Xiangbei High School's deployment of troops really surprised many people.
Even though some viewers knew something about Xiangbei High School, they still couldn't help but talk when they actually saw Xiangbei sending a group of first and second grade "rookies" to the game.
In the eyes of the audience, Xiangbei is really too arrogant!
This is a national competition. If they lose one game, they can buy a ticket and go home. Even if Xiangbei High School is planning to train its players, it can let the senior players show their absolute advantage before replacing the substitutes.
The audience has never seen a formation like Xiangbei's!
In the stadium, Sakuragi Hanamichi and the others could also hear the discussions from the stands. However, Sakuragi and the others were not moved at all. Except for Miyagi, the others were on such a stage for the first time, but they were not afraid at all and were not at all stage fright.
Rukawa Kaede had a calm expression on his face, while Sakuragi Hanamichi, Kiyota Nobunaga and Nango all had excited faces and their eyes were full of fighting spirit.
Miyagi Ryouta, who was positioned in his own half of the court, was smiling at this time and did not take the A-level Touou High School seriously at all.
These new generations of Xiangbei High School are more arrogant than each other!
"Beep—" After another long whistle, the referee stood in the center circle with the basketball.
After signaling to the centers of both teams, the referee raised the ball and then threw it high into the air.
With the loud shouts from Koichirō Nango and Miaki Iwata of Touou, the match between Shohoku High School and Touou officially began.
The lineup of Touoma High School this year has not changed much from last year. The main scorer is Minami Lie, who is already a junior, and the team's second scorer is Kishimoto Misaki, who is also a junior. The center, Iwata Miaki, has a somewhat awkward position in the team and can be considered a blue-collar worker.
In addition to these three players, there were two other players who took the field, namely sophomore Daijiro Itakura and Kyohei Shichi.
Although point guard Itakura Daijiro is only a sophomore, he is the third-leading scorer on the team. He is 183cm tall, has excellent mid-range and long-range shooting ability, and his breakthrough technique is also quite superb.
Compared to him, the third-year player Shi Qiao Jingping is a bit mediocre. He is best at defense and assisting in pick-and-rolls, and his personal scoring ability is average.
Of all the players in Fengyu, Nan Lie is the only top player, and the rest are just excellent. However, each of these players has their own characteristics, and when they are combined together, the power they can exert is very terrifying.
"Pah~"
In the court, after a slight sound, Nango Koichirō won the jump ball, touched the basketball first, and passed the ball to Miyagi Ryouta in the backcourt.
At the center position, Miaki Iwata, who is just 190cm tall, does not have as much explosive power as Koichiro Minamigo, and he cannot beat the explosive Minamigo in a jump ball.
"Hahaha!"
"You easily won my first jump ball in the national competition! Touou, I will lead Xiangbei to completely defeat you!"
Nanxiang Koichirō won the jump ball and immediately became complacent and laughed. Although the young men from Toyotama were irritated by Nanxiang's arrogant boy, they chose to return to defense immediately after losing the jump ball.
Touou High School is good at running and gunning, and has a very good speed in returning to defense.
As soon as Miyagi Ryouta got the basketball and dribbled across the center line, Touou had already taken position and was waiting for Shohoku's attack to come.
In this game, Coach Anxi arranged the triangle offense. This tactic is not only used by the seniors of Xiangbei, but also by the new forces of Xiangbei High School. However, in today's game, the triangle offense of Xiangbei's juniors lacked the role of Ichiro Kumi.
Therefore, the player who filled this corner was Kiyota Nobunaga, whose ball possession position was taken away by Miyagi Ryouta.
The Xiangbei players took their positions, Kiyota Nobunaga sank into the bottom corner, Rukawa stood at the same corner, Sakuragi Hanamichi and Nango Koichiro quickly cut into the basket after entering the frontcourt. Nango stood on the same side as Rukawa and Kiyota, while Sakuragi stood on the other side and moved independently.
With the ball approaching the top of the arc, Miyagi Ryouta completed the pass before Itakura Daijiro came up and gave the ball to Rukawa Kaede.
One of the core elements of the triangle offense—a big core who can hold the ball and play one-on-one!
Rukawa Kaede is the player who plays this role in the current Xiangbei court. Before him, the player who did this job in Xiangbei was always the ace Jinguji Budo.
Coach Anzai's lineup arrangement today is also to train Rukawa Kaede as the new ace after Jinguji Budo.
The one defending Rukawa was Nan Lie from Touou High School. It wasn't that Nan Lie knew that Rukawa was the most threatening offensive player on the field for Xiangbei. It was that among Xiangbei's outside players, Rukawa was the tallest, so Nan Lie subconsciously aimed at Rukawa.
"Nan Lie from Touou High School!"
"Osaka's top scorer!"
The moment Nan Lie stood in front of him, Rukawa Kaede remembered some information about him. He had seen an introduction about Nan Lie in a magazine before, so he knew this person.
The opponent's name makes Rukawa Kaede very interested!
"The number one scorer?" Rukawa murmured in his heart, moving to sweep the ball. After a simple tentative step, Rukawa took advantage of the situation to drop the ball and accelerated.
"Huh?" Rukawa's breakthrough speed was very fast. Nan Lie was surprised at the moment of Rukawa's breakthrough. In just a blink of an eye, Rukawa's position was already level with him, and he quickly passed by his waist and rushed towards the inside.
The extremely low center of gravity of the breakthrough allowed Rukawa Kaede to accelerate instantly and directly cross Nan Lie's defense line.
"A breakthrough! So fast!"
"Who is this first-year student from Xiangbei?"
"Nan Lie's defense was actually breached?"
Rukawa's advance caused a burst of exclamations from the stands, and in the court, Rukawa, who had entered the mid-range, made an abrupt stop and stood up to prepare to throw the ball. However, at this moment, Nan Lie, who had been thrown away by him, had actually come in front of Rukawa, raised his arms high, and blocked the basketball.
However, Nan Lie was a little late after all, and his jumping ability was not as good as Rukawa's, so he couldn't block the basketball at all. However, his defense still successfully affected the accuracy of Rukawa's shooting.
“Ding~”
Rukawa's mid-range pull-up jump shot hit the rim, and Iwata Miaki and Kishimoto Minoru, who were guarding the basket, bent their waists and blocked their opponents.
"The rebound is mine!"
The basketball fell and landed right above Kishimoto Miri. Just as Kishimoto was about to jump up and grab the ball, his head was suddenly covered by a shadow.
A figure actually jumped up and reached out to grab the basketball just as the basketball started to fall.
"What?!"
"impossible!"
Rukawa Kaede missed the mid-range shot, and the basketball bounced quite high when it hit the rim. Kishimoto Miri's jump was not enough, and while he was waiting for the basketball to fall, someone else jumped up.
Under Kishimoto Miri's astonished gaze, that person actually easily caught the basketball that had just begun to fall into his arms. The bright red hair made Kishimoto Miri's eyes shrink suddenly.
"This guy has an amazing bounce!"
After a brief moment of hesitation, Kishimoto Misaki also jumped up, trying to snatch the basketball from Sakuragi Hanamichi's hands, but Sakuragi had already grasped the ball and began to fall.
"What!"
"The rebound actually..."
"Oh! Who is that red-haired guy? He actually grabbed the rebound. And, that guy jumped so high!"
Sakuragi Hanamichi, who successfully grabbed the rebound, completely ignored the screams of the audience in the stands. After landing, he raised the ball a little and easily deceived Kishimoto Miri.
After the fake move was successful, Sakuragi dropped the ball and rushed forward, took a big step directly to the basket, and then jumped up with the ball.
“Bang!”
With a loud bang, the basketball was directly poured into the basket by Sakuragi Hanamichi.
Grabbing rebounds, faking shots, breaking through and slam dunking, Sakuragi Hanamichi's series of moves were clean and smooth, and his powerful dunks silenced the spectators who were originally discussing Xiangbei's formation.
After a long silence, there was a burst of amazing cheers from the stands.
"Slam dunk! What an amazing slam dunk!"
"It looks like he got drunk easily. Who is this red-haired guy? Is he a first-year student at Shohoku?!"
"Ohhhhh! Shohoku!"
Sakuragi Hanamichi, who successfully dunked, was not lost in the cheers of the audience this time. He curled his lips in disdain and said to himself:
"It's just a slam dunk, no need to get so excited!"
"I, a genius, still have other unique skills that I haven't shown you yet!"
When Sakuragi Hanamichi quickly returned to defense, the players on the Xiangbei bench looked at each other in bewilderment. No one had expected that Sakuragi would be the first to score on Xiangbei's side. Moreover, Sakuragi did not even shout and show off after the dunk, which was really a bit counterintuitive.
Seeing Sakuragi's calm look after scoring, Mu Mu couldn't help but nodded and exclaimed: "Sakuragi, this kid, has finally grown up."
However, Mitsui Hisashi was not as optimistic as Murasakibara. He knew Sakuragi very well and was afraid that this kid was planning something big.
"Damn it! I was fooled by such an idiot!"
"hateful!"
Seeing Sakuragi scoring in front of him, Kishimoto Miri grabbed the ball and slammed it to the ground with an unhappy look on his face. After angrily sending the ball away, he quickly ran towards the Shohoku half.
Touou High School's advancement speed was very fast, and in just a few seconds, Itakura had already entered the Shohoku half with the ball.
The one defending him was Miyagi. Facing Miyagi Ryouta who was more than ten centimeters shorter than him, Itakura simply dribbled the ball in the air, broke through like a sheep, and then suddenly passed the ball and took a direct three-point shot.
At this time, only 8 seconds had passed before Xiangbei High School scored.
"It won't go in if you shoot it this fast!"
"rebound!"
Seeing the opponent's hasty attack, Miyagi Ryouta immediately turned around and shouted, but under his gaze, the basketball went straight into the net and fell to the ground.
"What!
!”
Miyagi Ryouta's eyes shrank slightly, somewhat incredulous. When Itakura Daijiro saw the basketball go into the net, his big face came up to Miyagi Ryouta, gave him a "smile", and then whispered:
"Shorty, come and guard me!"
Itakura's ridicule made Miyagi Ryouta's face turn red with anger.
Height has always been his pain, and Itakura's words hit the nail on the head!
"Counterattack!" Miyagi roared and quickly entered the inside. Nango made a quick pass from the baseline and after passing the ball, he ran quickly towards Touou High School's half at an extremely fast speed.
Facing Toyotama High School, which is good at RUN & GUN, the enraged Miyagi Ryouta has no intention of slowing down his pace. He plans to play fast and get back the points he just lost!
"This Miyagi kid is advancing faster!"
"We play triangle offense, so we don't need to advance at such a fast speed."
"What did that guy just say in Miyagi's ear? Has he lost his mind?"
When Miyagi was advancing rapidly, Mitsui Shou immediately realized the problem and said immediately. However, Wu Dao shook his head slightly when he heard it and said:
"It's certain what he said, but to say that Miyagi has lost his mind is impossible."
"You're not a first-year rookie. It's impossible for you to lose your mind because of a few words."
"Just wait and see, it's okay. Although Touou is quite strong, these guys from Shohoku are not bad either!"
As soon as Wudao finished speaking, Miyagi Ryouta was already approaching the three-point line with the ball. His advancement speed increased, and the running speed of other Xiangbei players also increased. While Miyagi was approaching the three-point line, Rukawa Kaede and others had already completed their positions.
The few players on the court of Xiangbei do not have the traditional center to slow down the speed. Whether it is Sakuragi or Nango, their leg strength is very terrifying and can easily keep up with Miyagi's advancing speed.
The Touou players didn't seem to expect that Shohoku's counterattack would be so quick. Center Miaki Iwata was still in the mid-range and had not even entered the basket.
Miyagi Ryouta accurately found the defensive loophole, looked at Rukawa Kaede, but the basketball in his hand was smashed hard towards Itakura's crotch and passed directly into the inside.
"Huh?!" Itakura, who was deceived by Miyagi's gaze, was looking at Rukawa at this time, but the next second, the basketball passed directly through his crotch.
The ball fell accurately into the hands of Kiyota Nobunaga who was cutting into the basket. Kiyota stood up with the ball and, with his height of 178cm, dunked the ball into the basket with one hand.
"oh!"
"Well passed on, Miyagi-senpai!"
After Kiyota Nobunaga scored, he excitedly shouted towards Miyagi. The two men approached and fist-bumped to celebrate, then quickly returned to defense.
The two consecutive slam dunks from Xiangbei High School at the beginning of the game also aroused the enthusiasm of the audience. At this time, even the dumbest person would realize that each of the players of Xiangbei High School is a good player!
Kiyota Nobunaga's slam dunk made the audience even more convinced of this point. A first-year student who was estimated to be less than 180cm tall could actually slam dunk with one hand. This terrifying talent is rare in the entire high school basketball world.
Touou did not dwell on this mistake and quickly organized a counterattack after Xiangbei scored a goal.
This time, Itakura, who entered the frontcourt with the ball, faked a shot and passed the ball to Nan Lie who came up to support him. The latter made a fake shot and quickly moved sideways along the three-point line. After shaking off Rukawa Kaede, he directly jumped up and shot a three-pointer.
With a crisp sound of the net, the basketball went into the net.
In just over a minute after the start of the game, Shohoku and Touou had already fought several rounds. Facing a veteran and strong team like Touou, Shohoku's freshmen were not at all inferior.
Everyone thought it was going to be a crushing match, and now no one underestimated the freshmen of Shohoku anymore.
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