in challenging a college athletic system that routinely exploits student athletes while raking in hundreds of millions of dollars from their unpaid labors. With exciting game action and a candid exploration of the hypocrisy inherent so-called amateur sports, this gritty, realistic, and riveting novel deserves the wide audience it will no doubt attract.-Richard Luzer, Fair Haven Union High School, VT

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 15, 2012
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* There's a strange alchemy in the sporting world, where a single game can take on mythic proportions, thanks to orbiting clusters of mini dramas in perfect alignment around it. Volponi's novel creates such a game in an NCAA tournament Final Four match between the heavily favored Michigan State Spartans and the uber-underdog Trojans, of Troy University. The Spartans are loaded with NBA-caliber talent, including one-and-done freshman superstar and trash-talker extraordinaire Malcolm McBride, while the Trojans fuel their Cinderella-story winning streak with team play led by an underrated Croatian point guard, Roko Bacic. But there's also a Spartan benchwarmer who's flailing under the weight of his name, Michael Jordan, and a Trojan center struggling to keep his mind on the court and off his maybe-cheating fiancee and cheerleader, Hope, nicknamed Hope of Troy by the media, angling for a feel-good human-interest story. Volponi dribbles out the players' backstories as the game goes into single, double, and then triple overtime, and in so doing finds room to comment on the divide between raw talent and focused dedication, individualism and teamwork, and confidence and arrogance. Most fascinating and timely is the discussion of the uncomfortable truth that although college athletics has become a multi-billion-dollar business, the players who make it all possible aren't allowed a dime of the earnings. As with all clutch performances, Volponi nails it when it counts in this dynamic story.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)