Wudou Jinguji actually had no idea how much Miyagi Ryouta actually listened to.
After saying that, Wu Dao patted Miyagi on the shoulder and walked away on his own accord.
Miyagi Ryouta looked out the window for a long time without saying a word.
...
The halftime break passed quickly, and Coach Anxi did not give the players any other tactics. Apart from the personnel arrangements, the on-the-spot tactics relied more on the players' free play.
Fortunately, the players have long been accustomed to the coaching style of Coach Anxi, and at the end of the first half, Xiangbei still led the opponent in points. Therefore, even if Coach Anxi did not make any more arrangements, Xiangbei's morale was still quite strong overall.
Soon, after more than ten minutes of rest, Coach Anxi led the players back to the court.
As the players from Shohoku High School and Ryonan High School walked out of the player tunnel one after another, the audience's cheers poured into the stadium.
After a simple warm-up, Wu Dao sat back in the rest area, while the rest of the team members returned to the court at the referee's whistle.
“Beep—”
After a long whistle, the referee brought the ball to the center circle. Akagi Takenori and Uozumi Jun stood on both sides of the center line, slightly bent over.
After a brief signal, the referee threw the ball high into the air.
“Bang!
”
After a slight sound, Jun Uozumi won the jump ball again. The basketball flew towards the backcourt of Ryonan and fell steadily into the hands of Kenji Fujima.
In the jump ball, Yuzumi has already utilized his height advantage to the maximum. Even Akagi Takenori was unable to suppress his opponent in the jump ball.
"good!"
"Play steady and tie the score first!"
After getting the basketball, Kenji Fujima slowed down his advance, shouted to his players, and then advanced towards the frontcourt with the ball.
At the end of the first half, the score between the two teams was 55:57, and Xiangbei High School was only two points ahead of the opponent.
This slight advantage, at this point in time, is actually not much of an advantage at all.
In the second half, there were no major changes in the players of Shohoku High School. Except for Takenori Akagi and Hanamichi Sakuragi in the inside, the outside players were still Rukawa Kaede, Ichiro Katsume, and Hisashi Mitsui.
After Ryonan took possession of the ball, the players from Shohoku High School quickly retreated and took their positions early.
Without Jinguji Budo, Xiangbei was obviously unable to cope with the attack of Shinomiya Tano. In order to prevent the opponent from playing too smoothly, Xiangbei adopted a zone defense tactic.
The only player on Ryonan High School who has the ability to shoot three-pointers is Kenji Fujima, and Fujima's three-point shooting can only be described as good, far from the level of sharpshooters like Jinguji Takeshi and Mitsui Hisashi.
If you give the opponent a little space to shoot, the problem won’t be that big.
However, it is impossible to completely control the situation. It's just that Ichiro Kusanagi stands one step inside the three-point line when defending. If Fujima wants to shoot a three-pointer, although Kusanagi can't block it, he can still provide some interference.
As Ryonan High School entered the frontcourt, Fujima also discovered that Shohoku's defense seemed to be beginning to focus on the mid-range and inside positions, and the defense outside the three-point line relaxed.
After exchanging a glance with Sendoh from a distance, Fujima approached the top of the arc and dribbled the ball between his legs, his eyes looking towards the basket.
Soon, Sendoh, who received Fujima's signal, came over quickly. After a pick-and-roll, Fujima moved two steps to the side along the top of the arc, and then shot a three-pointer.
And since Katsume Ichiro was blocked by Sendoh, he couldn't interfere with Fujima's shot. He could only watch the basketball fly over his head and towards the basket.
“Swish!”
Fujima had a good touch and shot the ball into the net. Amid the cheers of his teammates, Fujima and Sendoh high-fived and quickly retreated. At the same time, the score came to 58:57. 13 seconds into the second half, Ryonan High School immediately overtook.
"Come on! Xiangbei!"
"Score a goal and catch up with the score!"
On the Xiangbei bench, Kiyota and Nango were shouting loudly. Although they themselves could not play, they were even more excited than those on the court.
Wu Dao also took a quick look at the score, his expression unchanged.
Xiangbei's defensive style actually depends to a large extent on Fujima's touch in the second half.
Judging from the first half, Fujima's efficiency was still within an acceptable range. He scored 13 points in the first half and performed excellently.
I just don't know how Fujima's offensive performance will be now that Shohoku is focusing on shooting instead of breaking through.
During the transition between offense and defense, Xiangbei quickly advanced to the frontcourt.
Unlike Ryonan's steady and cautious approach, Shohoku's offensive pace is much faster.
After the basketball was brought into the frontcourt, it was passed quickly between the Xiangbei players. No matter whether it was Katsumi, Rukawa, or Mitsui, none of them stayed with the ball for too long. They used passing and running to try to find gaps in Ryonan's defense.
However, the players of Ryonan High School were all experienced, and their defensive positioning was impeccable. Seeing that simply relying on positioning was ineffective, Xiangbei decisively changed its playing style.
Rukawa received the ball but did not pass it again. He made a fake pass from mid-range and then quickly dropped the ball and rushed forward. Ikegami Ryoji reacted and immediately followed up. When Rukawa entered the paint area, he leaned forward, grabbed the ball with his left hand and quickly passed it under Ikegami's armpit, then made a low shot and sent the ball directly into the basket.
"Um?!"
Rukawa's attacking style is not very special, but this reckless attacking style surprised Ikegami a little. As a defensive expert, he has always regarded Rukawa as an opponent like Sendoh.
Sure enough, Rukawa's shot was inaccurate, and the basketball rolled twice on the basket and slid down.
However, as soon as the basketball left the basket, a red figure rose from under the basket, held the ball with both hands and dunked it directly into the basket.
"What?!"
"Red-haired boy!"
Yuzumi and Ikegami both looked up and saw Sakuragi Hanamichi falling back to the ground one second after grabbing the basket. Sakuragi, who scored a slam dunk, roared excitedly: "Come on! Ryonan!"
After being serious for a second, Sakuragi burst into laughter. Even his teammates couldn't stand his arrogance.
Sakuragi Hanamichi's tip-in boosted the morale greatly. Although the players couldn't stand Sakuragi's arrogance, their enthusiasm for the game was subtly aroused by Sakuragi Hanamichi.
Coach Anxi nodded in satisfaction and said to himself, "Talent is slowly starting to show!"
As soon as the second half began, Shohoku and Ryonan started playing very fiercely.
Ryonan High School seized the weakness of Xiangbei High School's weak perimeter defense and began to frequently screen for Fujima, who really lived up to his teammates' expectations and made three-pointers repeatedly. Xiangbei was shocked by Fujima's consecutive three-pointers, and the defense had just made adjustments when Sendoh directly attacked the inside with the ball.
Just two minutes into the game, Akagi Takenori had another foul. Adding the number of fouls he committed in the first half, Akagi already had three fouls.
Sendoh's attack power is stronger than Rukawa!
In order to protect Akagi, Coach Anzai replaced Akagi with Koichiro Minamigo after a stoppage.
However, when Nango came on the court, Ryonan concentrated its attack on the inside, and Yuzumi's low-post back-to-the-basket shots made Nango suffer terribly.
The third-grader Yuzumi is a lot bigger than Nanxiang, and his height and wingspan are much greater. His simple, clumsy back-to-the-basket moves are enough to teach Nanxiang a lesson.
The inside is a place where the body is king.
At this point, Shohoku's defense line was completely shattered by Ryonan.
Fortunately, the offense of Xiangbei was relatively smooth. Mitsui Shou combined breakthroughs and shots to score points from time to time. However, under Sendoh's defense, Mitsui Shou's hit rate was only the regular average of 20+, and he did not have a particularly high hit rate.
Another scorer of Xiangbei, Rukawa, was also affected by Ikegami's defense. Under the opponent's death entanglement that demanded no physical strength, his hit rate was also lowered. Helplessly, Rukawa could only change to a breakthrough game, but he was also affected by Yuzumi and Hanagata in the interior.
Overall, Xiangbei's offense was not weak, but it was just barely tied with Ryonan 55-50. The difference between the two teams also expanded from 1 point and 2 points at the beginning to 4 points.
The second half of the game lasted for 5 minutes.
The score between the two teams came to 70:66.
The battle between Shohoku and Ryonan was extremely exciting for the spectators in the stands. Just by looking at the scores of the two teams, one could see how sharp the offense of these two teams was.
In most high school matches, the score is 50 to 60, and only a few teams can score over 70 or 80.
For a game like that between Xiangbei and Ryonan, the game only lasted 25 minutes, but the score was enough to show how fast the two teams' offense and defense transitions were and how efficient they were.
Coach Anzai saw that the players on the field were playing attentively, and after a little thought, he decided not to replace Jinguji Budou.
For Coach Anxi, the outcome of today's game is actually unimportant.
Winning simply means getting a seeded spot, having a bye in the first game of the national competition, and not being grouped with seeded teams from other counties during the grouping.
But Xiangbei's goal is to win the national championship, regardless of whether there are seeded teams in the same group. And with Xiangbei's current bench depth, no matter what kind of severe competition system it faces, Coach Anxi is confident that he can lead the team to victory.
The competition with Ryonan is actually a great opportunity, an opportunity to hone the first-year students and allow them to grow quickly!
Of course, what is more crucial is that in the first half of the game, Coach Anzai already had a general understanding of Jinguji Budou's abilities, and he already knew how to change Shohoku so that Shohoku could adapt to Jinguji Budou's abilities.
Players exist for the team.
Coach Anxi has already put these words behind his head.
He wants to use Jinguji martial arts as the cornerstone to build a brand new Shohoku High School!
He wants to fully tap the potential of this disciple. He will never allow himself to hinder the player's growth. Even if Takeshi Jinguji plays for Shohoku, he, Anzai, will still train Takeshi Jinguji into a strong player who can gain a foothold in the American basketball arena!
While he was thinking, Sakuragi Hanamichi scored another dunk under the basket on the court.
The sound of a slam dunk echoed throughout the stadium.
During the transition between the two teams, the basketball had fallen into the hands of Jun Yuzumi in the interior. However, the experienced Mitsui Hisashi noticed that Nanxiang would not be able to stop Yuzumi, so he entered the interior early. When Yuzumi turned around with his back to the ball, he used a "fake fall" to cause Yuzumi to commit an offensive foul.
Seeing this, Coach Anzai on the sidelines immediately replaced Mitsui Hisashi with Kiyota Nobunaga.
How can this be possible? The first-year players must be given a good beating from the national champions!
Mitsui Hisashi and Jinguji Takeshi returned to the rest area and looked at each other. They both realized that Coach Anzai seemed to have changed his mind and seemed to be planning to train the first-year students.
Spreading their hands helplessly, the two sat down next to Coach Anxi, one on the left and one on the right, watching the game on the field.
All the players of Shohoku are freshmen, including Rukawa Kaede, Katsume Ichiro, Sakuragi Hanamichi, Kiyota Nobunaga, and Nango Koichiro.
Coach Takeo on the sidelines was originally thinking about finding a time to put Shinomiya Tano back into the battlefield. But when he saw Shohoku changing its formation, he frowned and immediately knew what Coach Anzai was planning.
After the game had been going on for a few more minutes, Coach Tanaoka found a time to have Yoshitaka Fukuda replace Hanagata.
Originally, Coach Tiangang was thinking about training the freshmen, but when he turned around and looked around, he couldn't find any talented first-year students to train.
At this time, Coach Tian Gang was shocked to find that the quality of the freshmen of Ryonan, which had just won the national championship last year, was far inferior to that of Xiangbei! All the talents in the county were actually recruited by Coach Anxi.
Realizing this, Coach Takeo lost all mood to watch the game. Looking at the active freshmen of Shohoku on the court, Coach Takeo became anxious.
Every time Sakuragi and the others made some progress, Coach Tiangang would shake his feet faster. At that speed, it would be a waste of talent if he didn't step on the sewing machine.
The game on the field was in full swing, although Ryonan did not send Shinomiya Tano and Hanagata on the field.
But the players on the field are not easy to deal with.
Let's not talk about Sendoh, Fujima, and Uozumi for now, they are all nationally famous masters. Even the newcomer Fukuda Yoshitomi is only slightly inferior to Sendoh in terms of attacking power.
Ikegami is also an excellent defensive player with strong physical fitness and rich experience.
With a height of 183cm and a weight of 83kg, he is so sturdy that even Rukawa Kaede sometimes feels embarrassed.
The game between the two teams did not lose suspense just because Xiangbei replaced the rotation lineup. On the contrary, the game became more and more intense.
As the game progressed, the audience also came to their senses and saw that Shohoku's Jinguji Takeshi and Shinomiya Tano were not on the court. Neither Shohoku nor Ryonan cared about winning, and the game entered garbage time, but this garbage time was quite intense.
"Bang!
!”
On the court, Sakuragi Hanamichi held the ball and easily fooled Fukuda Yoshitaka with a fake shot. He then rushed into the basket with the ball and performed a slam dunk directly over the head of Jun Uozumi.
The sound of the slam dunk and the exaggerated dunk stunned the audience, and then enthusiastic cheers flooded into the court. The reporters on the sidelines kept taking pictures, recording Sakuragi Hanamichi's powerful dunk.
With the active performance of Sakuragi Hanamichi, Ryonan High School lost the rebound, and the balance of victory began to tilt towards Shohoku.
Seeing this, Coach Tiangang on the sidelines sighed, thought for a while, and decided not to make a substitution.
His idea was very simple. Perhaps, the players of Ryonan needed the encouragement from the freshmen of Shohoku!
Sakuragi just performed well with a dunk to boost morale, and then Sendoh Akira launched a counterattack. After breaking through Rukawa Kaede, Sendoh rushed to the basket and made a jelly layup facing the defense of Sakuragi and Nango, and scored the ball.
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ..