Capítulo 24: Kyōsen Private Middle School VS Nada Middle School; 2nd Half
「Nara Preliminaries, Day 2, Block A, Round 3: Semi Finals.」
It's already the end of the first half in the match between Kyōsen and Nada. During the two quarters that passed, the trash talking team of Nada Junior High went back to their locker room while holding their heads down.
The confidence that they exude during the start of the match is nowhere to be seen, replaced by an air of despair and hopelessness. Well, it's not like they're wrong by thinking such things. If they wanted to even have a remotely great chance of winning this match, they'd need the whole team of Kyōsen to injure their arms and legs some way or another and score an average of 50 each quarter.
This thing that they're experiencing is definitely something along the lines of, "They're great at talking trash but their skills are ALSO trash, so they got thrashed instead." Such an irony, really.
After the halftime break was over, the next episode of Kyōsen Junior High thrashing Nada Junior High continued once again. This time, however, the pace is definitely much slower than before. If before, Kyōsen would take every opportunity they got to take a shot, they now take it easy and only took perfect opportunities to score.
All of the members of Kyōsen is already tired due to playing for two consecutive matches, except Seiji. Thus, in this quarter, Akagi, Kogure, Wakamatsu, and Izuki all focused on defense while Seiji handled the offensive end.
If anyone is free, he would pass the ball but if he could take the shot on his own, he'll take it. Since the pace of the game is much slower, Seiji opted to shoot more threes rather than mid range shots, layups, and post plays.
Looking at Seiji who's currently playing as the point guard, Izuki couldn't help but show a wry smile when he saw Seiji pass the ball towards the free Kogure without even remotely looking at his direction.
"He definitely have my eyes. But how?"
This is something that Izuki just noticed during the start of the third quarter. How did Izuki notice this small detail? Well, we have to go back to the beginning of the third quarter.
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"Izuki-senpai! Let me play as the point guard for the rest of the match so that you can take a rest. I'm also gonna lower the pace so that you guys wouldn't be too fatigued."
"Wait. Let me think… If you could maintain your performance from last quarter, I'll let you play as the point guard."
After thinking for a few seconds, Izuki agreed and he let Seiji do the job of a guard for the rest of the game. The fatigue is catching up to him after playing two consecutive matches so Izuki welcomed Seiji's suggestion.
"Alright! I'm gonna use these eyes to my heart's content in that case."
Seiji said his latter words in a whisper so Izuki couldn't quite catch what he said just then. The two of them talked about some plays that they could execute later before the sound of the buzzer resounded all throughout the court.
The first possession of the match is theirs so Izuki inbounded the ball before passing it to Seiji who was waiting for him. After receiving the ball, Seiji slightly smacked it before dribbling the ball casually across the half court line. He didn't do anything for the better half of the shot clock, only starting the offense once there is only 14 seconds left.
The audience who came to watch the semi finals of Block A watched as Seiji casually rocks his defender to sleep, before doing a crossover dribble and exploding towards the right side of his defender. This jolted his defender awake as he once again alerted his nerves and tried to anticipate Seiji's next moves.
When the defender tried to seal Seiji's path to the left, Seiji decelerated immediately, coming to a full stop with a couple of between the legs dribbles. With him already in a lunging stance, Seiji jumped slightly, his feet as close to the ground as possible, before switching the positions of his feet. This move is taught to ball handlers to better transition between different dribbling moves, scissors.
After the scissors and a between the leg dribble, Seiji drove past his defender on his left before attacking the paint. When the center tried to stop Seiji from going any furhter, Seiji shifted his hip and top part of his body almost like a stiff worm, making his opponent think that he's heading in one direction, when in reality he's not.
The center was completely fooled by Seiji's hesitation move as he blocked the opposite side of where Seiji casually passed by. Throwing a simple lob pass towards Akagi, the play is finally completed.
"Haaah!"
*BAM*
Accompanied by Akagi's dunk is a round of applause and cheers from the audience seat. These people came here expecting that they would see a mediocre match between middle schools. Who knew that they'll witness the most bizarre things all throughout this match?
In their next play, Seiji continued with his slower pace. This time though, he didn't go for any fancy play as he just rocks his defender to sleep before taking a dribble freeze three-pointer. The defender cannot do anything as the soles of his feet were planted on the ground, anticipating a drive. He could only watch on as Seiji's three-point shot swish through the hoop.
After the play of Nada where Akagi rejected their center from trying to score with an easy layup, Seiji got the ball into his hands and ran towards the opposite side of the court, leaving behind everyone who's trailing behind him. With an easy layup, Seiji scored two more points for Kyōsen.
The game went on just like that, with Seiji taking more shots from beyond the arc. This made their already big lead to grow even further, even though they're not taking as many shots as the first half. Every time the audience and the players of Nada Junior High see Seiji take a three-point shot, they are convinced that it would sink in.
However, this is not what Izuki noticed during this entire quarter. What he noticed is how Seiji would uncannily react faster than in the earlier quarters whenever there's a free man in their team and pass the ball towards them.
"It's almost like he have the same eyes as me…" Izuki murmured.
With Kyōsen taking more shots from beyond the arc than the first half and with Seiji shooting treys from all over the place, Kyōsen's lead went up by another staggering amount of 54 points. Them almost exclusively taking shots from beyond the arc resulted to them raking in more points even though they slowed the pace of the game.
Meanwhile, Nada tried every strategy that they knew of, from switching players, double teaming Seiji, to changing each of their player's marks. However, nothing worked.
With the score of 142-14, the third quarter came to an end. Seiji added another 28 points, 2 rebounds, 9 assists, and 1 steal to his stat sheet this game. He didn't get any blocks since he chose to leave Akagi and Wakamatsu the defense.
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Even though Seiji tried to slow the pace of the game as much as possible, it still took a toll on Akagi, Wakamatsu, Izuki, and Kogure. All of them are panting pretty hard as they tried to catch their breath. However, since they already had a very big lead that Nada would not, even for the life of them, be able to best, Chu Lin made the four of them retire for the match.
In order to give the first years some experience, Chu Lin decided to let Saeki Takeo, Morita Tomotsu, and Nagata Izanagi play for the better half of the fourth quarter. Takeo will temporarily play as a Power Forward, Tomotsu will be the Center, and Izanagi will be in charge of handling the ball for that period of time. Chu Lin told them to just get a feel for it and not overdo it with the crazy plays, telling them to just stick to the basics like pick and rolls.
With the team consisting of Takeo(PF), Tomotsu(C), Hyuuga(SG), Seiji(SF), and Izanagi(PG), team Kyōsen went out to play the fourth quarter. This quarter is definitely quite messy as it took Izanagi, Tomotsu, and Takeo some time before they got used to the whole atmosphere inside the court, with numerous strangers watching them play.
However, after some time, they finally got used to it. Seiji would occasionally ask for the ball from Izanagi but he just let him do what he wants besides that.
After the first five minutes of the game passed, Chu Lin pulled out Takeo and replaced him with Fukuda. He further stated to Izanagi to use those two as much as he wants.
As a point guard, he told him that he needed to use whatever is in his hand to convert a possession into points. There's no point in dwelling in such a thing as pride.
Not passing the ball to your team's best offensive tools and trying to make your own plays is a good resolve. However, solely relying on that and not passing it to your ace when they're free is just pure idiocy. Since Izanagi wanted to become a point guard who's purely a playmaker, Chu Lin wanted him to know this simple fact.
After that timeout, Kyōsen's strategy changed once again. With Fukuda, Hyuuga, and inexperienced first years like Tomotsu and Izanagi on the field, their defense became close to none existent.
Seiji had to go all over the place in order to compensate for their weak defense, or lack thereof. He's also trying to make use of his newly acquired vision to essentially anticipate where the offense of Nada will take place. This resulted in Seiji getting the feel for how he could utilize the newly acquired vision.
The load his brain is experiencing when he is using Eagle Eye is quite immense but Seiji didn't find it taxing to use at all. Probably his over the top specs coming into play. It seems like Seiji's initial thought about his talents being too overpowered for this world itself is correct.
Well, he didn't really mind as he knew that the extent of how great you could become does not solely rely on talent alone. Talent is something that will bloom even further if you supplement it with a whole lot of effort.
'There's more games to come. I could use this chance to try the other abilities I got…'
While Seiji is in deep thought, he suddenly heard someone say, "Line up!"
With the referees' call, every player on the court once again lined up facing the centerline. The game has finally come to an end.
"Kyōsen Junior High wins with a score of 194-36! Bow!"
"Thank you for the game!"
The players of Nada Junior High went back to their locker room with a depressed atmosphere, quite a contrast to the celebrating first years of Kyōsen. In this last quarter, Seiji only scored 18 points from beyond the arc and 4 points from inside the perimeter with a grand total of 22 points.
Fukuda scored inside the paint, with 12 points coming off the bench. Hyuuga scoring 9 points off the bench, and the rest of the 52 points came from the first years who continuously fumbled during the first few minutes of the fourth quarter with their turnovers and misses, courtesy of Izanagi insisting on his plays without using Seiji.
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To be continued…
「Arisugawa Seiji's Stats」
(102 points, 19 rebounds, 20 assists, 6 blocks, and 10 steals)
[A/N¹: I got a headache tabulating all these points rebounds and stuffs. It's kinda hard to keep track of it when you're so immersed in writing. However, if I'm being honest, I had a blast writing these past few chapters. It's really a pleasure. It brought me back to the time when I was still immersed in my own thoughts thinking about how Pokémon would fight in a real life trainer battle.]
[A/N²: I hope you guys are left satisfied by how this whole game panned out. I didn't plan for anything here as I just pictured everything inside my head and wrote whatever the hell comes to mind. This made me realize just how bad I am at following certain guidelines like plots and stuffs(it's what made me quite literally lost when I tried to write a plot for my past fanfictions).]
[A/N³: Although I wouldn't say that this was a masterpiece, I hope that this turned out quite well.]
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