Chapter 83 : More Training & A New Move

It has been three days since the appearance of Alex on the team, and Furihata could feel the sudden difference she brought in the training session. And even though Riko had a hard time admitting it, Furihata knows she also noticed how valuable Alex's experience and appearance are for the team.

Just like right now, when Riko is researching their next opponent, she covered the second-year coach quite well enough, keep shouting and instructing the players from the sideline during the scrimmage.

"Kiyoshi-san, your defense is excellent. But the team would be better if you can take the command on defense. You have to remember that, unlike forward or center, when defending the opponent, those who are in the guard position cannot look at the basket directly, so they will have a hard time to adjust on something that happened quickly. But you who can see the entire opponent's offense from the low post can tell them so they know what to expect from behind. That's why you have to always communicate with the other, okay?"

"Yes, Alex."

"And Kuroko-chan, I know about your special 'invisible' talent, and I have no problem with you doing that in the offense. But you cannot do that when we are in defense. Defense is a collective team effort, so if someone couldn't synchronize with the team, it could turn disastrous for us. Do you understand?"

"I think I understand, Alex-san."

"Mou~! How many times do I have to tell you, call me Alex!"

"Yes, Alex-san."

Yeah, besides insisting everyone to call her by her first name, Alex is very helpful in regards to improving their defense. It can be said that while their offense option is crazy good, the defense has been their weakness since the beginning of the tournament, or maybe since the team was founded a year ago.

As for the offense…

Well, Furihata will not lie, he and his teammates had a lot of fun exploring the strategy that Alex introduced as the 'Princeton Offense'. It was a strategy that was created and popularized in the latest 1990 by Pete Carril, the head coach of Princeton University who led the team to win the NCAA Championship in 1996.

The strategy doesn't have any specific pattern. Instead, it requires players' basketball IQ and on-the-spot decision-making, so depending on the players' basketball IQ, it could be hard to defend against this Princeton Strategy.

And surprisingly enough, Izuki and Mitobe came out as the players with the best on the evaluation after practicing this strategy. But when Furihata thinks about it again, he could understand why.

With his hawkeye, Izuki could grasp the situation of the entire court easily, and his basketball IQ and decision making is one of the best in Tokyo. As for Mitobe, since Princeton's Offense requires the center to play in the high-post and organize the play, it suits the quiet senpai pretty well as he is not the domineering type when he played.

And the last play of the scrimmage really showed the best example of how well both of them grasp the strategy.

Just a moment ago, Izuki who is handling the ball gave it to Mitobe who stayed in the high post, and right after that, the second-year point guard runs from his position on the left wing toward the right wing, trying to set a screen for Hyuga there. But when he saw Fukuda who is guarding the paint area moving slightly to the high post to harass Mitobe, he makes a quick judgment and instead of setting a screen, he performed a perfect backdoor cut from his position to the basket.

"Mitobe!"

Seeing as Izuki is running without anyone guarding him, Mitobe who gets double-teamed by Kiyoshi and Fukuda threw the ball immediately with an overhead pass, which Izuki received easily.

"Nice pass, Mitobe!"

"Not that easy, Senpai!"

Furihata who is eyeing his movement from the start arrived in time just to stop Izuki from making an easy layup. But Izuki already knows that he would be there. So, right after jumping toward the basket, instead of releasing the ball high, Izuki kicked it out to the corner area, where Kagami is waiting quietly.

"Nice pass, Izuki-senpai!"

And without anyone guarding him, the red-haired power forward pulled up a three-point easily, and a second later,

*Splash!*

"Yossshaaa!!!!!"

"Nice offense, everyone!"

"Fukuda, don't panic, and trust your teammates in defense! If you want to help, always communicate first, or your teammates wouldn't be able to cover you!"

"Sorry, Senpai!"

This scrimmage ran for a while until Alex who acted as the referee blows the whistle to end it.

"Good job, everyone! That is enough for today! Don't forget you have a morning session with Riko-san tomorrow!"

"Yes, Alex!"

Because of the next game is approaching in the next two days, the intensity of this training is not that high, causing several players who are not that tired to stay still on the court, messing around with each other.

"Oi, Bastard! What happened? I scored 3 three-pointers today! Cannot stop me?" Furihata snorted at the smug smile he received from Kagami.

"Well, Red. In case you didn't notice, all your three-pointers were coming from you staying away from the ball all the time, right? It was Izuki-senpai and Mitobe-senpai who did the heavy-lifting job, so it was not something that you should be proud of."

"He got you there, Kagami-san."

"HAAA?!!"

Some of the other players who heard the last part from Kuroko tried to hold back their laughter while the others didn't have the decency to hold back they guffawed at the sarcastic remark from their phantom first year. Meanwhile, Alex just looked at the players with a small smile curled on the corner of her mouth, happy that they could maintain the happy atmosphere even after losing the last game. And moreover…

'So, they are the two that changed Kagami, huh? Furihata and Kuroko… Interesting….'

Just by remembering what Kagami told her about those two, she knows they are the major reason for Kagami's change, from arrogant and obnoxious to a somehow more respectful and thoughtful boy in front of her. From a loner into a normal teenage boy with a lot of friends.

She could still remember Kagami's state when he went back to Japan for the first time. He was sulking and brooding all the time, believing that all players in Japan are weaklings and not worth his attention.

His attitude that always looking down on the opponents he deems as weaklings is something that troubled her a lot when they were in America, and it was also the reason for the downfall between Kagami and his childhood friend, Tatsuya Himuro. She was just glad someone managed to knock his attitude off before it could create more trouble for him and his team.

'I am glad he could get over his previous attitude. Maybe, I need to reward those two for Tiger-chan's sudden change? That would be good, fufu~'

Out of a sudden, the two boys who were eyed by Alex from afar feel shivers running down their spine.

"Hey, Phantom. Do you have a feeling something troublesome would happen to us?"

"Yeah, Furihata-kun. And I don't like it for a bit."

"Troublesome…"

Nowadays, Furihata feels more like Shikamaru from Naruto, who will always find almost everything troublesome. Fortunately enough, he didn't pick up the habit of spouting 'troublesome woman' out of nowhere, or his mom would beat him down in a heartbeat.

"Furihata-kun, are you free right now?" Kuroko's sudden question snapped Furihata from his thought. He nodded his head slightly without giving any verbal answer, letting Kuroko form his words.

"Do you mind staying for a while and helping me train a bit?"

Furihata took a glance at the blue-haired boy for a moment before he shrugged.

"Sure. Let's do it."

It has become a habit for Furihata and Kuroko to stay for a while after the end of the training session, as Riko still found Kuroko's basic is not at a satisfactory level. She urged the phantom boy to spend his free time doing more extra training, so Furihata would accompany him sometimes.

"So, what do you want to do right now?"

"I have an idea to incorporate my misdirection with my dribble. Even though it was still messy, I thought it would be a good idea to develop."

"Oh?" Furihata raised his eyebrows slightly, a bit interested in what Kuroko just said. "Interesting. Let's see about it first."

Kuroko nodded and started preparing his move. Furihata also did the same, observing every little movement the blue-haired boy did. He took a step back, letting Kuroko do his movement first to observe what he was going to do. But the moment Kuroko dropped the ball and he blinked his eyes....

"Wait! Where the hell did he go?!"

And suddenly,

*Brugh!*

"Oooowww!!!"

Out of a sudden, Kuroko is already in front of him. But due to something wrong in his dribble movement, instead of passing him, they crashed into each other, resulting in both falling down to the floor at the same time. Yet that doesn't change the fact that Furihata couldn't detect his movement at all.

"Phantom, what the hell is that?"

"That is my new movement. I call it 'Vanishing Drive'." Furihata twitched his mouth a bit at the name given by his friend.

'Of course, he would make a cool name based on his movement.' He shook his head a little before asking another question. "Well, care to explain to me?" He asked with a dry tone. Kuroko pondered for a moment before he began to speak.

"You know the weakness of my misdirection, right?" Furihata nodded. "You cannot participate actively in our play, or the opponent will notice you and deal with it easily."

"Exactly." Kuroko nodded back. "And what I did right now? It was the opposite. The moment you noticed my presence and tried hard to stop me, I will disappear."

This explanation is enough to leave Furihata flabbergasted.

"How?" He asked weakly.

"You know when your eyes are focused on something, you can still look in the other direction that you didn't focus, right?" Seeing Furihata nod, Kuroko continued. "Well, that was what I found called indirect vision. That is also what drives your instinct to react, as any person would think that something that appeared suddenly on their eyesight was a threat. What I did is simple. When I dropped the ball, I know any player would shift their eyes from me to the ball, so right after that, I moved diagonally to escape from your indirect sight and pushed the ball forward to get away from you. Or so that was the theory. But as you can see, it is still not perfect. But I think it was worth trying, right?"

Right after the long explanation from Kuroko, Furihata's jaw dropped as he stares at the usually quiet boy with a dumbfounded expression.

'What the hell?! It could only be done by him, right? I mean, if your presence is not thin enough, you cannot move diagonally without your guard noticing you. But how in the hell could he think about this method? This is insane!'

When he took one more glance at Kuroko who still has his face straight, waiting for any reaction, he couldn't help but let out a loud laugh.

"You are really incredible, Phantom.." Kuroko's face lightened up a bit when he heard Furihata's mutter.

"So, that's good?"

"Yeah. Let's practice that move for a bit. Let's see how far your movement can evolve now."

"Sure!"

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Author note :

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-Zeta Faes-