Kyōsen Private Middle School VS Yako Academy

「Nationals (Junior High Division), Day 1, Group Stage, Round 1: Round-robin」

Right after the opening ceremony ended, they all went to the designated courts they're going to use and waited for their matches to begin. After years of technology advancement, arenas like these have already eclipsed what it was before.

Today, due to the fact that there will be many teams playing, the majority of the audience seats transformed into an open space which was soon replaced by ready to use courts that could be used by all 16 groups. Technology is really such an amazing thing.

For their match, Kyōsen Private Middle School, Yako Academy, and Yurisei Middle School are assigned at the court number 15. Their round-robin matches will all take place here.

After some preparation, the stage is finally ready for all the group stage matches to begin. In court number 15, the first match will be between Kyōsen Private Middle School and Yako Academy.

Because of the numerous match reviews that they did, the players of Kyōsen knew that Yako have some elite qualities in them. However, they just aren't on a level where they could compete with Kyōsen's current line up.

"The game between Kyōsen Private Middle School and Yako Academy will now begin! Bow!"

"""Let's have a great match!"""

After their lineup, the two teams proceeded to their respective positions for the tip off. The center of Yako is around 186cm but he doesn't stand a chance against the taller and stronger Akagi.

Without further ado, Kogure, who got the ball, passed it to Izuki before sprinting to the other side of the court. The opponent who marked him picked him up even before the three point line but he managed to get away from him using his quickness.

When he became open, a ball arrived on his hands through a bounce pass in which he immediately shot for a three-pointer. The shot sank in the ring with a swish, giving Kyōsen the first points of the game.

Yako wasn't shaken by this play and just continued with what they're doing. After crossing the half court, the players from Yako started running around the court, making players from Kyōsen have no other choice but to chase them. Except for the point guard and the center of both sides, all six players are running around like a game of cat and mouse.

This is where Yako used some screens to search for some mismatch. After they got the mismatch they wanted, Kogure against their power forward inside the perimeter, the point guard immediately fed the ball to the power forward and generated a shot through there.

In response to this play, Kyōsen also started moving the ball around using some dribbles and passes. Izuki, Kogure, and Akagi passed the ball to each other, trying to create some kind of gap to their defense.

A few seconds later, Akagi saw the enemy point guard slightly falter towards Kogure's direction when he faked a pass towards Kogure so he passed the ball to Izuki. Izuki also saw an opportunity so he generated some space between them and shot a comfortable three-pointer.

*swish*

"Nice shot Izuki!"

"Thank you captain. It was also a nice pass coming from you."

"Haha. The opportunity wouldn't have come if Kogure didn't draw the attention of the point guard towards him."

"It was nothing, really."

Probably irritated on himself for committing such a mistake, the point guard redeemed himself by faking a drive towards the rim and then coming at a full stop around 18ft away from the basket before pulling up for a midrange jumper. Izuki couldn't reach him in time because his body was already leaning on the basket's direction when the opposition went for a pull up jumper.

The next possession, Kyōsen continued their team play as they passed the ball to each other, with Seiji, Izuki, and Kogure spacing up the floor for the two inside the perimeter. Around 11 seconds in, with 13 seconds left on the shot clock, Wakamatsu saw an opportunity and tried to go for a layup.

Unfortunately, the center was there to stop his attempt. Thankfully, Wakamatsu saw Akagi who's just behind the enemy center, asking for the ball. With slight difficulty, Wakamatsu managed to pass the ball to Akagi before Akagi converted it to points using the most reliable scoring option in the game, a two handed dunk.

Through such team play, both teams managed to score on each other, with the first quarter ending with the score of 34-27.

※・※・※・※

The second quarter continued in a similar fashion to the first quarter. Coach Chu Lin didn't want to tire his team's ace too much as their team will be playing four games at the span of two days so he had to conserve everyone's stamina.

This is why the game plan for these two days are like that, team play centric. If they could lower the pace of the game, he adviced his players to do it since they needed their stamina in order to win these games.

During the second quarter, Chu Lin told his team to widen the point gap even more, in order for the second batch of players to have a comfortable lead to play with. He told this most especially to Seiji, who's the main cannon of Kyōsen's offensive game.

Seiji of course heard him loud and clear so he did not wait for a pass to come his way anymore and asked for the ball even before they crossed the half court line. With the ball on his hands, Seiji dribbled the ball calmly across the half court line and calmly rose up for a three-point attempt at a freaky distance of 28ft away from the basket.

The coaches from other teams who are watching their game immediately started to frown upon Chu Lin after seeing Seiji do this. In the IBA, much less in the Middle School basketball scene, it still isn't normal for someone to raise up for a deep three of around 28ft and beyond.

There are some distinguished practitioners of the deep trey but they themselves only have around 49.5% made shots in somewhere that deep. Long range shooters shoot threes from around 24ft to 29ft normally. However, that's something normal for the IBA and not in the middle school scene.

The next second though, these thoughts were immediately dispelled from their minds when they saw the ball create a parabola and go inside the hoop with a swish. Of course, the nightmare for all the players of Yako didn't end there.

In the next possession of Kyōsen, Seiji who got the ball from Izuki through a pass is immediately guarded by the one who marked him tightly, not letting him have an open look. However, Seiji calmly dribbled the ball around ten times straight to create space between the two of them, before shooting a three off the dribble.

Then, the next possessions after that, Seiji rained down threes upon them. It came to the point where Seiji attempted 15 three-pointers and made all of them. Not once did players from Yako managed to stop him.

They even tried to double team him but it was all for naught. Seiji could easily go around the enemy with his speed and dribbles or through off-ball movements to make himself free.

By the end of the second quarter, Chu Lin could only smile wryly as he looked at the scoreboard which is now 87-37.

"I did say that he should widen the gap but really is such a wide gap. If Izanagi, Takeo, Tomotsu, Fukuda, and Hyuuga could still lose this game with such a point gap, that would be absolutely idiotic of them…"

Just like what Chu Lin said, Hyuuga and crew didn't even break a sweat as they averaged 28 points per quarter when they swapped positions with the starting line up. The game ended on the score of 142-69.

※・※・※・※

At the side of Teikō who finished their game without even playing themselves, the main players are conversing amongst each other.

"I thought he wouldn't perform this game but he did, and so spectacularly at that," Akashi said.

"His three-pointers are absolutely great and his form is very solid. The way he shoots the ball is quite unique as well. I even learned some things from him just by watching him," Midorima added while adjusting his spectacles.

"Why did he do only threes, though? I thought he's also good as an inside player?" Aomine inquired.

The one who answered him is Momoi who is holding a clipboard in her hands.

"That's probably because his coach told them to widen the lead, in order to pave the way for the next batch of players who would play."

"However, judging by their coach's appearance, he also think that they overdone it a little…" Akashi supplemented.

※・※・※・※

「Arisugawa Seiji's Stats」

(57 points, 10 rebounds, 3 assists, 5 blocks, and 7 steals)

To be continued…

[A/N¹: Easy games is such a pain to write. I have a harder time calculating the scores when the game is too easy.]

[A/N²: Only the Round 1 of the Round-robin matches so you guys need to wait for the playoffs to start in earnest.]