Chapter 10: Katagiri vs Shizuka
[3rd Person POV]
""Katagiri Junior High vs Shizuka Junior High! Start!""
A whistle blew and the ref tossed the ball up with Kawahara beating Mitobe in the jump, perfectly knocking it to Arata. Arata took an almost unnoticeable glance toward Ryosei who seemed to just be sitting casually on the bench, but the perceptive eye would notice small movements.
Ryosei had noticed in the first week of practice that Arata had a sharp eye, it couldn't be called an eagle eye or anything that good. However it was good enough for what Ryosei needed it for. A facial twitch here an adjustment of his hair tie, and Arata knew to run play 10.
Bring Kawahara forward, pass to Teshima, if open he takes a 3 while Ikehara plays under the rim. If it misses Kawahara most likely brought the tallest guy on the team farther away from the goal, while most teams will underestimate Ikehara's ability to jump. However if it's not an open shot he quickly passes back to Arata rushes toward Kawahara who screens his mark. Arata then has a choice to drive or pass to Otake for an easy 2 point shot.
Because by this point any non high level team will have gotten jumbled and tangled on each other leaving Otake open. Which is just what happened. A Shizuka player accidentally ran into Mitobe in transition stunning them both, allowing Kawahara to pick up Otake's mark, and with an easy bounce pass from Arata Otake made the easy shot for the first score of the game.
Taking another glance at Ryosei, Arata calls for full court man to man. Arata can only grin at Ryosei's ruthlessness, the other team probably thinks it was just accident, but realistically it was all calculated. They go to inbound the ball only for Ikehara to spear the ball toward Teshima outside the arc, who quickly drains a 3 while tears are pouring from his eyes.
With that it was quickly a 5-0 game in only 15 seconds. The crowd was surprised and specifically the other teams in the stands were surprised. Most of them had played against Katagiri for years and had always crushed them. Katagiri was never a competitive basketball team, and while they don't look polished these plays they were running were putting them in perfect positions.
However that's what confused them even further, when they looked toward the bench expecting to find some seasoned coach come out of retirement to turn the team around. Instead they find another player sitting on the bench right leg crossed over his left lazily twirling a loose strand of his dark black hair that had a slight blue sheen to it.
Obviously Momoi and Teiko noticed this as well, seeing as they knew the bracket already she had gathered all information on block A teams that she could, but that left all block B teams to not be a priority.
[Momoi POV]
Who is this team? Katagiri? I've never heard of them before, these plays are extremely well thought out. Is their point guard that good? I'll have to study him closer.
As I strain my eyes to look closer, I'm confused. While I don't have my usual data and research on this team, just from what I'm seeing they don't look that skilled. Number 5 is listed as Arata Haru, position "?" ? They don't know his own position?
Looking at the rest everyone except Kawahara Yoshiaki have questions marks, while he is number 8 and is the Center. He's also labeled as the Captain, but I swear the loud mouthed one, number 6 Ikehara Kichirou called the one on the bench Captain.
"Hmmm" I hear Aomine hum across from me.
"What is it Dai-chan?"
(AN: I didn't want to add honorifics, but it almost feels like you have to when Momoi is talking to Aomine. If that's too confusing I'll just have her call him Daiki until they get to high school, since she calls him "Aomine-kun" a lot more in High school)
"That guy down there is the one that taught Kuroko his new shot I was telling you about. The guy on the bench, he also has a low presence like Kuroko."
My eyes widen at this as I look to Tetsu for confirmation and he nods to my look of shock. I turn back to the court and focus my eyes on this mystery person. He has his track suit on so I can't see his number, but being the only one not on the court he has to be number 31 Aida Ryosei.
As I'm thinking about that I notice that he has looked up here and gives a bright smile and wave to us. My heart beats a little faster as he's quite handsome, he must be really popular with the ladies. I can also feel my face heating up a little before I hear Dai-chan laugh, which causes it to heat up even more.
I roll up my papers and whack him over the head.
"Is something wrong Momoi?" Kuroko asks with a confused expression.
"Nono nothing's wrong, Dai-chan was just asking to be hit." This caused him to laugh again but more constrained. I could only huff and promise to pay him back later for that.
Looking back at the game the first quarter of Katagiri's game was ending, I missed half the quarter because of Dai-chan but I'm almost positive Arata is not the brains behind this team. The score is currently 22-13, after that 5-0 start Katagiri slowed down the pace considerably making sure to keep their lead.
Again everyone is looking toward Aida and not to Kawahara who's labeled as the Captain. I want to say it makes it even stranger that Aida is a first year, but with Akashi being Captain of Teiko I'm more inclined to believe it.
"Tetsu, how good is Aida Ryosei?" I turn to Tetsu.
He develops a thinking face for a few seconds before saying...
"I don't know."
Dai-chan fell out of his seat in exasperation and I almost followed him. But I composed myself and asked another question.
"What do you mean didn't he teach you to shoot?"
He nods before speaking. "Ya, but he only shot one time, which he made, but I couldn't tell if he was good or not based on that. It was only a free throw. Then he asked me to shoot and gave me some pointers. That's when I tried it against Aomine, but I missed, and he freaked out while Aida laughed."
Aomine's face palms at this and groans.
"That's because you don't understand how insane that is. He watched you take 2 shots and somehow made it to where you can make shots. Not only that but it's a ridiculous shot that most people won't be able to block."
"At halftime you're going to show me this shot." I speak up after Dai-Chan finishes. They both give me a nod and we go back to watching the game. The whistle for the 2nd quarter goes off with the same 5 for Katagiri out there, but Shizuka has added a completely new 5. It makes sense honestly, the Shizuka coach must have realized why they were slowing the pace down and with only one player on the bench it makes sense.
Put fresh players on the court even if they are worse, and since Katagiri can't sub out just wear them down. Lets see if it works.
[3rd person POV]
With the remaining seconds of the 2nd quarter dwindling down, Satsuki became sure of a few things. Arata Haru was definitely not calling the plays, Kawahara Yoshiaki was not the captain and that Aida Ryosei is playing a much bigger role than anybody else realizes. She can't figure out how yet from this distance, but she is positive he is somehow relaying strategies to Arata.
However no matter how much she looks at Aida, she can't find anything impressive about him besides his looks. She can only find him because she knows to look at the bench and even then her eyes feel like they want to keep scanning and not focus on him.
However she couldn't seem to gain anything from it and probably never would unless he stood on the court and played. Which was looking more unlikely as the game went on. Even with fresh players swapping in and out Shizuka could never get the score to get any closer than 9 points.
Katagiri didn't even look as tired as you might expect them too, especially for a team without a coach. Their training along with their play style is what allows them to stay fresh this long. Ryosei put them through brutal but effective training in their stamina that focused their legs and arms.
He added core work outs as well, but he wanted immediate results that would help until he could build them out evenly. That's why even with this pass heavy offense their arms weren't tired. Also they could still move good on their legs from their workouts but also because of their pass heavy offense they weren't having to run around as much.
This is only possible against a weaker team like Shizuka, but that's mostly the point in Ryosei's eyes. He wants them to experience a win on their own, and a win in the National preliminaries would go a long way to boost their individual confidences.
""1st half is over Katagiri 42-30 Shizuka. There will be a 10 minute intermission and the game will resume."" The ref called out as the players all headed to their respective locker rooms.
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Author's Note
I hope the POV changers weren't too confusing and I hope some of Ryosei's off the court skills were shown enough. He's not only skilled but very smart from his previous life and soaking up anything he could learn from Kagetora.
Like I said though, this team would struggle greatly against a talented team or even a better coached team, as they are skimming by with better plays and a constantly changing strategy. Later teams in the tournament will be able to adapt better and shut them down.
But that's for later.
Also I don't plan on having Momoi fall for Ryosei, she's still going to like Kuroko. I'll either come up with an OC for Ryosei or he just won't have a love interest, I haven't decided yet.
Probably going to quickly finish up the second half of this match and just give a score for the second match in the next chapter, so expect more slice of life and interaction with GoM as the 1st day of preliminaries come to a close.
Hope you enjoyed.
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