The arrival of the Xiangbei News Agency will not allow the game on the court to stop for even a minute.
After Jinguji Budo performed a double fake pull-up shot in front of Rukawa Kaede, the score between the two teams reached 21:12, and the score difference widened to 9 points. There were only seven minutes left before the game started, but the huge score difference made the first-year students feel powerless.
However, others only felt powerless, but Rukawa Kaede, who faced Jinguji martial arts head-on, felt deep despair.
He felt like he had fallen into a swamp, and no matter how hard he struggled, he couldn't get out.
From the beginning of the game till now, he has not been able to score even one point against Jinguji Budo. He did have a few assists, but for the proud Rukawa Kaede, assists? What the hell is that? !
On the other hand, Jinguji Budou easily scored 18 points over Rukawa Kaede. Don't think that Jinguji Budou scored 18 points in 7 minutes as if he had made a lot of effort. Budou scored points in front of Rukawa Kaede, which made people feel as simple, easy and comfortable as eating and drinking water.
The graceful and agile shooting and the gorgeous and powerful slam dunk all tell the same story.
He, Jinguji Budo, and Rukawa Kaede, are two different levels of players! I'm afraid even Rukawa Kaede himself doesn't know how big the gap is.
The one-sided crushing situation when Takeshi Jinguji faced Rukawa Kaede made the audience watching the game unconsciously put themselves into Rukawa Kaede's perspective, and regarded Takeshi Jinguji as a terrifying villain.
Compared to Jinguji Budo's terrifying physical talent, the audience feels that Rukawa Kaede is just an "ordinary person" like them.
And now, this ordinary person is trying hard to "overcome the powerful with the weak" and suffers repeated failures. How can the audience not empathize with him
Even Sakuragi Hanamichi, who liked to mock Rukawa Kaede, felt sympathy when he saw Rukawa Kaede being beaten so badly by Wudao, and felt a raging fire burning in his chest. After dunking on Kakuda Satoru, Sakuragi Hanamichi felt that the burning sensation in his chest was much relieved.
But when looking at Kakuta Satoru, Sakuragi still had a vicious look on his face, as if he was looking at the villain's lackey.
And when he looked at Wudao, he had the same expression, but in Sakuragi's eyes, Wudao was the villain boss.
As the "messenger of justice", how could he, Sakuragi Hanamichi, tolerate these villains' wanton behavior and remain indifferent
Not only Sakuragi Hanamichi, but also Kiyota Nobunaga, Katsumi and others also seemed to share the same hatred with Rukawa Kaede.
The tremendous pressure that martial arts brought to the first-year students made Sakuragi Hanamichi and others come together closely to try to resist the suppression of martial arts.
In just a few minutes on the court, the two teams exchanged several rounds of offense and defense, and the score reached 24:16.
The first-year students obviously realized that Rukawa Kaede would have a hard time against Jinguji Budou, and the attack began to revolve around the connection between Sakuragi Hanamichi, Kiyota Nobunaga, and Katsume Ichiro.
Today, Sakuragi Hanamichi is no longer the rookie and layman. Now, he has mastered the scoring methods of layups and slam dunks, and he also has the triple threat and tentative step as weapons. Relying on his outstanding talent, he can easily crush Kakuta Satoru.
Not only Kakuta Satoru, but even the third-year Chiba Daishi couldn't stop Sakuragi Hanamichi from charging forward. Of the first-year's 16 points, Sakuragi Hanamichi alone contributed half of them.
However, facing the terrifying pressure brought by Jinguji Budo, Sakuragi, who scored half of the team's points, did not get carried away. Instead, he focused on the game, and his concentration became stronger and stronger than ever before.
“Ding~”
As the sound of a shot missing was heard in the court, Chiba Daiishi got the ball under the basket, but facing the interference of Nango Koichirō, he missed the shot from close range.
However, the rebound had just appeared when Sakuragi Hanamichi, wearing a blue jersey, jumped up first. The basketball had just begun to fall when Sakuragi grabbed it in his hands.
Few people noticed that when Sakuragi Hanamichi was grabbing the rebound, his eyebrows were already level with the basket.
After Sakuragi Hanamichi grabbed the rebound, the freshmen started a fast break. Shiozaki from the senior class was running very slowly and was left far behind by Ichiro Katsumi on his way back to defense. Soon, Rukawa Kaede, Kiyota Nobunaga, and Ichiro Katsumi crossed the center line one after another, while on the senior class, only Ryouta Miyagi and Takeshi Jinguji returned to defense in time.
Three against two in the frontcourt.
To be on the safe side, Budou entered the inside early. Miyagi Ryouta chose to defend Kiyota Nobunaga. He felt that once Kiyota Nobunaga, who was able to break through and pass, entered the inside and cooperated with Rukawa Kaede, even Budou would find it difficult to deal with him.
After receiving the basketball in the frontcourt, Kiyota Nobunaga did not choose to give the ball to Rukawa Kaede, but instead gave it to Ichiro Katsumi who was standing outside the three-point line. Ichiro Katsumi, who was in an open position, simply adjusted his posture and shot a three-pointer directly.
“Swish!”
With a slight sound, the basketball went into the net.
Sakuragi Hanamichi's rebound and Katsume Ichiro's three-pointer, thanks to the efforts of these two people, the first-year team got a shot in the arm, the players were all cheered up, and their morale was greatly boosted.
Jinguji Budou did not hold back against the high-spirited first-years, and he was unstoppable on offense. The first-years tried to double-team him, but Jinguji Budou was as slippery as a loach, not giving them any chance to double-team him.
Rukawa Kaede, who was facing off against Jinguji Budou, was completely invisible on both offense and defense. If it weren't for Sakuragi Hanamichi's strong rebounding, if it weren't for Katsume Ichiro, Kiyota and others' offensive capabilities, their group would have collapsed long ago.
However, the efforts of Sakuragi Hanamichi and others were ultimately unable to help the team win. When the score between the two teams reached 47:26, Coach Anzai on the sidelines finally called a halt to the game.
"The future is yours, and ours, but ultimately it's yours!"
After the game, Jinguji Takeshi said this to the first-year freshmen. When Takeshi said this, his expression was gentle and he looked approachable, which was completely different from his sharp edge on the court.
Although the first-years were beaten badly by the senior team led by Takeshi Jinguji, they were deeply moved to see that their senior, the team's ace, was encouraging them so much. They vowed to practice well and take on what Takeshi called the "future."
For a moment, the conflicting atmosphere between the freshman and senior teams was reconciled.
The game was over, and after several hours of fighting, Jinguji Takeshi and others finally went off to rest. Coach Anzai was not idle either. Based on the result of this game, he began to group the players according to their strength.
It was immediately announced that Sakuragi Hanamichi, Kiyota Nobunaga, Nango Koichiro, and Katsume Ichiro would become the starting players for Shohoku High School.
In addition to these four people, more than a dozen first-years, such as Rukawa Kaede and Oda Ryumasa, have been promoted to the second team. If there is a vacancy in the starting lineup, these second-team players will be the first to fill in and become the starting lineup.
At the same time, some second-year players with poor performance, such as Shiozaki, were disqualified from starting and demoted to the second team.
Regarding this, Shiozaki and others who were demoted to the second team had no complaints. From the day those special recruits started training with the team, they knew that this moment would come sooner or later.
Sakuragi and others who were promoted to the starting lineup were naturally overjoyed. Although Oda Ryumasa failed to become a starting lineup, he also knew that his performance as a leader today was not good, so it was normal that he was not recognized.
What's more, Rukawa Kaede, the star player in junior high school at that time, was only in the second team like him, so what did he have to complain about
After seeing the strength of the senior students and Sakuragi and others, most of the first-year students did not hold out hope of being promoted to the starting lineup as an exception, and calmly accepted the grouping arrangement made by Coach Anzai.
Starting today, Xiangbei High School has divided into three teams for training.
They are the starting players, the second team and the third team.
There are 12 players in the starting lineup, with jersey numbers from 4 to 15. Captain Mitsui Hisashi and vice-captain Kogure Kiminori wear jerseys 4 and 5 respectively, Akagi Takenori wears jersey 6, Miyagi wears jersey 7, Jinguji Budou wears jersey 8, and Chiba Oishi wears jersey 9.
The newly joined Sakuragi Hanamichi got the No. 10 jersey, Kiyota Nobunaga got the No. 11 jersey, Nango Koichiro and Katsume Ichiro got the No. 12 and 13 jerseys respectively.
However, the No. 14 and 15 jerseys of Xiangbei are vacant.
Coach Anxi’s intention is very simple. He intends to use these two starting spots to motivate all non-starting players to train actively. This can also be regarded as a means of stimulation for Coach Anxi.
Looking at Sakuragi Hanamichi and other special recruits of the same class becoming regular players one by one, and Rukawa Kaede being selected into the second team, he felt mixed emotions at this moment.
Does he have any resentment in his heart? More or less, he has a little bit. Rukawa Kaede is a proud person. He doesn't think he is worse than Sakuragi Hanamichi and the others. He thinks that his strength is much stronger than all the other first-year students. Even in the entire Xiangbei High School, there are only a few people who are stronger than him.
However, after being placed in the second team, Rukawa Kaede did not argue for himself.
In a training match, he was beaten by Jinguji Budo. Although he faced the strongest player of Xiangbei, Rukawa Kaede, his data was really ugly. Even if Coach Anzai knew his strength and put him in the starting lineup, the other players would probably cry out that it was unfair.
Although Rukawa Kaede really has the ability to make everyone shut up, Coach Anzai will not do that.
Coach Anzai's decision today actually also includes the idea of training Rukawa Kaede.
After the game was over, the spectators gradually dispersed. The news agency of Xiangbei High School briefly interviewed Mitsui Shou, the captain of the team. The content of the interview was also simple. It was just to popularize simple basketball knowledge through Mitsui Shou's mouth.
Mitsui was not opposed to this. When Mitsui was being interviewed, Sakuragi Hanamichi and Kiyota Nobunaga surrounded Mitsui and made trouble, while the rest of the players were free to move around in the gym. Some players practiced the basics by themselves, and some players spontaneously organized a half-court 3v3 game.
Soon, the stadium became lively again.
However, Rukawa had no intention of joining in. He neither went to the corner to practice alone, nor participated in the half-time game organized by other team members.
Instead, he sat alone in his seat, head down and looking at the ground, not knowing what he was thinking.
"Hey, kid, what's wrong with you?"
"It's just a training match. Are you so autistic?"
"Or are you feeling unconvinced because you saw Sakuragi, Kiyota and the others were selected as regular players while you were not?"
Jinguji Budou noticed Rukawa sitting alone on the sidelines, and quietly came to Rukawa's side and sat on the bench next to him. He looked at the first-years playing a 3v3 game on the field and asked with a smile.
"..." Rukawa Kaede did not respond. It was unknown whether he did not hear it or deliberately ignored Jinguji Budou. He still maintained his original appearance.
Seeing that Rukawa Kaede ignored him, Wudao didn't care and said to himself:
"In fact, I returned to Xiangbei High School this time, not to continue playing in the United States, just to finish what I hadn't finished."
"Ryukawa Kaede, losing to me is actually not an unacceptable thing."
“When I was in the United States, there were many, many high school students who lost to me.”
"You are not the strongest one among those players who lost to me."
The comforting words of Jinguji Takeshi's were really harsh to Rukawa's ears, but when he heard Takeshi mention America, Rukawa, who was originally immersed in failure, finally reacted, raised his head and looked at Takeshi.
"There really are a lot of talented monsters in that place!"
"In strong high schools in the United States, there are many small forwards around 195cm tall, and even guards are rarely shorter than 185cm."
"Ryukawa Kaede, with your physical condition, if you go there, you will find people everywhere, if not a lot of them."
After hearing Wu Dao's words, Rukawa Kaede fell silent for a while. The ridicule from the winner was really harsh.
"I tell you this just to let you know that this world is very big."
"You will experience many, many failures on the road of basketball."
"You will meet opponents who are stronger than me. One day, you will meet an opponent that you will never be able to overcome!"
"You have to learn to accept your own incompetence. Only in this way can you become stronger."
Wu Dao said this and fell into a brief silence.
When he was in the United States, he participated in the Adidas training camp, where he had the honor of meeting Barkley. At that time, Barkley was very interested in the yellow man Wu Dao at the training camp and asked Wu Dao to play a few balls with him.
That game made Wu Dao realize how insignificant he was. He was able to call the shots on the American high school basketball court, but facing Barkley, he was like a rookie who had just learned to play basketball. Under Barkley's defense, he couldn't even hold the ball steadily.
From then on, Wu Dao clearly realized his own weakness.
Now, Rukawa Kaede has been having a smooth journey. After playing basketball for such a long time, the only opponent he has encountered may be martial arts players. Rukawa Kaede's horizons have not yet been fully opened.
"From what you said, you came back because you couldn't make it in America?"
It was rare for Rukawa to react, but his words made Wudao couldn't help but twitch his eyes.
Listen, what are you talking about
"You may not believe this, but I am not only making it, I am doing pretty well."
"I am one of the top 30 high school students in the United States and am known as a five-star high school student."
"If I hadn't played enough games, my ranking would not be a big problem to get into the top ten."
"But... you have to know that every year, there are many 5-star high school students graduating, but not many of them can actually play professional basketball anywhere!"
"Ryukawa Kaede, this path requires a very strong heart."
"You, have you?"
After Wudao finished speaking, he patted Rukawa Kaede on the shoulder and then left his seat.
Rukawa Kaede looked at Jinguji Budo's back for a long time before muttering:
"certainly!"
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