This Was Never About Basketball by Craig Leener

This Was Never About Basketball by Craig Leener was such a fun read.  As a KU fan, it was even better.  Having your favorite team play a role in a novel like this makes it even more enjoyable.   But even with out that element to the story, this one would have been a fantastic read.  And this book, like the title suggest, is not really about basketball.  That doesn't mean that the game doesn't play an important role, because it does.  But this story is about so much more than that.  It is a coming of age story about redemption, acceptance, family, and friendship.  It was such a fun ride.

This Was Never About Basketball is the story of Ezekiel Archer, a standout basketball player who is heading to the University of Kansas to continue his playing career after high school.  But when his temper gets the best of him during the city championship game, his scholarship to KU is taken away.  But even worse than that, the game of basketball is slowly being taken away from all of humanity by an otherworldly entity that first introduced the game to us over one hundred years ago.  Now Ezekiel must travel to the KU campus with his new sidekick, Lawrence, in order to try and save the game he loves so much.  With the inevitable bumps in the road, Zeke has a chance to learn from his past and find a path to redemption in his future. 

From Amazon:

In this coming-of-age novel, seventeen-year-old high school basketball star Ezekiel “Zeke” Archer has it all: a sweet jump shot, a full-ride scholarship to a Midwestern basketball powerhouse, and the brightest future. But when Zeke’s temper gets the better of him in the city championship, he is expelled from school, has to forfeit his scholarship, and is left to ponder his once-hopeful future.While finishing his final high school days in the California educational system’s version of purgatory, Zeke makes a stunning discovery. With the help of a young autistic classmate Zeke befriends, he learns that the mysterious 7th Dimension, which brought basketball to Earth more than a century ago, has decided to take the game away for good — all because of the ugly event Zeke set into motion in his final game!As he embarks on the ultimate cross-country road trip to save basketball, Zeke must confront his unsettled past — including a father he’s not heard from in years and a brother fighting in a war half a world away — in order to set his life on the right path and rescue the game he loves.