Extra Preparations; Fast Approaching Preliminaries

Every middle school basketball teams are busy with their preparations for the upcoming big event on their list, the Nationals. Unlike the high school basketball scene who have three major competitions every year; The Interhigh, Winter Cup, and National Sports Meet(The Nationals), the middle school scene only have this one major competition. This is why every middle school basketball team in Japan places great importance on this once a year event.

Unlike the previous Nationals(Junior High) where only 24 teams from all over Japan are accepted, they changed it into 48 teams being accepted to the Nationals to test their mettle against teams from different regions. These said regions are namely: Hokkaidō, Tōhoku, Kantō, Chūbu, Kansai/Kinki, Chūgoku, Shikoku and Kyūshū, the 8 regions of Japan. Each region have an official from the International Basketball League collect some data regarding each region, which will then be tabulated and given to a committee that will decide how many slots will be given to a particular region.

These said data include, but are not limited to, number of schools, number of basketball clubs/teams, tournament records and etc. After the committee are done distributing the slots that are to be given in each region, each region will then hold the preliminaries, depending on how many slots are given to their respective regions.

The number of slots given each year doesn't vary that much and was on average arranged like this:

Hokkaidō: 2 slots

Tōhoku: 5 slots

Kantō: 10 slots

Chūbu: 8 slots

Kansai/Kinki: 8 slots

Chūgoku: 5 slots

Shikoku: 4 slots

Kyūshū: 6 slots

Normally, in regions like Kantō, Kansai, Shikoku, and Chūgoku, the prefectures distribute the slots equally amongst themselves and then start a single-elimination prefectural tournament to determine which team will represent their whole prefecture. If there's still slots remaining, they'll give it to the second best team and so on. Hokkaidō had it easier every year as the whole region itself is a prefecture, a territory to be exact.

The prefectures from other regions like Tōhoku, Chūbu and Kyūshū had to pit the top three or four teams in their prefecture against each other in order to obtain the limited amount of slots given to their region. Their tournament format is often described as a mini Interhigh, one of the three major tournaments in the Japanese High School basketball scene.

After the 48 teams of each district were determined, the Nationals(Junior High) will finally begin in earnest. Unlike before where the tournament lasts for just three days, it was extended by two days due to the sheer amount of teams that is participating. The first four days is designated to the round-robin matches and first three rounds of the single-elimination playoff, while the last day is solely dedicated to the finals and the awarding ceremony.

In the Nationals, the top dogs of their own regions or prefectures will be divided into 16 groups, with three teams in each group, and play a round-robin match to determine the top one team of each group. These teams will then move into the playoffs and play in a 16-team single-elimination ("knockout") playoff format with four rounds to determine the best team in the whole middle school basket ball scene in Japan.

Kyōsen Private Middle School is located in the Kansai Region, specifically in the Nara Prefecture. Since the Kansai/Kinki region consists of seven prefectures namely; Hyōgo, Kyōto, Mie, Nara, Osaka, Shiga, Wakayama, every region gets to have a slot each while the extra slot is given to one of the seven prefectures each year in rotation.

This year, Nara Prefecture will get two slots so the preliminaries is arranged to have two blocks; Blocks A and B. The winner of each block will get a slot each, a ticket to the Nationals.

The trend for the past 4 years that Chu Lin had been invited to coach the basketball team of Kyōsen in this prefecture is that, Kyōsen will always get the spot and then choke in the quarter finals. This is why, even though Kyōsen represent their own prefecture, many teams wanted to dethrone them.

Since Kyōsen is one of the top eight teams from the last preliminaries, these teams needed to first pass the first round in order to even remotely start their revenge or whatever. It's because the top eight teams from the last preliminaries gets seeded and is able to skip the first round of the preliminaries.

Since the preliminaries is already fast approaching, Seiji and his team was subjected to even harsher trainings, courtesy of Chu Lin. He made them practice things down to the basics, not leaving out anyone. From basics of passing, dribbling, defending, and rebounding to their more advanced forms, Chu Lin didn't let anyone skimp on any of these practice drills.

His reasoning to this was that, there is never such a thing as too much knowledge, most especially in this phase of an individual's life where kids their age are beginning to consider their future paths. Teaching them more about the basics of basketball would help them consider what their future play style would be. This could maybe even help them solidify their initial thoughts about it.

Through this hard practice and drills, Seiji's team showed some more improvements. Akagi now learned some more post moves, although he rarely used it because he could just easily muscle his way in, even learning how to perform a hook shot.

Wakamatsu learned how to effectively box out his oppositions for a rebound attempt while also learning how to time his jumps in order to have an upper hand in getting rebounds.

Hyuuga learned slightly about how to create separation through his dribbles. Although his dribbling skills are just slightly above average, it could still help him when he's facing weaker defenders.

Izuki, on the other hand, learned how to utilize his Eagle Eye talent to make plays. Although it's still not that good since he just unlocked this ability last year, it is still a major improvement.

If everyone in Seiji's team learned something some way or another, Seiji himself didn't really practice any move. He stored the moves he saw inside his mind, yes, but Seiji opted to focus more on sharpening his instincts more with the help of Fukuda.

Fukuda didn't mind helping him as this is also some kind of training for him in more ways than one. In one hand, he could polish his offensive game even more with the help of a very tight defense while on the other hand, he could use this opportunity to challenge himself even more. He's the kind of person who dislikes receiving criticisms and, from what he experienced last year, hearing all those people call them chokers, Fukuda is determined to win the Nationals no matter what it takes.

Of course, the same can be said to all the senior members of the Kyōsen Private Middle School's basketball club.

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While Seiji and his team are improving at a fast rate, everyone in Japan is also improving. It couldn't be that they're the only ones improving right?

These said changes are even more notable in a team like Teikō Middle School, who are under the spotlight for more reasons than one. For the first time in many years, Teikō doesn't have any third year in their starting roster.

Their team's main roster had undergone an overhaul so massive that it's barely recognizable. Their entire team is almost filled with first years except for one, and everyone laughed at them for a time for doing such a 'stupid' decision.

Nijimura Shūzō, Second Year, Power Forward, also the captain of the team.

Akashi Seijūrō, First Year, Point Guard, the vice captain of the team. For the first in Teikō's history, they assigned a first year this important position.

Murasakibara Atsushi, First Year, Center.

Aomine Daiki, First Year, Small Forward.

Midorima Shintarō, First Year, Shooting Guard.

With Haizaki Shōgo as the sixth man Small Forward of the team, their team is chalk full of first years except for one.

This line up made an uproar in the middle school basketball team as many thought they were weak. However, people were puzzled when the defending champions released a statement saying that they will be waiting for Teikō at the finals of the Nationals. This made everyone puzzled as to why they would release such a statement.

After a few days passed, word came out that the new Teikō team was a team teeming with monsters. They won all of their practice games, proving that the management did the right move.

It is the beginning of a new era for middle school basketball.

A few days after every middle school received the news about Teikō, the brackets for the preliminaries in the Nara Prefecture has finally arrived. Kyōsen is the seeded team in Block A, while one of the most prestigious schools in the whole Nara Prefecture, the Tōdaiji Private Middle School, is in block B.

Meaning, the both teams will be meeting in the finals of the preliminaries if they win all of their matches, a match to determine the best team in the whole Nara Prefecture. However, this will only be a kind of exhibition match since both teams already have their tickets to the Nationals.

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To be continued…

[A/N¹: Damn. These last few chapters took more time than what I initially anticipated. I literally have to search for a player's profile here and there before I come to a decision of whether I should put him in that prefecture/region or whatever. I couldn't just pull a Japanese name right out of my arse and then call it a day as I totally don't want to flesh out a new character. It's even more time consuming than the method I mentioned earlier. I only have limited time to make these chapters so I don't have the leisure to slowly flesh out a new character.]

[A/N²: Prelims and Nationals are fast approaching so I had to store some basketball games inside my head in order to picture what would happen more vividly. I don't have any freakin' idea as to how the scoring should normally go every quarter or so, that's why I have to do some research. Urk, there's still a lot I need to learn about this.]