The departure of the third-year players has caused an obvious weakening of the combat effectiveness of Shohoku High School.
Although Jinguji Martial Arts is in charge of Shohoku High School, he can only suppress some conflicts between Shohoku players. It is obviously not possible to restore the strength of Shohoku High School to the top level in a short time.
Of course, this problem is not limited to Xiangbei High School. Lingnan High School, which was originally similar in strength to Xiangbei High School, is also facing such a problem.
Moreover, the problems encountered by Lingnan High School are bigger than those of Xiangbei High School!
The age structure of Lingnan's players is older than that of Shohoku. The team's starters, Kenji Fujima, Toru Hanagata, and Jun Uozumi, are all third-year players. The main rotation player Ryoji Ikegami is also a third-year player.
Jun Uozumi, the main center, and Ryoji Ikegami, the main rotation, also announced their retirement after losing the national competition.
On the contrary, Hanagata and Fujima Kenji have already been contacted by the university during this summer vacation. Unlike Uozumi, they do not need to go home to "inherit the family business", so they have not resigned from the army and plan to continue to follow them. The team will participate in the autumn national sports and winter trials in the second half of the year.
Although there are only two people missing, Jun Uozumi and Ikegami, this problem is very serious.
Lingnan High School is different from Shohoku. Among their first-year players, there are no players of Uozumi's caliber. The team's current backup center is sophomore Sugahira.
This player's height is very good, and he is now almost two meters tall. However, this guy has a serious flaw, that is, he doesn't gain weight!
Sugahira, who is 197cm tall and weighs only 75kg, is completely a bamboo pole-shaped center.
If this is a primary school student's game, then his bamboo pole-shaped figure doesn't matter, as long as he is tall enough to establish an advantage in the paint.
But this is a high school, and not only the intensity of the confrontation between the inside players, but also the centers of other strong teams in Kanagawa Prefecture are all very tall.
Sugahira can't take Jun Uozumi's place, and he can't be in the starting lineup!
Coach Taoka has already realized this after Jun Uozumi left the team.
Therefore, Coach Taoka's decision was to move Toru Hanagata from the power forward position to the main center, and at the same time, move second-year Yoshiaki Fukuda to the starting power forward position.
Although such an arrangement has been made, Lingnan's hidden dangers are still great because there are no more inside rotations in their team.
In the end, in order to solve this problem, Coach Taoka focused on the first-year players.
The outstanding second-year players were Shinomiya Tōno and Sendō. At that time, Lingnan High School did not produce any results, and there were not many outstanding talents in the second grade.
However, there are some players in Lingnan's first grade who have considerable training value.
The first graders of their Lingnan class were recruited when their Lingnan won the championship, so the quality is much better than that of Lingnan in previous years!
It's just that most of these players are in teams that admire Shinomiya Tōno and Sendō Akira. They are basically defenders or small forwards. Many of them have never been exposed to the power forward position.
In order to select talents, coach Tian Gang conducted an internal competitive selection.
Finally, we found three talented first-year players and planned to focus on training them to supplement the inside line of Lingnan High School.
Tsunayoshi Ueyama, Hiroki Irie, and Koji Takebayashi, these three first-year students came into Coach Taoka's sight, and the amount of training given to them was much stronger than that of ordinary first-year students.
Tsunayoshi Ueyama, a first-year student, is 183cm tall and weighs 77kg. His original position was a small forward. He is good at breakthroughs and layups. He has good physical fitness and can barely dunk.
Don't look at it as a mere dunk, this level is already quite good among high school students. Not everyone in this world has the physical fitness of Sakuragi and Rukawa Kaede.
Hiroki Irie, a first-year player, is 186cm tall and weighs 81kg. His original position was a small forward. He has a very accurate mid-range shot and good footwork, but is a bit slower than Tsunayoshi Ueyama.
Takebayashi Koji, first grader, height 185cm, weight 80kg, original position, also a small forward, good body, good dribbling, good shooting, good footwork, he is a relatively comprehensive player, but his personality is a bit introverted. The human feeling is a bit soft.
If he can get rid of his soft playing problem, Koji Takebayashi will be Coach Taoka's most promising player, but his character has become a stumbling block for him to become a starter.
After Coach Tian Gang established the team's future development direction, he began to direct the team to practice. However, compared to the past, Lingnan High School was missing several "starting players" during these days of summer practice.
Shinomiya seems to be planning to train on his own, and he did not participate in the daily training of the Lingnan team. Second-year Akira Sendō was recruited by the youth training and went to joint training.
Fujima Kenji and Hanagata also took a leave of absence. It was said that they were going to inspect universities.
Coach Tianoka felt that the matters of these people were very important, so he approved them all.
This also resulted in the lack of the team's main players in the daily training of the summer team, which also greatly reduced the effectiveness of team training. Realizing this, coach Taoka decisively changed his training methods and began to develop special training plans for the players.
Fukuda Yoshio practices defense, cuts, layups, and shooting.
While cross-country and grass-planting players are exercising their physical fitness, they are also training on shooting, three-pointers, and passing and receiving abilities.
As for the other players, they need to improve their physical fitness and practice the basics.
The three players pointed out by coach Taoka are to develop their sense of rebounding, improve their physical fitness, and practice their steps under the basket. The entire Lingnan Arena was in full swing.
In the summer vacation after the national competition, almost all teams will have more or less lineup changes.
The most stable one in Kanagawa Prefecture is Hainan. The third-year Shinichi Maki did not withdraw from the team. He chose to stay on the team. Kazuma Takasago at the center position retired. However, the first-year Shigehiro Mori seamlessly connected and became the team directly. Became the starting center.
At the same time, Hainan's second-year players also quickly filled some of the third-year vacancies. This established team in Kanagawa Prefecture has a strong foundation. Even though there were no results last year, it still recruited pretty good players.
Compared with Hainan and Lingnan, Xiangyang, a long-established team, has fallen into a situation of inactivity since Fujima and Hanagata left.
Although the team's strength 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 Xiangyang players in this year's Autumn National Sports and Winter Trials.
The old strong teams fell into silence, and there are also excellent teams from Kanagawa Prefecture joining the ranks of competing for national dominance.
Greenwind High School, which missed this year's IH, announced after the national competition that it would send players to participate in this year's autumn national sports player selection. At the same time, they also announced their participation in the winter selection competition in the second half of the year.
For those who are not familiar with Green Wind, they don’t know the strength of their team, but for the players of Xiangbei High School, joining Green Wind High School in the league means that they have one more opponent to deal with.
Moreover, since Green Wind High School lost to Xiangbei High School in the practice match, they once again used their school's "money" ability, and went abroad to recruit outstanding young players at high prices to join the Green Wind High School Basketball Club.
Nowadays, Green Wind High School has started closed training. Only sports magazines and some reports about Green Wind High School occasionally appear.
No need to think about it, this is also propaganda created by them using their "money" ability. It's just that the reputation of this school is really limited. People who don't pay attention to private schools don't know it at all. Therefore, such important news is buried in the passing time.
Just as all high school institutions are beginning to adjust and prepare for the Autumn National Sports Festival after the start of the school year.
The basketball club of Xiangbei High School welcomed several "guests."
In the evening, the weather turned a little cooler, and the training of the Xiangbei team members happened to enter the period when they were most focused. The players were sleepy in the morning, and the weather was too hot at noon. Only in the evening when day and night alternated, the temperature was good, and the players were at their hottest.
"Bang!"
In the arena, there was a loud sound of a basketball dunking the basket. Nobunaga Kiyota 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 spectators on the sidelines also rang out in the Shohoku arena.
“Well done!!!”
"I will definitely lead the team to victory today!"
The summer vacation is approaching the middle, and the players in Xiangbei have been undergoing adaptive training for more than ten days. During this period, the players have grown very fast. At least, Nobunaga Kiyota has established some tacit understanding with other players in terms of cooperation in passing and receiving.
Earlier, Kiyota Nobunaga was training with the senior senior first-choice players from Shohoku, and he did not adapt to the "low-level" teammates. During this time, Kiyota Nobunaga was also making his own adjustments, and now he is able to play some effective games with his teammates. 's cooperated.
Basketball is a sport that does not mean that the stronger you are, the more compatible you will be with your teammates. In fact, sometimes players have to be backward compatible.
Take a defender as an example. You pass the ball to Jordan and you pass the ball to your grandma. The strength, height, and timing required are different.
Adaptation is sometimes more important than "strength".
"Hey, this wild monkey actually made a slam dunk!"
"I'm really stupid, I took off too slowly!"
Kiyota Nobunaga's slam dunk was completed in front of Nango Koichiro. Nango, who failed to defend, grabbed his hair in annoyance with a look of discomfort on his face.
"Hahaha!"
"How can a fool like you stop this uncle?!"
"You're a hundred years too early, bleached monkey!"
"Hahaha!"
Nobunaga Kiyota, who successfully scored a slam dunk, looked happy, patted his chest proudly, and laughed.
"Damn it! Don't get too carried away!"
Nango Koichiro shouted to Kiyota Nobunaga somewhat unconvinced. Just as Kiyota Nobunaga continued to provoke Nango Koichiro, a somewhat mocking voice entered the arena from the entrance.
"Ah-ah-"
"It's really sad! Wild monkeys, and dyed monkeys."
"That's right. With your ability, you can only practice in the team and pretend to be a master. I'm afraid it won't be your turn to participate in higher-level competitions!"
A familiar yet unflattering voice came from the door. Everyone in Xiangbei who was training heard the sound and looked towards the entrance of the arena. Even Jinguji Budo, who was standing on the sidelines as the referee, also came towards the sound. Looked in the direction.
At this time, beside the door, a red-haired boy wearing black sportswear was leaning against the wall and leaning against the door. Behind him, there was a young man with bangs wearing the same black sportswear, who was also looking into the venue at this moment.
"Sakuragi-san, it's Sakuragi-san! And Rukawa Kaede!"
"Red-haired monkey? Stinky fox!"
"Why are you two back?! Youth training is over?"
"No, it shouldn't be that fast. It's only been less than half a month. You two were kicked out of the team?!"
Kiyota Nobunaga saw Sakuragi Hanamichi and Rukawa Kaede and speculated with the greatest malice.
"Asshole! What stupid things are you talking about?!"
"I'm just a stinky fox, how could I be kicked out as a genius?!"
"This genius is already a starter in the youth training team!"
Sakuragi Hanamichi retorted angrily. After hearing this, Kiyota Nobunaga muttered "impossible" first, and then said with disdain: "People like you can become a starter. It seems that people from youth training can also It’s not that good at all!”
"Fortunately I didn't go."
Kiyota Nobunaga spread his hands. Although he didn't look down on Sakuragi and youth training, everyone could hear the sourness in his tone.
Sakuragi Hanamichi also heard that Kiyota Nobunaga was not sincere in what he said. He walked into the arena and came to the sidelines. He pulled the corners of his shirt with both hands and showed the logo on the chest of the sportswear.
"Did you see that?! Wild monkey!"
"This is the standard for the national youth training team. Do you recognize this logo?"
"Hahahahahaha!"
The chest of Sakuragi Hanamichi's sportswear has "Japan" printed in white in English. Sakuragi, showing off his team uniform, naturally attracted envious cries from the Shohoku players.
"." Seeing this scene, Kiyota Nobunaga could only turn his head away bitterly and did not respond.
Not only him, Nanxiang and Katsumi also looked at Sakuragi speechlessly, wondering why such an idiot could join the youth training roster.
Jinguji Budo, who was standing on the sidelines, looked at Sakuragi Hanamichi, who was laughing and showing off his team uniform. He couldn't help but reveal a smile on his face, and asked Sakuragi with a smile:
"Hanamichi, the youth training camp is not over yet, why did you suddenly come back?"
"If you want to show off your team uniform in front of Qingtian and the others, I think your goal should be achieved."
"Really energetic."
When Sakuragi Hanamichi heard the praise of Jinguji's martial arts, a bright smile suddenly appeared on his face, and he boasted brazenly: "Of course!"
"I'm a national player - Hanamichi Sakuragi!"
It was just an invitation to the youth training, and Sakuragi was already considering himself a national player. Coach Anzai looked at Sakuragi and Rukawa Kaede, laughed loudly, and looked very happy.
Rukawa Kaede, who had been standing behind Sakuragi, couldn't stand listening anymore. He grabbed Sakuragi's head with one hand and pulled Sakuragi away from him. Before Sakuragi could get angry, Rukawa Kaede moved towards Jinguji Martial Arts. Coach Anxi said:
"Coach Anxi, we are here with Coach Otani's instructions."
"Coach Otani hopes that our youth training team can have a practice match with Shohoku!"
(End of chapter)
