Year-Three; Prelims, Round-2

It had been close to two decades since Tokiwadai had to participate in Round-1 of Tokyo prelims. This year was no different. Based on their last years' performance, Tokiwadai got to skip Round-1. The seeded schools entered the fray in Round-2, and Tokiwadai's Round-2 opponent was Sagami Middle School.

A school with a history of playing with defensively, Sagami Middle School was your standard defensive team, that prized endurance, and defense to speed and offense.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

At Sagami Middle School team's bench, Sagami's players were getting ready for the game. A second-year member tied the laces of his shoes, stood up from his seat, and his eyes made their way towards Tokiwadai's bench. He saw the silver-haired captain of Tokiwadai, Kageyama Shun standing in front of Tokiwadai's bench and talking to the rest of the sitting team.

Sagami's second-year member watched as Tokiwadai's captain and its starting member went back and forth. He turned to his seniors on the team and asked.

Second-Year: "Senpai, is Tokiwadai really that strong?"

Sagami Middle School had played against Tokiwadai Middle School in preliminaries in Shun's first-year of Middle School. The next year, they played against Teiko Middle School, and both years they were eliminated in Round-2. So, the second-year member had no idea about Tokiwadai's level other than the rumors.

A third-year on the team, who played as the shooting guard, looked up from his seat and started talking with a sigh.

Sagami's SG: "Take a moment and observe the members once again. Tell me, what do you see?"

The second-year once again turned his face towards Tokiwadai's bench and looked at them, but he couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. He turned back to his senior and shook his head. The senior sighed and began pointing out the obvious things.

Sagami's SG: "Look, they have three players who are over six feet in height. One of them is over 190 cm. Just that makes them a difficult team. Plus, Tokiwadai members all are skilled players, and work with excellent team play."

Another sigh escaped the third-year, and he stated the most glaring, dangerous thing about Tokiwadai. He pointed at the player with silver-hair and spoke.

Sagami's SG: "Kageyama Shun is on Tokiwadai, and as long as he is on the team, we will not win."

The second-year felt taken aback from his senior's words that declared that they would lose like it was a fact. He didn't know how to feel about it. He turned his head when he heard another third-year senior talk.

Sagami's PF: "We will be eliminated in Round-2 for the third year in a row."

He sighed and complained about the tournament bracket.

Sagami's PF: "Why did we have to meet Teiko or Tokiwadai so early in the tournament? This is the third year in a row that we end up meeting those two in Round-2.

This will be our last year, and just like two years our season will end just after a single game."

The second-year wanted to say something, tell them that they shouldn't lose hope, that they had the chance to beat Tokiwadai, but when he saw the expressions of his seniors, he couldn't find the words to speak. He could only open and close his mouth as no sound came out of it.

Sagami Middle School entered the game with no hope of winning.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Just before the game started, as per the standard procedure, the captain's of both teams shook hands before the game. From Tokiwadai, Shun came forward as the captain, and from Sagami's side, the team's third-year shooting guard came forward as the captain.

Shun put his hand forward for the handshake and shook Sagami's captain extended hand.

Shun: "Let's have a good game."

Sagami's captain stared Shun in the eyes and spoke after a while.

Sagami's Captain: "...Yeah."

He broke off the handshake with Shun and turned back to walk towards his team. Shun watched Sagami's captain and spoke to himself.

Shun: "Huh, rude... Well, whatever."

Shun turned back and jogged towards his team. He reached his team and clapped his hands to get everyone's attention.

Shun: "Okay, good people. The game is about to start. I want everyone in positions.

Hyakuzawa, get ready for the tip-off. Yuki, you stay behind for defense, in case we lose the tip-off. Kaitani, flank from the left, and Narumiya, you be ready at the right.

I will be in position for a pass from Hyakuzawa, so please move according to the practiced routines."

The team nodded and got into positions as ordered by their captain. But, before Yuki got into position, he stopped near Shun and asked his captain and teammate a question.

Yuki: "Are you sure about following the plan you told me about? You don't have to do it."

Shun glanced at his friend and second in command and replied.

Shun: "I am not doing anything that unusual. I am just changing my area of play."

Yuki looked at Shun and was going to speak more, but decided not to continue. He just sighed and walked to his position. Shun shook his head, and himself got into position.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

The referee got ready for the tip-off and looked at the team to see if they were ready. Both of the jumpers looked at the referee and nodded to show the referee that they were ready. The referee nodded in response and tossed the ball up for the tip-off.

Hyakuzawa and Sagami's center jumped for the ball, and Hyakuzawa was the one to get to the ball first. Sagami's center's eyes twitched as he lamely thought.

Sagami's C: 'They want me to win against a giant of height over 190 cm. No way, I will win.'

Hyakuzawa tipped the ball towards Shun, and Tokiwadai got offense for the first play. All fo Tokiwadai's players moved towards the basket, Yuki passed Shun, and everybody rushed towards the basket, while Shun walked towards the basket, giving everyone time to get into positions.

Shun raised his left hand with his index finger and thumb, out. He looked at the positions of the players and said.

Shun: "Let's take this one slow."

As Shun spoke, he started to move towards the right side of the court, and just as he crossed the half-court line, he vaulted the ball straight to Kaitani, who was inside the three-point line, standing at the free-throw line. The ball traveled from the half-court line to the free-throw line with a single bounce pass.

Sagami's players froze for a moment as they weren't expecting the ball to go from half-court to inside so fast, plus, the bounce pass was so sharp and quick that it made them halt in their place for a moment.

Kaitani caught the ball and moved towards the basket. Hyakuzawa, who was in the post, screened out Sagami's center and allowed Kaitani to score through a clean layup.

Shun seeing the ball drop into the net, clapped as he ran backward for defense.

Shun: "Good start. Let's keep this up."

Near Sagami's basket, the second-year, small forward came out his confusion, he looked at the ball on the floor, and words flowed out of his mouth.

Sagami's SF: "Eh, huh? They already scored..."

The whole play was well coordinated and was executed with good flow. Tokiwadai's members took positions quickly; Shun passed the ball quickly and covered a lot of ground in a short amount of time. Kaitani was ready for the pass and moved speedily for offense, and Hyakuawa minimized the defensive obstacle by screening out the center.

Tokiwadai Middle School scored within the first few seconds of the game and held the chance to gain momentum of the game.

-*-*-*-

On Sagami's offense, they started out slow because of the pause they experienced and lost the chance for a quick counter-attack as Tokiwadai moved back to defense fairly quickly.

Tokiwadai was ready for the defense. They kept an eye on their marks, waiting for them to close in, ready to cut off runners. Sagami's players started their offense, the ball was with their point guard, and while he dribbled the ball forward, their center and power-forward penetrated the three-point arc and entered the inside.

Both the center and power-forward found themselves covered by their Tokiwadai counterparts. The point-guard on the outside frowned when he saw that no one came to defend him; he saw that their shooting-guard and small-forward also had defenders in their vicinities, but no one came to defend him.

His supposed to be guard, Shun was moving on the inside, cutting off paths for any drives to the basket. He felt irked seeing that, and even though his three-point accuracy was low, and he was a rim-finishing point-guard, he decided to shoot a three-pointer.

Sagami's PG: "Don't underestimate me! I will make you regret it."

He stopped at the three-point arc and shot the ball. The ball traveled an arc to the basket and collided with the base of the rim, missing the net. It was a rebound opportunity; Yuki couldn't get into a rebounding position as he and Sagami's power-forward were a distance away from the basket. Hyakuzawa, who was near the basket, got into position for a jump, but Sagami's center used all his effort to box out him.

Sagami's C: "Letting it become a free ball is much better."

But, Sagami's center was wrong. He had poor court awareness and didn't think of Shun who was free, and now had no competition for the rebound. Shun didn't close into the basket and let the ball bounce off the rim and followed it to get the rebound without even needing to jump for the ball.

Tokiwadai members immediately ran the moment Shun caught the ball, and Sagami members also followed to put up a defense. When Shun reached the free-throw line, he passed the ball directly behind him, which caused Sagami players to halt as the ball which was going forward had suddenly changed direction. Behind Shun was Narumiya, who caught the ball and shot a long-range two-pointer.

The shot missed its mark and bounced off the rim, but Tokiwadai's offense wasn't over as Tokiwadai's inside was strong. Under the basket, Hyakuzawa jumped and tipped the ball inside the basket, successfully converting a rebound into points.

-*-*-*-

In the first quarter, Tokiwadai gained an eight-point lead on Sagami, but it was the second quarter in which Sagami's condition started to worsen. The defense focused Sagami had to switch to the offense to reduce the point gap, but unfortunately for them, Shun, who played support for the first-quarter, added defense to his duties.

Sagami's small-forward had the ball, and their point-guard was able to get the ball to him when he was away from his defender. The small-forward felt optimistic about the current possession. He had a good position at mid-range and had no defender near him.

Sagami SF: "Let's start out counterattack with this shot."

He got into his shooting stance and jumped for a shot. But, at that time, he heard his teammate yell out to him.

Sagami's PF: "Hey! Look out, behind you!"

Sagami's small-forward wasn't able to react when a hand came from behind him and smacked the ball out of his hands. He turned his head to see that Shun had blocked his shot attempt. He saw Shun look at him and speak.

Shun: "Sorry. But, the counterattack you were talking about, that won't come."

Sagami's small-forward stood there stunned as Tokiwadai once again scored from a turnover.

-*-*-*-

In the second quarter, whenever Shun saw that his teammates weren't there to defend, he would move to defend the person who had the ball. He didn't interfere when they were in a position to defend, and if they missed there, Shun didn't help, but if the defensive positioning was empty, Shun would move and stopped Sagami's players every time he moved to defend.

And, as Shun stayed inside the three-point arc, Sagami's players began hesitating from going inside and began to shoot from away, but because they didn't have many good shooters on the team, their misses starting to increase. And, they were struggling to get rebounds from the Hyakuzawa and Yuki.

Sagami's offense crumpled because of their choices, and on defense, Shun moved the ball around expertly to get around Sagami's defense. Hyakuzawa was too tall, Kaitani was too fast, Yuki set up mean screens, Narumiya was always in a good position to shoot.

When the second quarter ended, Sagami was down by seventeen points, and they noticed something that completely crumpled their will to play. In the time out after the second quarter, Sagami's shooting-guard laughed as he looked over the stats of the game compiled by the bench players. He noticed something and let out a depressed laugh, which attracted the attention of his teammates.

Sagami's center looked at his teammate, furrowed his brows, and asked.

Sagami's C: "What happened?"

The shooting-guard passed the game stats to the center and spoke in a self-mocking tone in his voice.

Sagami's SG: "Kageyama Shun, that guy hasn't scored a single point in the game, and we are still down by seventeen points, are we really this bad."

He removed his towel from around his neck and put it over his head and leaned forward with his head down. His teammates couldn't see his face when he spoke to the coach.

Sagami's SG: "Coach, pull me out of the game. I don't want to play anymore. We can't win now, put in someone else, I really don't want to play."

His words broke Sagami's morale already feeble morale. From the second half, they played with zero motivation. They played so badly that coach Koetsuji decided that they didn't need Shun on the court and pulled him out in the middle of the third quarter for Sora to take his place as the point-guard. In the end, Tokiwadai won the game with a triple score of 70-22.

Tokiwadai Middle School cleared Round-2 by beating Sagami Middle School. Tokiwadai advanced to Round-3, while Sagami ended their season just after one game.