The Mighty Macs

There’s probably a great story to tell about the 1972 basketball team at Immaculata College, a tiny all-female Catholic school in Pennsylvania that emerged as an unlikely winner of the first women’s basketball national title.

While The Mighty Macs tries to tell that story, the film so earnest and wholesome that it fails to offer many specifics amid all of its underdog cliches.

Carla Gugino (Sin City) steadies the film with a winning performance as Cathy Rush, the rookie coach (and eventual Hall of Famer) who turned around a perennial doormat by preaching teamwork and defense. Her methods are unlike any the school had ever seen, and eventually led to her become considered an innovator in the women’s game after she led the ragtag Macs to the first AIAW national title, defeating larger rivals such as Penn State and West Chester in the process.

Incidentally, the school went on to win two more titles under Rush, with many considering it the first dynasty of the women’s game, before powerhouses such as Tennessee and Connecticut came along.

Immaculata was an underdog in numerous ways. In addition to having no noteworthy players and an inexperienced coach, it had dilapidated facilities and equipment, no fan base or community involvement except for its staff of enthusiastic nuns, and the school was financially strapped to the point of near closure. So a winning basketball team offered hope for the future, if nothing else.

Yet the script by director Tim Chambers is lacking in context, and leaves several unanswered questions during Immaculata’s run to the title, which includes the inevitable big-game finale. He doesn’t delve much into the history of the program, and doesn’t provide much background on Rush or her players to explain why her methods were successful.

Instead, the film strings together as many would-be inspirational platitudes as possible about teamwork and commitment, resolving every conflict with a trite basketball metaphor.

The game sequences generate a crowd-pleasing vibe even when the result is inevitable, and Chambers makes the most of a low budget with his visual approach. Yet when it comes to its true-life subject matter, The Mighty Macs could have shot a higher percentage.

Rated G, 102 minutes.