Zooming into the Lion's Den

Months after months, weeks after weeks, and Hideki is now a second year. What changed? Well Megumi is now in the same class with Hideki. That's all, everything is still the same for Hideki.

As for Megumi? Well in the Basketball Club nobody joined the club to be the second manager, even some of her clubmates in the Sports Admirer Club, the girls (or some boys) were either not familiar with Basketball or they were too shy to be near their crush(es).

Then regarding the basketball team? Hideki's the team captain now. Oh, you may ask, how's the team? Well, nothing much has changed in quantity, but the team's most reliable players graduated and one was injured, so it only left them with 6 reliable players. 

Good thing was that there was one new recruit with higher potential than the rest. But of course not on par with the previous players, but he is a worthy addition of the team. His name is Renji Matsuda, a freshman combo guard who brings scoring prowess and defensive tenacity to the team, though he faces challenges in consistency and physical matchups.

For now, he is a welcome addition to the team's reliable 7-man roster, Coach Suzuki would be able to help his shot selection issues, which is a major issue right now, and a little discipline training would be able to correct those. 

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On the other side of Tokyo, a storm was brewing.

On Teiko Middle School, after their long tryouts, there were 4 freshmen who got into the mythical first string of Teiko players. This is a big deal as Teiko is a big team having 3 strings, with the third string composing of around 40 or 50 players, and they are based on a ranking system, where if you are good you go up and if you are bad, you're relegated. 

And being in Teiko's first string meant that they can hang up with the likes of Nijimura or worse (for the other Middle School teams), these "kids" surpassed him. 

In the future they would be heralded as the Generation of Miracles, these players are:

Daiki Aomine (PF)

Atsushi Murasakibara (C)

Shintarō Midorima (SG)

Seijūrō Akashi (PG)

But that would be in the future, for now, they're prodigious rookies with incredible talents, like Nijimura and Hideki was the year prior. 

Will they surpass Hideki and Nijimura? Oh for sure.

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After a month and two, time was nearing again for the Nationals Tokyo Qualifiers.

The qualifier system stays as it was last year, no new changes, even if Hanabira was the 2nd placed team at last year's Nationals.

Of course this 'setback' did not deter Hanabira and most especially the captain, Hideki's, will to finally win the competition. 

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A few weeks later, Hanabira was again in the grind of training when the day of the qualifiers came, unlike last year, Hideki was given the keys to the kingdom, his own kingdom which was Hanabira, him and the team steamrolled the competition.

Unlike last year, Hideki's offensive output shot up with the absence of Benjie and Tanaka, the number one and two option of Hanabira's offense, Hideki was honestly the 4th option. Now it was Hideki, Renji and Ito. 

For reference these are Hideki's from last year and now:

Points 7.7 -> 18.8

Rebounds 9.5 -> 12.1

Assists 7.6 - > 9.8

Steals 3.5 -> 5.6

Blocks 2.5 -> 4.5

Throughout the 12 months, Hideki evolved from his prodigy status into a bonafide ace player for Hanabira, and the scary part is that he is constantly evolving. Which was important for Hanabira's success. Because let's be real, without Hideki, they may achieve going to Nationals but in that tournament, they would have to claw their way into the Finals this year.

After a grueling 8 matches in a week, with Hideki playing in all of them, Hanabira won their groups and was slotted into the Nationals stage. 

This year the committee made some changes in the format of the Knockout stages, to have fewer games, they slotted the previous Top 8 teams directly in the Knockout stages, if there was a team that was not in there, that remaining slot will be given to the team who got a higher finish from the last year's Nationals and their performance this year, by using the point system.

(A/N: If you don't want to have a headache with Math, skip the next portion, and read after the next dash lines)

Formula:

X + Y = Z

Whereas:

X is the the last year placement number would be the highest number if it's in a group. (e.g. 17-24 would use 24 and 9 to 16 will use 16)

Y is the the placement on the point gaps is according to the top 24 teams.

Z is the Magic Number, which was achieve by just adding the two placements (A/N: I won't be anal by dividing it into two to get the weigthed result or something) the lower the number, the better your chance is in going to the direct invite, and playing one less game.

Example is if a random team who was unfortunately not able to get out of the round robin, they would have 24 for the placing, then their average points gap would be 4.2, which is the 18th place in the tournament. It would be 24 + 18 = 42, then 42/2 is 21, so they can't enter the direct placing.

So the factor to get a direct invite would be, place higher last year, preferably Top 16 and have a high point gap against teams they faced in their Qualifiers. Being a dominant team plays a factor.

(A/N: hoped you got to understand that random BS I made up now. But I think I messed that up, If you have a better formula, tell me in the comment section)

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This year, there was some scramble on the seeding as some of the Top 8 teams were still in the tournament but they were considerably weaker, this system would be again changed next year. Where it would be more weighted towards the present performance rather than the previous year's placement.

Of course Hanabira got in the direct seeding, even their rivals Teiko Middle School got into the direct seeding, unfortunately 4 of the 5 Uncrowned King's have to still play a game. And this round is called the seeding games.

Now we have come across an alien term or group name, "Uncrowned Kings". Fret not, as this was a new name coined for the other prodiguous players who lost in the Nationals Last Year, these players include Hideki from Hanabira, Makoto Hanamiya from Minamikaze, Reo Mibuchi from Seika Middle School, Kotaro Hayama from Higashitani Middle School, Teppei Kiyoshi from Shoei Middle School and Eikichi Nebuya from Nishiyama Middle School. 

The Uncrowned Kings would be evidently more louder and recognizable in the future, but for now some experts and analysts coined the term due to Teiko's 4 super rookies, with their dominant style of play that left the others in their dust, this made them the favorites again to win the championship, Hideki and Hanabira would have been a close second if their core players from last year were still here, that was their dream team.

Now speaking of Eikichi, in the seeding game, he was outplayed by Teppei Kiyoshi and was told to try and play the Center position as he thinks it suits him better. This was one of the Quarter Final Matches.

But aside from that, none of the seeding games and Quarter Finals games were interesting, as it saw some teams get stomped, or a weaker team stomps a weaker team. 

Now the Semi Finals are upon us and the matchups are:

Teiko vs Seiho

Hanabira vs Seika

As for how Seika got here, Reo Mibuchi was able to develop a more difficult form of three point shot aside from his usual catch and shoot, which is the normal shooting form. The forms are called Heaven and Earth. Heaven lets him fadeaway and shoot a three pointer and Earth lets him do a shot fake and if the defender jumps, he collides with them and shoot a three pointer after the body contact, which earns him another point via a free throw.

Reo's opponents made them unable to react properly with his shots, and defend more conservatively due to fear of fouling out.

With that, the Semi Finals are games that must be watched.

With the first game, will Ryoma, Teppei and Shoei be able to stop the upstart rookies of Teiko or will Teiko prevail with their winning ways.

On the second match, will we see Hideki be able to counter Reo or will Reo barrage Hideki with constant three pointers in three different forms?

References Used:

Combo Guard - A hybrid of PG and SG, they have the skills to play both position, so in games they can play with either position depending on the team composition.

Shot fake - Fake a shooting motion, use this to fool a defender to stick closer to you to dissuade you from shooting and go from there, either by driving or shooting for real and get a foul, which is called foul-baiting.

Foul bait - bait the defender into a defensive foul.