Kyōsen Private Middle School Vs Kishiyamoto Middle School; First Quarter

「Nara Preliminaries, Day 4, Block A and B, Round 4: Finals.」

The next day, the day that Seiji and the whole Kyōsen team would face Kishiyamoto Middle School in the semi finals, Seiji woke up early. After his preparations, Seiji, Mia, and Rena drove off to pick up Riko and Kosaki.

Then, when they reached their destination, Seiji and Riko split up with them and headed for their team's bus. This ride will take them to the Sika Deer Arena where the Nara Preliminaries is being held. The day before yesterday, the reason why Kosaki was able to watch the game is because Mia picked her up after school. However, this time, she wouldn't be able to watch since the game would be held during class time.

Because she wouldn't be able to watch the game, Kosaki told Seiji to do his best and that she would watch their finals game. Of course, Seiji is thankful for her support and even teased her about it.

Inside the bus, everyone in Kyōsen's team is already present. Some are still feeling sleepy while others are playing some board games or with their phones.

Seiji and Riko sat at the back seat of the bus where Akagi is also sitting. Because he had nothing else to do, Seiji couldn't help but ask the first thing that comes to mind.

"What do you know about our next opponents, Riko?"

Riko also have nothing else to do right now so she readily engaged in a conversation with Seiji.

"You mean Kishiyamoto Junior High? To be honest, I think their team composition is all over the place. The only reason they won their matches up until now is because their opponents didn't have any answer to their scoring point guard and their three bigs."

Her latter words caught Seiji's attention as this is the first time he's ever heard of it.

"Three bigs? You mean they have three tall players on their team?"

Instead of Riko, Akagi is the one who answered Seiji's inquiry.

"Yeah. They have three tall players above 170cm while their point guard is just around 157cm. Their point guard is in charge of outside plays while their bigs are in charge of playing inside the perimeter."

"Captain is right. Their team composition is one guard, two centers, and two forwards. They didn't have any wing player who's good at three-point shots so they compensated with volume shooting inside the perimeter. Their two forwards are really great at midrange shots while one of their center is good at post plays and the other is good at defending and rebounding."

Seiji is amused at this kind of team composition.

"Isn't their composition quite bad? I mean, they would get easily tired if their opponents are fast and nimble…"

Coach Chu Lin heard their conversation so he decided to join in as well.

"That's certainly correct but that team cannot be judged by normal standards. You see, their coach is quite obsessed with the physicality of the basketball of the past era. This is why he recruited youngsters like you who are quite tall and athletic. He would then train their stamina and how to play inside the perimeter."

Even though Chu Lin answered the questions swirling around Seiji's head for the most part, there's still something he left out.

"But what about their point guard?"

Chu Lin, while stroking his mustache, answered his question.

"Well, you see, that guy is his grandson. That's why he let him play in his team even though he didn't like how he takes shots from the outside."

"Heee… is that so? So, coach, what will be our strategy this game? Do we take more outside shots or something?"

Chu Lin went into deep thought for a moment before saying something that surprised the three of them.

"Well, I want to beat this guy at his own game so I want you guys to also take shots more inside the perimeter and beat them through it."

Seiji narrowed his eyes at his coach since he felt like Chu Lin is quite agitated right now.

"Coach, do you have some kind of beef with the coach of Kishiyamoto?"

※・※・※・※

When Kyōsen finally arrived at the Sika Deer Arena, the whole crowd who's here to watch the Finals matches focused their collective gazes on them, most especially Seiji. It seems like news do travel fast and everyone in this arena knew about Seiji's 102 points game the other day.

After some brief meeting inside the locker room about their strategy this game, Chu Lin immediately dismissed everyone and told them that they should go and warm up now. Everyone knew what they should do by now so they didn't need any instruction from Chu Lin anymore.

"Let's go team! We're gonna win these last two matches and once again prove ourselves in the National stage!"

With Akagi's shout, everyone was immediately invigorated, all of them shouting in return with fervor.

"""OHH!"""

※・※・※・※

After both team's warm up was over, both team's starting line up was called to line up in the center line. In Kyōsen Private Middle School's side, they have: Akagi Takenori as the Center; Wakamatsu Kōsuke as the Power Forward; Arisugawa Seiji as the Small Forward; Kiminobu Kogure as the Shooting Guard; and Izuki Shun as the Point Guard.

In Kishiyamoto Middle School's side, they have: Hayakawa Mitsuhiro as the 'big' (Center/Power Forward hybrid); Hanagata Toru as the Center; Kazushi Hasegawa as the Power Forward; Shoichi Takano as the 'swingman' (Small Forward/Guard hybrid); and Itou Raku as the Point Guard. Their team is chalk full of hybrids than any team in this whole Nara Prefecture. They have some pretty good bench players too but this five is their main roster.

Looking at the average height of Kishiyamoto Junior High's four players, which is around Seiji's height, 177cm, they definitely are a team consisting of big players. With Chu Lin's suggestion of only playing inside the perimeter, Seiji and his team will definitely have a pretty hard time this game.

"The game between Kyōsen Junior High and Kishiyamoto Junior High will now begin!"

""""Let's have a good game!"""

After that, everybody scattered around the centerline with Hanagata and Akagi in the middle, waiting for the tip off. Hanagata is the tallest among all of them so he's the one who's gonna be doing the tip off. With his height of 191 cm, he is taller than Akagi by only a centimeter.

Unlike Akagi who's quite muscular and mean looking, Hanagata looks like a lean gentleman, with his pair of glasses and all. When the referee threw the ball upwards, Akagi and Hanagata readied themselves to jump and go for the ball.

*whoooosh*

When the ball reached its highest point, both centers jumped up and got their hands on the ball at almost the same time.

"WAAAAHHH!"

"ARRGHH!"

With a shout, both of them fought for the ball mid air. It was just a split second but both centers used all of their power to either push the ball or swat it away to a teammate. Both centers have the ball within their grasps so they couldn't take the ball away from each other just like that.

In the heat of their brief mid air battle, the veins of Akagi's temples suddenly started to bulge as he used force to swipe away the ball towards the place where he think his teammate is. Sure enough, there really is a free teammate over there.

"Great work captain! Now, leave the scoring to me!"

It was none other than Seiji who got his hands on the ball. Just now, he used the 「Eagle Eye」 to see all of the players inside the court's positioning before observing the situation.

When he saw Akagi's veins bulge, Seiji knew that he used his 「Gorilla Power」. Thus, he immediately took action and assessed where the ball will be heading. When he saw the ball fly towards the direction where the opposition's hybrid big, Hayakawa, is nearby, Seiji sprinted towards him and grabbed the ball without a hitch.

There is no time to relax though as Hayakawa also noticed the ball and immediately blocked Seiji's path.

"Like I'd let chou!"

"I know, that's why I'll make you move away."

For a brief moment, Seiji's eyes glowed slightly, with glowing rings forming in his irises. In that split second, Seiji got all the information he needed to make Hayakawa move out of the way through his ball handling.

With a few between the legs dribbles, Seiji got ready to attack as he sold out a fake drive to the left, which Hayakawa bought, before pounding the ball to the ground then spinning towards Hayakawa's right. However, it's not over yet as Hayakawa is quick on the uptake, once again blocking Seiji's path in a flash. This was within Seiji's predictions though.

With another series of fast dribbles, Seiji transitioned from a spin move to a crossover dribble, into a behind the back dribble, a V-dribble and then a between the legs dribble, all while swaying his body from left to right and selling out some fakes. This series of dribbles was completed smoothly in just a few seconds, making Hayakawa go into disarray. His body's center of gravity shifted, resulting in him falling to the side, his ankle broken.

Blowing by his defender who is out for the count, Seiji came across Itou Raku(PG), who seems like he's intending to stop him on his tracks. However, it was just a futile attempt as Seiji effortlessly past by him with a series of crossovers and between the legs dribbles to pass by him in a flash.

Finally, with Hasegawa(PF) and Takano(SF/G) trailing behind him, Seiji jumped towards the hoop like there's spring on his feet and dunked the ball with a tomahawk dunk. The crowd swooned at this display of skill and talent as they never expected to see such an explosive start to the finals of a middle school basketball in such a rural area.

※・※・※・※

To be continued…

[A/N¹: Ahh. Can't believe that this is already the fourth time I'm writing a basketball game. I'm definitely not the greatest out there so please bear with me. I'm not really into basketball so I'm still learning as I go.]

[A/N²: That's right. The people in Kishiyamoto Middle School are players from both Kaijō and Shoyo of Kuroko no Basket and SlamDunk respectively. The team composition is definitely weird but I just read a YouTube video about why boomers don't like the current NBA. They said that there is less physicality in it and there are many players who flops like an idiotic fish out of water here and there to draw fouls. I do agree with him at some points but, you know, the only thing that never change is change itself. Whether you like it or not, things will change. The floor is more spaced out these days so there's really less room for physicality in the modern NBA. Not unless you drive to the paint or something or purposely collide with a player to draw fouls. So, as someone who takes inspiration on whatever I come across while writing a chapter, I formed a team that is chalk full of bigs. I also added a winning condition so that there will be more physicality in it! I bet that YouTuber is proud! ;)]

[A/N³: Guess what the glow in his eyes mean?]