Nationals Prologue

One month has passed, Coach Yoshida personally trained Hideki on his stamina, and try to instill efficiency with his own energy for him to be able to have reserves on important situations, especially that matches on Nationals are more high-octane and needs every bit of energy and willpower that a player has.

As Tanaka-sensei told them that the matches at the Nationals would be twice a day, including the semi-finals then the 3rd/4th placer match and the Finals. So Hideki's stamina has to be built up. So the training staff had to work Hideki in the grinder, upping his stamina.

Now Hideki feels more ready than ever 

---

Now the day of the Nationals Tournament came and there is a big ceremony for the teams who got in. 

As the teams entered, Hideki saw all of the interesting teams. 

One of them was the team his grandfather was coaching, Shoei High, who had a balanced offense and defense, they don't have an ace player right now but the other teams should watch out for Teppei Kiyoshi the team's starting Center, an up and rising star of the team, like Hideki he has his own set of abilities that helped his team reach the Nationals.

Another team to watch is Seika Middle School, a pure offense team that relies on spacing and three point shots from their up and rising player Reo Mibuchi, their starting Shooting Guard. He is a three-point threat and he has different ways to shoot the ball, and at a really clip and tremendous volume.

Another team is Higashitani Middle School, a pure offense team that also relies on spacing, but for their soon to be ace player the Small Forward, Kotaro Hayama. He has some fancy dribble moves that can lull defenders and get pass them and another thing he's good at is to do ridiculous layup shots that are borderline circus shots and still be able to lay it through the net. Unlike Seika, the team relies heavily on Kotaro to score them buckets.

The next team is Nishiyama Middle School, another pure offense team that relies on their Powre Forward and Center, their soon to be ace, Eikichi Nebuya is the team's starting Power Forward. He literally took the word POWER in Power Forward, as his style of play is centered around his bulky frame and bully ball type of play. The Center is a Senior that will graduate after this season ends.

Next is Minamikaze Middle School a pure offense team that relies this time on their combo guards, Makoto Hanamiya and Shoichi Imayoshi. They both play the point guard position, but due to their flexibility in game, they could play both positions at once. And the pair can shoot lights out virtually anywhere on the floor.

But there is also a stigma around Hanamiya, he may look like a proper basketball player but he and some of the teammates who are his lackeys, they cause chaos on the court, because of causing misfortune on an opposing player, it only happened once this season and it was in the finals of their qualifying tournament. Rumours told that Hanamiya was really happy that it happened and was feeling sense of joy upon doing the heinous deed.

Lastly, the powerhouse team, Teiko Middle School. Teiko is a pure balanced team with players able to do both defense and offense. And they were led by their ace player, Shuzo Nijimura. Shuzo Nijimura is a fantastic offensive player that can do it all on offense, dribble, drive, penetrate, lay the ball, and shoot the ball. Or in short an offensive juggernaut. 

Hideki looked at the Teiko team and felt that they were powerful, but he and his team can match up to them, that's what he honestly felt.

---

During the ceremony the head announcer told the tournament format.

To get the 16 teams out of 24, they will have a three-way single round-robin format and the top two teams will advance to the Knockout Stage.

In the Knockout stage it will be as follows:

Top-16

Top-8 or the Quarter Finals

Top-4 or Semi-Finals

Then the Finals

There is also the 3rd and 4th Placer Match.

All of these will be held this week, with two matches per day.

---

After the ceremony, there was a little breaktime before the teams have to play their first matches in different gyms around Tokyo. In that time Hideki met with his grandfather Ryoma Takeuchi and hugged him. Ryoma bid his grandson goodluck and said that he hope to face them in the tournament.

Which did not happen. 

---

After going to their designated gym, Hanabira matched with two moderately strong teams in the Round Robin, they were the last two matches, meaning they only have an hour break before the next match, while their last opponents have a two hour break. 

The first team was Koujin Middle School and the other was Gekkou Middle School. And these were the matches short breakdown.

Koujin is a school that is physical and aggressive on defense, so Hanabira employed the shooter's lineup consisting of Hideki at Center, Haruto Ito and Shogo Aoki at the Forward positions and Kaito Suzuki and Yuki Tanaka at the Guard spots. 

Knowing Koujin is a school that heavily relies on inside scoring, Hideki was successful on holding Koujin's big men back and get a sizable lead on the first hald, 56 to 34. So Coach Yoshida subbed out Hideki so he can employ a stronger inside duo of Ryota Kobayashi and Daiki Yamamoto switching Ito and Hideki out. Hanabira held on to that lead and never came back. The game ended with 97 to 90

Next match was against Gekkou, a team known for their teamwork, they lost against Koujin in a close match earlier at 100 to 99 score, so this match have a great significance for both teams, Hanabira has to beat Gekou to ensure going to the Knockout Stage and Gekkou has to win with at least 7 point gap for them to advance to the Knockout round and eliminate Hanabira. 

Sadly there is no tie breaker matches in the round robin and tie breakers are usually dealt with score lead in wins or losses. 

Since Hideki was well rested and only played half of the game earlier, he was able to impact the game hugely because Gekkou is weak to defensive teams, their run-and-gun offenses doesn't work that much against teams like Hanabira Middle School.

But unlike Hideki the other Hanabira players were tired, so Coach Yoshida played the bench mob first with Hideki leading the team, it was met with average success, Hideki and the bench unit was trying their best to keep up with the game's pace and opponent's strategy. And the first half ended with 46 to 26 with Gekkou in the lead. 

In the second half, Coach Yoshida brought back the starting unit and then they amped up the offense, and slowly but surely caught up to Gekkou's score, by the last 2 minutes of the fourth quarter, the score was 100 to 92, this is the danger zone for Hanabira but Yuki Tanaka made back to back 3 point bombs in the span of a minute. And Hideki had timely steals as Gekkou players fumbled the ball multiple times resulting in Hideki to get the timely steals and Tanaka shooting lights out in the last 2 minutes. 

The game against Gekkou ended with the score of 104 to 100 in favor of Hanabira. Hanabira Middle School won both games and are the undisputedly the better team going out of that round robin group.

And just like the round robin group, Hanabira coasted through the Top 16 and Top 8 matches.

( A/N: I got lazy of coming up with a team and their playstyle, so I skipped to the SemiFinals. tee hee XD )

Now Hanabira Middle School is on uncharted territory as they are now in the Top 4, and not the the title "Middle School Champions" looks more realistic now they are closer to it.

*Terms used:

Bully Ball - a type of play where if there is a mismatch the stronger / taller player uses this to his advantage and tries to push (without fouling) the opposing player around.