"The one who can defeat me is our Xiangbei High School, the new ace!"
"Don't be polite, come on!"
Jinguji Budou's words made the first-year students who were still stretching stop their movements and look at Jinguji Budou intently. Many of the first-year students knew Jinguji Budou, after all, they had undergone basketball training, and they also chose Xiangbei. Most of them came for the strength and achievements of Xiangbei High School basketball team.
The reason why Shohoku has achieved its current results is that it has the trump card of Jinguji Budo, which cannot be avoided in any way.
Do young people have ambition? Of course they do. Which of these freshmen doesn't want to be the ace of the team, lead the team to shine in the national competition and win the national championship
And Jinguji Budo's words successfully aroused the ambitions and desires of these young people.
"Ace... If we can defeat him, we'll be the new ace of Xiangbei..."
A young team member was looking at Jinguji Budou and murmured. In his mind he had even begun to imagine the scene after defeating Jinguji Budou.
However, there were also sober young people. Kiyota Nobunaga also heard the muttering of this classmate and curled his lips in disdain: "Hey, stop dreaming. You are about the same height as me. Even if Jinguji-senpai stood there and asked you to cover him, you might not be able to stop him."
Kiyota Nobunaga's words made many first-year students sober up. Yes! If the ace of Xiangbei High School can be defeated so easily, then how can Xiangbei become a powerful team
"Jinguji-senpai is so tall, he must not be very fast. I think we first years can win with speed."
"Use bombardment tactics! It's a good idea!"
"Captain Mugure, we are all warmed up, let's quickly arrange for the players to play!"
The first-year students enthusiastically discussed the way to play the game. After all, they were young people, and even though they knew that Jinguji Budo might not be able to win so easily, they would never give up the opportunity to try.
After the warm-up, the first-year students immediately signed up enthusiastically, hoping to get a chance to play in the game. When Kogure Konosubobu saw this scene, he also turned his attention to Coach Anzai. Arranging for the first-year students to play in the game was the responsibility of Coach Anzai himself.
Coach Anxi, who was on the sidelines, smiled when he saw the enthusiasm of the freshmen. He stood up from his seat with the list and came to the front of the freshmen. According to the positions indicated by the freshmen, he selected two inside players and three outside players as the starting players for the freshmen and sent them into the court.
The students arranged by Coach Anzai were all unfamiliar faces, such as Sakuragi Hanamichi and Rukawa Kaede, who did not get the chance to start.
Here, Coach Anxi actually has some selfish motives. He hopes to let the other freshmen perform first, and then send the five players specially recruited by Xiangbei. In this way, these freshmen can clearly understand the gap between themselves and these special recruits. In the future, Coach Anxi will have a reputation and promote these special recruits to the regular team.
Of course, if there are any outstanding players among these freshmen who are strong enough to be compared with people like Sakuragi Hanamichi and Rukawa Kaede, Coach Anzai will definitely not be stingy and will give them enough opportunities to perform.
After all, how long the freshmen can play on the court depends on their own level!
"Look, the first-year rookies are on the court!"
Jinguji Budo and a group of senior players waited for a long time, and finally saw the freshmen arranged by Coach Anzai walk into the court.
Mitsui Hisashi also served as the referee of this game. He stood in the center circle with the ball, waiting for the players of both teams.
As he spoke, Jinguji Takeshi led the team members to take their positions in the center circle, and the task of jumping the ball was assigned to Chiba Daishi.
Although Jinguji Budo is now the tallest player in Xiangbei High School, he is not used to jump balls, which affects his quick dribble after the kickoff. Moreover, the height of the first-year inside players is only a little over 180cm, so even if Chiba jumps the ball, there is no chance of any accidents.
"They are all new faces. In that case, save some strength and fight casually."
Takeshi Jinguji observed the first-year students who came on the field, but did not see people like Sakuragi Hanamichi, so his interest immediately waned a lot.
Although it is still bullying the weak, it would be boring if the weak one is too weak.
It is actually the most interesting to play against people like Sakuragi Hanamichi and Rukawa Kaede. Although they are a little weaker in strength, they are very talented, and they get stronger and stronger as they play, and they never admit defeat. It is interesting to play against opponents with this kind of personality.
During the time when Jinguji Takeshi was daydreaming, the freshmen had already taken their positions. With a whistle from Mitsui Hisashi, the basketball was thrown into the air.
Sure enough, Chiba Daishi, who is now in the third grade and has a height of 192cm, easily won the jump ball and directly passed the ball to Jinguji Budo.
Wudao got the ball in the backcourt, and without dropping the ball, he just casually passed it to Yasuharu Yasuda, and then walked slowly towards the frontcourt.
The senior class uses a double point guard lineup, Yasuharu Yasuda and Ryouta Miyagi are both point guards.
After Yasuda Yasuharu got the ball, he did not pass it to Miyagi. He took the ball himself, pressed at the back of the team, and slowly advanced to the frontcourt. When he entered the frontcourt, Chiba Oishi and Kakuta Satoru had already occupied both sides of the paint area under the basket. The first-year student who was facing them was inferior in strength and height, and could not block Chiba and Kakuta.
Budou stood at 45 degrees outside the three-point line, which was the most comfortable spot for him to receive the ball and attack. The freshman who was defending him was about 175cm tall and looked like a child in front of Jinguji Budou.
"Hey, hey, hey, that height difference is really too big, right?!"
"I heard that Jinguji-senpai is a small forward? He looks a lot taller than a center!"
The matchup of Jinguji Budo's team caused the students watching the game on the sidelines to start talking.
Rukawa Kaede's eyes have been on Jinguji Budo since he entered the arena. Seeing this matchup, the cold-tempered Rukawa Kaede couldn't help but shook his head and sighed: "It's impossible to stop it!"
On the court, Yasuharu Yasuda dribbled the ball close to the three-point line and passed it directly to Jinguji Takeshi. Takeshi did not make any other unnecessary movements. He just took the basketball and shot a three-pointer without even adjusting his posture.
The basketball flew directly towards the basket in front of the defensive players. The next second, it hit the edge of the basket with a crisp sound of hitting iron.
“Ding~~”
The basketball bounced out of the basket, and Chiba Daishi under the basket directly pushed his opponent aside, occupied the best rebounding position, jumped up, and easily caught the ball.
Chiba Daiishi, who grabbed the rebound, clearly had a great offensive opportunity under the basket, but he had no intention of shooting. Instead, he threw the ball to Jinguji Budou on the outside, giving up the excellent offensive opportunity.
The basketball flew towards Budou at a rapid speed, and the freshman who was defending him tried to jump up to steal the ball, but Budou Jinguji didn't even jump. He just stood on tiptoe, caught the flying basketball in his hands, and took the basketball off the defender's head.
The basketball was in his hand again, Wu Dao stood still and shot another three-pointer.
This time, there were no accidents and the basketball went directly into the net.
"Qianye, take this good opportunity and attack on your own!"
"No need to take care of me."
After the goal, the senior players began to return to defense. When Wudao and Chiba's figures intersected, he said to Chiba.
"Two points and two points is too slow. Besides, I want to see how much your strength has grown since you came back from the United States."
"But now it seems that the opponent is too weak, so there is no way for you to enjoy the fight."
Chiba Daishi smiled and celebrated with Wudao. After returning to his own half, he went straight into the inside defense.
"These guys are just appetizers. The game will become interesting once those guys come on the field!"
Wudao could understand Chiba's feelings. Although these freshmen in the first year of high school were already high school students, their basketball skills were still at the junior high school level. If these young people had explosive physical talents, then they could still play well. However, these young people's physical fitness was average and their level was mediocre. Compared with them, the regular players, the difference was too big and it was really boring to play against them.
As the game progressed, the senior team led by Wu Dao easily pulled away from their opponents. Until Coach Anxi made substitutions, this group of freshmen were unable to score even a single goal against the seniors.
His layup was blocked by Chiba, his shooting was inaccurate, and even when he was just dribbling the ball, he was intercepted by Miyagi several times. Although Budou wanted to let them win, the first group of people were too weak.
As Coach Anxi made changes to the players, Wudao and his opponents changed five players.
After the substitution, the scores of both teams were reset and the jump ball was repeated. The five new players were slightly better than the last wave, but only slightly. The score between the two teams reached 24:3, and Coach Anxi replaced five players with five.
Wave after wave, wave after wave.
Jinguji Budo had no idea how many opponents they had faced on the court, and no team could score more than 10 points against their senior students.
During the game, Ryumasa Oda, who received attention from Coach Anzai, also played. The freshman team led by him performed relatively well among the many opponents of Budo. Ryumasa Oda scored 6 points against Chiba. His ability was remarkable, but that was all.
After that, Miyagi started to exert his strength and made several strong attacks, easily making Oda Ryumasa commit three fouls.
After so many rounds, Wu Dao was mostly doing shuttle runs, occasionally shooting shots, and grabbing rebounds. The intensity of the game was ridiculously low.
Maybe it was more than ten waves, maybe it was more than twenty waves. Just when Wudao was bored to the point of planning to go off the court to rest for a while, Coach Anzai finally substituted Sakuragi Hanamichi and the other five players.
And this is also the last group of opponents for their senior team in today's freshman training match.
At this time, two hours had passed since the training started, and the senior team had made several substitutions.
Currently on the court are Chiba who had rested for more than 20 minutes, Kakuda who had rested for more than an hour, Miyagi who had been on the court the whole time, Jinguji Budou, and the new player Tetsushi Shiozaki.
In the center circle, Jinguji Budo and his teammates lined up, waiting for the first years to enter the court and jump ball again.
After playing Jinguji Budo for more than two hours, his breathing was even, not hurried at all, and there was not even much sweat on his jersey, and he looked energetic. The others were also in good shape, still in peak condition.
Sakuragi Hanamichi and other special recruits entered the stadium. Nango Koichiro stood directly in the center circle, intending to jump the ball with Chiba Oishi. Kiyota Nobunaga went directly to Miyagi Ryouta, while Katsumi Ichiro targeted Shiozaki. Sakuragi Hanamichi and Rukawa Kaede both went to Jinguji Budou at the same time. The two were aggressive and different from the opponents Budou had met before.
"You, it's time for you two to go on stage."
"Get ready for the jump ball. Don't stand in front of me. I'm scared."
Wudao looked at Sakuragi and Rukawa and said with a smile. Sakuragi Hanamichi turned his head to look at Rukawa, thought for a moment, and actually took the initiative to leave, giving up the defensive position and walked towards Kakuda Satoru.
"This big idiot is quite sensible!" Rukawa was a little surprised by Sakuragi's choice and murmured, and his words were also heard by Wudao.
"You know what's good for you? Rukawa, you still don't understand this Sakuragi kid!"
"He's not sensible at all. He's waiting for you to be beaten by me so that he can take over your failure~"
"I'm looking forward to it! I'm looking forward to seeing how strong you and Hanamichi are now."
"Rukawa, I have personally experienced a higher level of basketball in the United States."
"Let me measure how far you are from there now!"
Facing Rukawa Kaede, Wu Dao's interest was much higher. He stretched his muscles and said to Rukawa Kaede. Rukawa Kaede's eyes shrank slightly when he heard this, and his fighting spirit became stronger.
While the two were talking, Mitsui Hisashi came to the center circle with the ball and blew the whistle to start the game.
“Beep!”
After a quick whistle, Wudao and Rukawa looked at Chiba and Nango who were jumping the ball. Surprisingly, the first-year Nango Kouichiro jumped higher than Chiba Oishi, jumped before Chiba, touched the basketball and passed the ball to his own half of the court.
In the backcourt, Kiyota Nobunaga was quick-eyed and quick-handed. He reached out and grabbed the ball. At the same time that Miyagi Ryouta came up to defend, he passed the ball from behind and gave it directly to Katsume Ichiro.
The latter took the ball, accelerated directly, passed Tetsushi Shiosaki and quickly advanced towards the frontcourt. With Ichiro Katsume's start, Hanamichi Sakuragi, Rukawa Kaede, Kiyota Nobunaga and Koichiro Nango, from four directions, moved towards the frontcourt at an extremely fast speed and with tacit cooperation, which was far beyond the reach of those first-year students before.
"Return to defense!"
This was not the first time that Chiba Daiishi had played a practice match with Sakuragi Hanamichi and the others. He was not surprised at the loss in the jump ball. At the same time that Sakuragi and the others started, he was already running back to defense.
Soon, Sakuragi and others entered the frontcourt. Sakuragi and Nango, who entered the frontcourt first, did not stay on the outside, but went directly to the inside. Rukawa noticed this and changed direction directly, involving Wudao's defense and sinking to the bottom corner.
"Opportunity!" Ichiro Katsume, who was controlling the ball and entering the frontcourt, saw this scene and threw the ball high into the basket in front of Tetsushi Shiozaki.
Sakuragi Hanamichi, who penetrated into the inside, looked up at the basketball, adjusted his pace, and at the moment when the basketball was about to reach his head, he jumped up, grabbed the ball in the air, glided towards the basket, and dunked the ball directly into the basket.
Sakuragi Hanamichi's dunk made quite a noise, but the arena at that moment fell into an eerie silence. Sakuragi Hanamichi grabbed the basket with one hand, his body shaking slightly, and after a few seconds, he let go and fell back to the ground.
"How's that?! This genius slam dunk?!"
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