'Hoops' Season 1 Ending Explained: Did Coach Ben and his top dunker reach their destination?
Spoilers for 'Hoops' Season 1
Coach Ben Hopkins (Jake Johnson) only had one big dream to leave the God-awful Lenwood High, where he is the basketball coach, spread his wings and fly away. All his life, he has been overshadowed by his overachieving father Barry Hopkins (Rob Riggle) and he is only waiting for a chance to shove it in his face. Not that his skills matter, in any case.
This chance finally comes to him in the finale of Season 1 of 'Hoops'. Well, it doesn't exactly come to him directly, but in the way that Ben makes things work for himself, he does with his too.
The finale episode begins with Ben shouting to his whole town "I f***ed my wife". He and Shannon (Natasha Leggero), after being estranged for long, had only just recently gotten intimate. While there was not much to it, she even broke up with Ron, Ben's best friend and assistant coach. This leads him to think that that they are going to get back together, especially when she says she wants to have dinner with him. But over dinner, she tells him that sleeping with him was a mistake and that she doesn't really want to get back with him. Ben is heartbroken and has retired to the feeling that nothing will work for him.
And that's when he gets a visit from Coach LaMante from the fancy New England private high school Henderson Prep. But he's not here for Coach, he's here for the 7-footer. Matty.
Although Henderson Prep is a top tier school that will guarantee college admission, Matty Atkins (AD Miles) doesn't want to go there. He has lived all his life on the outskirts and has finally made friends in Lenwood High after Ben got him on the team. Plus he is also Ben's best player, if he leaves, the coach's career is over.In a bid to ensure that his mother doesn't send him to the prep school, Ben enlists the help of Connie, the prostitute, to play Matty's mother and refuse the offer. But when LaMante visits her, she goes off-script and agrees to send Matty to the prep school.
Now Ben comes clean to LaMante. If Matty agrees to go, he might have an assistant coach's job waiting for him at Henderson Prep. Following this offer, Ben manages to convince Matty's real mother to send him to the prep school while also telling her that the conversation between them "never happened".
Now Matty is forced to go there. And Ben pitches him the idea that he should accompany him to the new school, making it look as though he will be sacrificing everything to help him settle there.
The next day, when they leave, Matty is forlorn and Coach Ben in very high spirits even though their car has a flat tire. And now they can't repair it because Ben had given all the tools for a tire change to his team as gifts. This exchange had finally led to his team realizing he's actually a "d*ck*. As the camera pans away from Ben and Matty outside their broke down car, we don't know for sure if they do manage to reach Henderson Prep.
Will they remain in Kentucky? Are all of Ben's dreams down the drain and his efforts in vain? Will Matty be happy there? Will Ron (Ron Funches) ever get over Shannon? Maybe we will know next season. Although Netflix hasn't officially renewed it for Season 2, we're hopeful it returns.
All episodes of 'Hoops' Season 1 are currently streaming on Netflix.