The departure of the third-year players has caused a significant weakening of the combat effectiveness of Xiangbei High School.
Although Jinguji Budou is in charge of Shohoku High School, he can only suppress some conflicts among Shohoku players. It is obviously not possible to restore Shohoku High School's strength to its top level in a short period of time.
Of course, this problem is not only faced by Shohoku High School. Ryonan High School, which was originally of similar strength to Shohoku High School, also faces the same problem.
Moreover, the problems faced by Ryonan High School are bigger than those faced by Shohoku High School!
The age structure of Ryonan's players is older than that of Shohoku. The team's starting lineup, Kenji Fujima, Toru Hanagata, and Jun Uozumi are all third-year players. The main rotation player Ryoji Ikegami is also a third-year player.
The main center Jun Uozumi and the main rotation player Ryoji Ikegami also announced their retirement after the defeat in the national competition.
On the contrary, Hanagata and Fujima Kenji have already had contact with the university during this summer vacation. Unlike Uozumi, they do not need to go home to "inherit the family business", so they did not resign and plan to continue to participate in the autumn national sports and winter trials in the second half of the year.
Although only two people, Jun Uozumi and Ikegami, were missing, this problem was very serious.
Ryonan High School is different from Shohoku. Among their first-year players, there is no player of the level of Uozumi Jun. The team's backup center is Guan Ping, a sophomore.
This player has excellent height, and now he is almost two meters tall, but this guy has a very serious flaw, which is that he cannot gain weight!
Guan Ping, who is 197cm tall, weighs only 75kg and is a complete center forward.
If this was a competition among elementary school students, then his stick-like figure wouldn't matter, as long as he was tall enough, he would be able to establish an advantage in the interior.
But this is high school, and not only is the competition among inside players intense, but the centers of other strong teams in Kanagawa Prefecture are also not short in height.
Guan Pingding can't replace Yu Zhujun's position and can't start!
Coach Tanaoka had already realized this after Jun Uozumi left the team.
Therefore, Coach Takeo decided to move Hanagata Toru from the power forward position to the main center, and at the same time promoted the second-year player Yoshitaka Fukuda to the starting power forward position.
Although such an arrangement has been made, Ryonan still faces great hidden dangers because there are no more inside rotations in their team.
Finally, in order to solve this problem, Coach Tiangang focused his attention on the first-year players.
The outstanding sophomore players were Shimoya Tano and Sendoh. At that time, Ryonan High School did not have any achievements, and there were not many outstanding sophomore players.
However, there are some first-year players in Ryonan who have considerable training value.
The freshmen of Ryonan this year were recruited when Ryonan won the championship, so the quality is much better than that of previous years!
However, most of these players joined the team because they admired Shimomiya Tano and Sendoh Akira. They are basically all guards or small forwards. Many of them have never played power forward.
In order to select players, Coach Tanaka organized an internal competitive selection.
Finally, three talented first-year players were found and they planned to focus on their training to supplement the inside line of Ryonan High School.
Kamiyama Tsunayoshi, Irie Hiroki, and Takebayashi Koji, these three first-year students, came into the sight of Coach Taoka, and the amount of training given to them was much stronger than that of ordinary first-year students.
Kamiyama Tsunayoshi, a first-year student, is 183cm tall and weighs 77kg. His original position is small forward. He is good at breaking through and making layups. He has good physical fitness and can dunk.
Even though it was just a barely dunk, this level is already quite good among high school students. Not everyone in this world has the physical fitness of Sakuragi and Rukawa.
Hiroki Irie, a first-year student, is 186cm tall and weighs 81kg. His original position was small forward. He has accurate mid-range shots and good footwork, but he is a little slower than Tsunayoshi Kamiyama.
Takebayashi Koji, a first-year student, is 185cm tall and weighs 80kg. His original position was also small forward. He has a good physique, good dribbling, good shooting, and good footwork. He is a relatively comprehensive player, but he is a bit introverted and gives people a soft feeling when he plays.
If he can correct his soft playing habits, Koji Takebayashi will be the player that Coach Tanoka is most optimistic about. However, his personality has become an obstacle in his bid for a starting spot.
After Coach Tanaoka established the team's future development direction, he began to direct the team's practice. However, compared with the past, Ryonan High School was missing several "starting players" during the practice during the summer vacation.
Shinomiya Tano seemed to be planning to train on his own, and he did not participate in the daily training of the Ryonan team. Second-year player Sendoh Akira was called up by the youth training team to join the joint training.
Kenji Fujima and Hanagata also took leave, and it was said that they were going to visit universities.
Coach Tian Gang felt that these people's matters were very important, so he approved them all.
This also resulted in the team's daily training in the summer being missing the main players, which greatly reduced the effectiveness of the team training. Realizing this, Coach Tiangang decisively changed the training method and began to formulate special training plans for the players.
Yoshitaka Fukuda practices defense, cutting, layups and shooting.
Cross-country running, grass planting and others are training their shooting, three-point shooting and passing skills while exercising their physical fitness.
As for the other players, those who need to work on their physical fitness will work on their physical fitness, and those who need to work on their basic fundamentals will work on their basic fundamentals.
The three players that were picked out by Coach Tian Gang were developing their sense of rebounding, and also working on their physical fitness and footwork under the basket. The entire Ryonan Arena was bustling with activity.
...
This summer after the national competition, almost all teams will have more or less lineup changes.
The most stable team in Kanagawa Prefecture is Kainan. The third-year player Shinichi Maki did not resign, but chose to stay with the team. Kazuma Takasago retired from the center position, but the first-year player Shigehiro Mori took over seamlessly and became the starting center.
At the same time, Hainan's second-year players quickly filled some of the vacancies in the third-year players. This old and strong team in Kanagawa Prefecture has a strong foundation. Even though it did not achieve any results last year, it still recruited some good players.
Compared with Kainan and Ryonan, Shoyo, a veteran strong team, has fallen into a situation of a lack of successors since the departure of Fujima and Hanagata.
Although the team is still strong, the entire team does not have a super ace who can fully integrate the team.
It is foreseeable that it will be difficult to see Shoyo players in this year's autumn national sports games and winter trials.
The old strong teams have fallen into silence, and Kanagawa Prefecture also has excellent teams joining the ranks in the fight for national dominance.
After missing out on this year's IH national competition, Midori Wind High School announced that it would send players to participate in this year's autumn national sports selection. They also announced that they would participate in the winter trials in the second half of the year.
For those who are not familiar with Green Wind, they don’t know how strong this team is, but for the players of Xiangbei High School, Green Wind High School joining the league means that they have one more opponent to deal with.
Moreover, since Green Wind High School lost to Shohoku High School in the practice match, they once again demonstrated their school's "money" ability. They went abroad and hired outstanding young players at high prices to join the Green Wind High School basketball team.
Nowadays, Green Wind High School has started closed training, and only in sports magazines do reports about Green Wind High School occasionally appear.
Needless to say, this is also a publicity campaign they created with their money power. However, the reputation of this school is really limited, and people who don't pay attention to private schools don't know about it at all, so such important news is also buried in the passing of time.
...
Just as all high schools and colleges began to adjust and prepare for the autumn national sports games after the start of school.
The basketball team of Xiangbei High School welcomed several "guests."
In the evening, the weather turned a little cooler, and the Xiangbei players' training just entered the most focused period. In the morning, the players were sleepy, and at noon, the weather was too hot. Only in the evening, when the day and night changed, the temperature was good, and the players' state was also the hottest.
"Bang!
”
In the arena, there was a loud slam dunk. Kiyota Nobunaga successfully received an assist from his teammate under the basket and scored with a one-handed dunk.
As Kiyota Nobunaga scored a slam dunk, cheers from the players watching the game on the sidelines rang out in the Shohoku stadium.
“Good post!
!”
"I will definitely lead the team to victory today!"
As the summer vacation approaches the middle, Xiangbei's players have been doing adaptive training for more than ten days. During this period, the players have grown very fast. At least, in terms of passing and receiving the ball, Kiyota Nobunaga has established some tacit understanding with other players.
Earlier, Kiyota Nobunaga trained with the senior regulars of Shohoku and was not used to the "low-level" teammates. During this period, Kiyota Nobunaga has been making his own adjustments and is now able to play some effective cooperation with his teammates.
In the sport of basketball, the stronger you are, the better you can get along with your teammates. In fact, sometimes players have to be backward compatible.
Take the guard for example, the strength, height and timing required when you pass the ball to Jordan and when you pass the ball to your grandmother are all different.
Adaptation is sometimes more important than being “strong”.
"Tsk, this wild monkey actually let the ball dunk!"
"I was really stupid. I jumped too slowly!"
Kiyota Nobunaga completed this slam dunk in front of Nango Koichiro. Nango, who failed in defense, grabbed his hair in frustration, looking uncomfortable.
"Hahaha!"
"How can a fool like you possibly stop me?!"
"You're a hundred years too early, bleach-and-dyed monkey!"
"Hahaha!"
Kiyota Nobunaga, who had successfully scored a slam dunk, was delighted. He patted his chest proudly and laughed.
"Damn it! Don't get too carried away!"
Nango Koichiro shouted at Kiyota Nobunaga in a somewhat unconvinced manner. Just as Kiyota Nobunaga continued to provoke Nango Koichiro, a mocking voice came into the stadium from the entrance of the stadium.
“Ah—ah—”
"It's really sad! Wild monkeys, and bleached monkeys."
"That's right. With your abilities, you can only pretend to be masters in team practice matches. I'm afraid it won't be your turn to participate in higher-level competitions!"
A familiar and annoying voice came from the door. Upon hearing the voice, all the Xiangbei players who were training looked towards the entrance of the gym. Even Jinguji Budou, who was standing on the sidelines acting as a referee, looked in the direction where the voice came from.
At this time, a red-haired boy in a black sportswear was leaning against the wall by the door. Behind him, there was another boy with bangs in the same black sportswear, also looking into the venue.
"Sakuragi-san, it's Sakuragi-san! And Rukawa Kaede!"
"Red-haired monkey? A stinky fox!"
"Why are you two back? Is the youth training over?"
"No, it shouldn't be that fast. It's only been less than half a month and you two have been kicked out of the team?!"
When Kiyota Nobunaga saw Sakuragi Hanamichi and Rukawa Kaede, he speculated with the greatest malice.
"Asshole! What the hell are you talking about?!"
"It's okay for a stinky fox, but how could this genius be kicked out?!"
"This genius is already a starter in the youth training team!"
Sakuragi Hanamichi retorted angrily. After hearing this, Kiyota Nobunaga first murmured "Impossible", and then said with disdain: "People like you can become the starter. It seems that the youth training players are not that good!"
"Luckily I didn't go."
Kiyota Nobunaga spread his hands. Although he looked down on Sakuragi and the youth training in his words, everyone could hear the bitterness in his tone.
Sakuragi Hanamichi also heard that Kiyota Nobunaga was not being sincere, so he walked into the stadium, came to the sidelines, pulled up the corners of his shirt with both hands, and revealed the logo on the chest of his sportswear.
"Did you see that?! Wild monkey!"
"This is the standard for the national youth training team. Do you recognize this logo?"
“Hahahahahahaha!”
On the chest of Sakuragi Hanamichi's sportswear, the word "Japan" was printed in white English. Sakuragi, showing off his uniform, naturally attracted the envious shouts of the Xiangbei players.
"..." After seeing this scene, Kiyota Nobunaga could only turn his head away bitterly without saying anything.
Not only him, Nanxiang and Kemei also looked at Sakuragi speechlessly, unable to understand why even such a fool could be included in the youth training list.
Jinguji Budou, who was standing on the sidelines, couldn't help but smile as he looked at Sakuragi Hanamichi, who was laughing and showing off his team uniform. He smiled and asked Sakuragi:
"Hanamichi, the youth training camp hasn't ended yet, why did you come back suddenly?"
"If you wanted to show off your team uniform in front of Kiyota and the others, I think you have achieved your goal."
“Very spirited indeed.”
When Sakuragi Hanamichi heard Jinguji Budou's praise, a bright smile immediately appeared on his face, and he boasted shamelessly: "Of course!"
"I'm the national player—Sakuragi Hanamichi!"
It was just an invitation to the youth training, but Sakuragi already considered himself a national player. Coach Anzai looked at Sakuragi and Rukawa and laughed, showing that he was very happy.
Rukawa, who had been standing behind Sakuragi, couldn't stand it anymore. He grabbed Sakuragi's head with one hand and pulled Sakuragi away from him. Before Sakuragi could get angry, Rukawa said to Jinguji Budo and Coach Anzai:
"Coach Anxi, we are here this time with instructions from Coach Otani."
"Coach Otani hopes that our youth training team can have a practice match with Shohoku!"
... ... ... ... ... ... ..