December.
As the winter trials approach, the heavy training tasks at Xiangbei High School begin to gradually decrease, replaced by frequent practice matches within the team.
Coach Anxi plans to use frequent team practice matches to verify the training results of the players in the past few months. Since they are preparing for the winter trials, Xiangbei High School's team practice match formation is relatively fixed.
Junior high school students training in Shohoku spontaneously formed a group and became the training partners for the Shohoku High School players.
Center Koichiro Nango, power forward Hanamichi Sakuragi, small forward Kaede Rukawa, shooting guard Katsumi Ichiro, and point guard Nobunaga Kiyota.
The biggest difference among them is actually Kiyota Nobunaga, because in junior high school, his grandfather trained him as a small forward and shooting guard. The main ability he cultivated was the ability to rush with the ball and cut without the ball. With Kiyota Nobunaga's amazing jumping, Kiyota's performance in the junior high school arena is often extremely eye-catching.
But after becoming a reserve player at Shohoku High School, coach Anzai's training of Nobunaga Kiyota focused more on the point guard position.
There are two reasons for this. One is that Shohoku already has super scorers like Jinguji Budou and Hisashi Mitsui, and among the younger generation, there are also people like Rukawa Kaede. If Kiyota still plays small forward, it is impossible. There is a chance to play. The second reason is Kiyota Nobunaga's height.
Nobunaga Kiyota, who is not even 180cm tall, can hardly compete with players like Kaede Rukawa at the small forward position, even if he has good jumping ability. There are no advantages, on the contrary, they are all disadvantages.
With this in mind, coach Anzai moved Kiyota to the point guard reserve.
Fortunately, Kiyota Nobunaga's ball control foundation is very solid, and his speed is also quite good. Before he can become a qualified point guard, all he lacks is the overall situation, vision, and passing ability.
These abilities have also improved greatly after he entered Xiangbei.
At this time, a Xiangbei team practice match was taking place on the court of Xiangbei High School.
The two teams in the competition are teams formed by high school students and junior high school students respectively.
For the high school students, the center is Oishi Chiba, the power forward is Satoru Tsunoda, the small forward is Kimibu Nobu, the shooting guard is Miyagi Ryota, and the point guard is Yasuda Yasharu.
As captain Hisashi Mitsui and main center Takenori Akagi, they all acted as referees and stood on both sides of the court, watching the game.
At this time, it was only 5 minutes before the start of the game. The score of the two teams reached 13:8. The leading side was actually a team of junior high school students!
"Come on, play steadily, we will score first!"
In the court, Yasuda Yasuhiro slowly advanced with the ball and crossed the center line. Several other team members entered the junior high school student position early before he crossed the center line, which seemed a bit out of touch.
The junior high school students used man-to-man tactics, and the opponent against Yasuda Yashun was Kiyota Nobunaga. Nobunaga Kiyota on the defensive side noticed that there was a disconnect in the high school team. Yasuda Yasharu, who was holding the ball, was several meters away from his nearest teammate. This was a very good opportunity to steal.
Even if the opponent passes the ball, such a long-distance transmission can easily be intercepted.
When the opportunity arose, Kiyota Nobunaga didn't hesitate and stepped forward to press. It was clearly Yasuda Yasharu from high school. Facing Kiyota Nobunaga's pressing, he actually panicked a little and hurriedly threw the ball out for fear of being intercepted by Kiyota. However, he was so panicked when he played the ball that he didn't notice the direction of his pass. Rukawa Kaede was already staring at Kimugure Kimibu in the direction of the ball.
When Rukawa Kaede saw the opponent's basketball coming out, he pushed his body directly onto Kimugue Konobu with a single lunge. Rukawa Kaede, who was in the third grade of junior high school, was much stronger than Kimetsu Konobu. He directly grabbed his position and intercepted the flying basketball. Then quickly break with the ball.
The moment the steal was completed, Katsumi Ichiro and Kiyota Nobunaga also started to work together, following closely behind Rukawa Kaede to support Rukawa Kaede's fast break.
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As for the high school students, the only one who has the ability to catch up is Ryota Miyagi on the outside.
Three-on-one in the frontcourt.
However, Rukawa Kaede had no idea of passing the ball. Against Miyagi Ryota's defense, he forced his way to the basket and scored a layup. In the three-on-one opportunity, Rukawa Kaede did not rely on passing the ball past Miyagi Ryota's defense, but relied on his own ability to score the ball. Neither Katsumi Ichiro nor Kiyota Nobunaga had any major objections to this.
Miyagi Ryota, who was chasing the defender, was much shorter than Rukawa Kaede. Faced with such a defense, it was not a wrong choice for Rukawa Kaede to choose to fight hard.
As the basketball entered the net, the score of the two teams reached 15:8.
Facing this group of junior high school students, Xiangbei fell behind by 7 points. Everyone felt shameless and eager to catch up.
During the transition between offense and defense, Miyagi Ryota asked Yasuda for the ball near the midline early. After taking possession of the basketball, Miyagi called a pick-and-roll, and then rushed forward with the ball under the cover of Kimugure Kimibuchi. Facing Sakuragi Hanamichi's defense in the mid-range, he chose a throw.
Although Miyagi's mid-range shooting level has improved, when he is not open, his shooting percentage is still impressive.
Sakuragi Hanamichi's defense put a lot of pressure on Miyagi Ryota. The throw was inaccurate and the basketball crashed out of the basket. However, the rebound was also taken by Sakuragi Hanamichi who quickly rushed back to the basket.
"Hahaha! I am indeed a genius!"
Sakuragi Hanamichi, who got the rebound, shouted excitedly, then ignored Kiyota Nobunaga, Rukawa Kaede, Katsumi Ichiro and others who were asking for the ball. He was a power forward and directly drove the ball forward.
His actions were beyond everyone's expectations. Tsunoda and others did not check for a moment, but they were quickly passed by Sakuragi Hanamichi, and they could only chase Sakuragi's back.
Miyagi and others on the outside followed the junior high school students and chose to return quickly, ignoring Sakuragi who was in possession of the ball.
Sakuragi Hanamichi, who was dribbling the ball, crossed the center line and approached the three-pointer. He was faced with Chiba Oishi's defense and was forced to slow down. But here, Sakuragi Hanamichi still had no intention of playing the ball. After a short dribble to adjust the rhythm, Sakuragi actually chose to break through on his own.
Sakuragi Hanamichi's breakthrough technique was trained by Jinguji Martial Arts. Although Martial Arts led Sakuragi to train for a lot of time, but more time Martial Arts allowed Sakuragi to practice basic dribbling.
As for breakthrough techniques, Martial Arts only taught Sakuragi Hanamichi one-handed digging and breakthrough, and then corrected the different three-threat breakthrough that Sakuragi learned from Haruko.
Relying on the digging technique, Sakuragi Hanamichi can increase his speed to the maximum in a split second. The faster and more explosive the player, the greater the threat of digging and breaking through!
And Sakuragi Hanamichi's explosive power...
"Huh?! This kid is so fast!
! "Chiba Oishi just blinked, and Sakuragi Hanamichi's figure disappeared from his eyes. He took the ball and came to his side. Before Chiba could react, Sakuragi Hanamichi had already passed by. Chiba Oishi's defense directly invaded the basket and made a layup near the basket.
"Don't even think about it!" Tsunoda Satoru under the basket saw Sakuragi Hanamichi trying to lay up, and raised his arms directly to try to block the shot, but his jumping was really inferior to Sakuragi. Even if he jumped with all his strength and raised his arms, it was just It only reaches Sakuragi's forearm, which poses no threat to Sakuragi's layup.
When Sakuragi held the ball for a layup, he lowered his eyelids slightly in mid-air. He glanced at Tsunoda Satoru indifferently, stopped looking at him, and successfully sent the ball into the basket.
"Hoho~~~"
Sakuragi, who scored a goal and hit the ground, hammered his chest happily, and then quickly returned to defense with his teammates. Kiyota Nobunaga originally wanted to say something to Sakuragi, but unexpectedly Sakuragi actually succeeded in scoring. This situation forced Kiyota to swallow the words that came to his mouth.
He didn't expect that Sakuragi Hanamichi, an outsider, actually broke through Chiba's defense and scored the ball in one dragon.
"Hoo ho ho..."
"Sakuragi-san, your layup skills are getting better and better."
"That digging step to break through was also quite beautiful!"
"Such a breakthrough technology requires not only strong explosive power, but also high proficiency."
"During normal training, I didn't see Sakuragi-san training this technique. It seems that after training, Sakuragi-san is also working hard in private."
Coach Anzai on the sidelines smiled happily when he saw Sakuragi's goal. Caiko, who was sitting on the edge, glanced at the happy coach Anxi and smiled knowingly.
For more than a month, it is no secret at Shohoku High School that Coach Anzai has given Sakuragi Hanamichi and Rukawa Kaede a small start.
The rest of the team members would be lying if they said they weren't envious, but they didn't have the courage to ask Coach Anxi to help them.
Mitsui Hisashi, on the other hand, once shamelessly went to coach Anzai, but coach Anxi's answer to Mitsui Hisashi was: "You already have a mature style. In terms of technology, I can no longer give you guidance."
This made Mitsui Shou greatly disappointed, but also secretly happy. Coach Anzai's words were not perfunctory, Mitsui Hisashi knew this very well. What Mitsui Hisashi has to do at this stage is to practice non-stop and completely master all the abilities he has mastered! The guidance that Coach Anxi can give him is more about playing ideas.
However, after Mitsui Hisashi shamelessly asked Coach Anzai for guidance, Coach Anzai also realized that his partiality seemed to be too much, and then announced to the players that after the team’s normal standard training time, interested players Team members can stay for additional training.
However, the daily training in Xiangbei is already very heavy. Most of the players have no energy and physical strength after a day of training, so they stay for more training.
Therefore, Coach Anzai's Xiaozao class only has those few junior high school students, as well as Akagi, Mumu, and Miyagi. As for Mitsui, although he does not need the individual guidance of Coach Anzai, he will still stay and practice shooting when he has extra strength, or help act as an assistant coach.
Sakuragi Hanamichi's solo breakthrough was just an accident. The most important offensive system for junior high school students was the mid-to-long-range offense that revolved around Rukawa Kaede and Katsumi Ichiro.
In today's game, Rukawa Kaede made many shots from the mid-range or near the three-point line. As for Katsumi Ichiro, he shot more open three-pointers. When there was no such opportunity, he chose to give it to Rukawa Kaede. Go fight.
The one guarding Rukawa Kaede was Konobu Mumu. Facing Mumu, who was nearly ten centimeters shorter than him, Rukawa Kaede just kept using pull-up jumpers, beating Konobu Mumu without a trace of temper.
Not only did Kaede Rukawa and Ichiro Katsumi have high shooting percentages, the inside strength of junior high school students was also much higher than that of high school students. Nango Koichiro did not fall behind when facing Shohoku's main power forward Chiba Oishi, and even relied on his excellent athletic ability to vaguely beat Chiba.
As for the matchup between Sakuragi Hanamichi and Tsunoda, it was a one-sided crushing.
Regardless of height, strength, athletic ability, etc., Sakuragi Hanamichi crushed Tsunoda Satoru in all aspects. When he was stuck under the basket, he was often able to find Tsunoda.
Sakuragi has been playing for nearly eight months. In terms of rebounding ability alone, he has the qualities of a top power forward in the county. He can even be ranked number one among high school students nationwide.
The speed of progress is so fast that everyone is stunned.
Players like Tsunoda Satoru are no longer Sakuragi's opponents.
Even if Takenori Akagi comes to the court to watch Sakuragi personally, he can only rely on experience and strength to deal with Sakuragi. In the competition for rebounds, he may not be able to suppress Hanamichi Sakuragi.
Kaede Rukawa and Ichiro Katsumi are included in the offense, Koichiro Nango and Hanamichi Sakuragi are included in the interior and rebounding, and Nobunaga Kiyota, although his presence seems to be thin, has repeatedly pressed Yasuda and caused the opponent to make mistakes. At the same time, he himself has also done it 0 mistakes.
As the game progressed, the junior high school team began to widen the score difference, and it did so very quickly.
Seeing this scene, Coach Anzai realized that this might not be effective in the training match. When the game lasted 10 minutes, he replaced Yasuda and Tsunoda and sent in Takenori Akagi and Hisashi Mitsui.
At this point, Xiangbei's lineup on the court can be said to be the strongest lineup in Xiangbei today.
But even if Hisashi Mitsui and Takenori Akagi are on the court, it is still very difficult for high school students to chase points. The arrival of Akagi has indeed strengthened the inside line, but in the competition for rebounds, the junior high school students are not weak at all.
Although Hisashi Mitsui filled in the outside offense of high school students, Rukawa Kaede, who faced him, became slippery. From the beginning of playing alone, he began to share the ball.
Under the leadership of Kaede Rukawa, Katsumi Ichiro played better and better. Kimibu Nobubu, who was guarding him, couldn't guard Katsumi Ichiro's three-pointers at all.
For a time, Xiangbei, who had the strongest lineup at this stage, was only evenly matched with the junior high school students. There was no way to quickly chase points and could only barely maintain the point difference.
“These junior high school students are really amazing!”
"Kaede Rukawa, who was not inferior even against Captain Mitsui, Hanamichi Sakuragi and Koichiro Nango, who competed with Akagi-senpai and Chiba-senpai for rebounds, Katsumi Ichiro, the shooter who couldn't even guard Kigure-senpai, and... Kiyota Nobunaga never made a mistake in pressing Miyagi-senpai."
"It's really hard to imagine that these junior high school students can actually compete with our main selection in northern Hunan."
"Fortunately... in the coming year, these people will be able to join Xiangbei."
Yasuda Yasharu, who returned to the court, wiped his sweat with a towel and sighed while sitting on his seat.
"Yes! That Sakuragi Hanamichi is growing up so fast. How long did it take? I feel like I can't stop him at all."
"A guy like this has only played for less than a year."
Tsunoda Satoru squinted his eyes and agreed, with a look of exhaustion on his face. Although the confrontation with Sakuragi didn't last long, it exhausted all his energy.
The comments of the team members all fell in the ears of Coach Anxi. In response, Coach Anxi also wore a dull smile and said nothing. But in his heart, he sighed heavily. Without Jinguji Martial Arts, the high school team's strength dropped by more than one level.
According to the current strength of the team, it may be difficult to qualify in the winter trials.
Without Jinguji Martial Arts, how could one cross the mountain of Lingnan High School?
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