Why are so many Catholic schools so good at basketball?

Good morning, and thanks for your continued support of Extra Points.

At Extra Points, I write about almost all college sports, across all levels of college sports...but I don't think it's a big secret that my true love is in college football. I started my career writing about football, spent most of my tenure at SB Nation writing about football...I even wrote an entire dang book about college football history.

I feel like I'm pretty well versed in most of the major themes in college football history. But the history of other sports? That's a bit more like learning another language. And take it from me, a man with a 361-day streak on Duolingo, learning another language takes lots of practice (please don't ask me to actually say anything in Portuguese, you know I can't do that).

So that's why I grabbed a copy of John Gasaway's Miracles On The Hardwood earlier this summer. I flew through the entire thing in about four days, which is no small feat, seeing as the internet has vaporized my attention span. The book held my attention because it was excellent.

Miracles isn't just a history of college basketball, although it is that. It's a history of college basketball through the lens of Catholic college basketball programs. The book tries to explain why so many of these schools have competitively punched above their weight class, given their resources and location, and how they've shaped not just the sport of basketball, but college athletics.

It isn't a football book. But boy, it sure sounded like the perfect Extra Points book, right?

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