A wrongfully convicted rapist is paroled and then attends college where he makes the basketball team and leads them to their first NCAA Tournament in school history. 

* INSPIRED BY A TRUE STORY

SYNOPSIS:

DRAKE PAXON was one of the most sought-after high school basketball players in the country. Having signed a letter of intent to attend Duke University and with a State Championship under his belt, he was primed to become the next great American point guard. One blacked out drunken night changed all that.

Ten years into a fifteen-year sentence for rape, Drake is chosen for a new state program that aims to provide ex-convicts with an education. He will be able to attend college and will also be able to try out for the basketball team…as a twenty-nine-year-old freshman.

He is released from prison and COACH BAUMGARTNER from Western Carolina University takes Drake directly from the prison to the campus where he is burdened with adjusting to a strange and unfamiliar world.

Terms of his parole include psychotherapy, community service and weekly urine tests. He undergoes all of these while adjusting to college student life. He manages, though awkwardly, and makes the basketball team, earning the position of starting point guard.

Throughout therapy, he reflects on the night he cannot remember and the rape he is unsure if he even committed. After his first televised basketball game, an ESPN commentator mentions Drake’s crime on the air and the college life he was just starting to settle into, is forever changed.

A victim of dirty looks and hostility everywhere he goes, Drake becomes even more alienated. Having concealed his past from his team, he begs them to let him continue playing. They acquiesce and find a newfound unity in the process, resulting in a nine-game winning streak.

But through it all, Drake is haunted by a past he cannot remember and an identity he cannot call his own. After winning the conference tournament and leading his team to the first NCAA Tournament birth in school history, he decides to go home and find out, once and for all, what really happened.

He finds the woman that had him convicted and learns of her numerous hospitalizations for mental illness. She confesses that she lied about the rape in an impulsive act of drunken revenge for his having cheated on him. Her lie and loads of circumstantial evidence were enough to convict him.

Devastated with the discovery, Drake falls apart. His psychologist and Coach Baumgartner eventually help Drake realize that he can lie down and quit…or play the game he was always destined to…in the NCAA Tournament where Western Carolina has drawn Duke University in the first round.

In a physical and highly competitive game, Drake and his teammates stay within striking range. Drake sinks a three-pointer at the buzzer to lead his team to a one-point upset of a basketball dynasty…and provide himself with the redemption he has long sought.

RACING TWILIGHT