Chapter 72 - Settling In The New Ones (1/2)

It was a lively day in Tokiwadai Basketball Club, as in different parts of the gym, two newcomers in the Tokiwadai's first-string were being whipped into shape by their more experienced teammates.

On one side of the gym was the shorty of the first-string; Kurumatani Sora. He was wearily panting as he ran around the court, in random directions, lengths, and speeds.

The odd thing with Sora was that a rope was tied around his waist, whose other end was being pulled by someone.

Sora felt a pull from the rope, accompanied by a voice. He looked at the other end of the rope to find his senpai looking back at him while still running.

Kaitani: ”Sora, don't let the rope become taut. You need to be able to maintain the current pace for at least twenty minutes.

You and I are short. We need speed and stamina as the basic requirements to succeed on the court.”

Kaitani was chosen by the coach to bring Sora up to speed with regarding his speed and stamina.

Sora huffed as he replied to Kaitani.

Sora: ”Yes, senpai!”

Kurumatani Sora had met with the coach and made the decision that he wanted to join the first-string early. Sora was not unaware of the dissatisfaction in both first and second-string with his promotion.

He clearly not skilled enough to be in the first-string, and there were a lot of players in the second-string that thought that it should be them that should've been promoted.

Over that, Shun was the one who handpicked Sora, that was like saying that Sora would be Shun's successor when he retired, that itself put a lot of pressure on him, but Sora still decided to join the first-string.

It had been a couple of days since Sora had joined, and this was what he had to do every day.

The method was simple, Kaitani and Sora would tie one rope around their waist, and Kaitani would lead while Sora would follow. All Sora had to do was to make sure that the length of rope between them didn't become taut.

Sora already had enough stamina to last a quarter and a half against Kuroko, but this was the first-string, they didn't plan for the short-term. The coach and Shun saw Sora as the team's next point guard after Shun retired.

If Sora didn't quit, then he would become an excellent player by the time he became a regular on the team.

The coach who was roaming around the gym looked at Sora and thought.

Coach Koetsuji: 'One week for him to get used to the pace, one month for him to show slight improvements, and by the time of the preliminaries he would have acceptable stamina for a bench player on the team.'

If what Sora was doing was rough and tiring, then on the other side of the court, Hyakuzawa Yudai was going that could be said to be humbling.

Hyakuzawa was going against Shun in a one-on-one exercise. It was a training exercise, so Shun was repeating a series of layups repeatedly, he would switch their order, but every layup on the sequence would be identical every time.

Hyakuzawa was allowed to stay in the restricted area to block the layups.

[A/N: There is a three-second restriction for staying in the restricted area, directly below the rim. It is the shape of a D. Look for it in a picture of a court. It might not be in some of the photos.]

Hyakuzawa was getting bewildered with every try to block Shun.

Hyakuzawa: 'How can he score when I know what is coming.'

Shun spoke as he got ready to go on offense once again.

Shun: ”Hyakuzawa-kun, try to look at my ball hand's positioning. You will get an idea about what kind of layup is coming.”

Shun got a run-up and jumped in front of Hyakuzawa. He followed with his jump and held his hands above to block.

Shun had the ball in his right hand, to get around Hyakuzawa's block, he moved his ball hand to the right.

Hyakuzawa followed Shun's advice by moving his hand to the right.

Shun smiled as he looked at Hyakuzawa's attempt to block him. Shun decided to angle the shot by bouncing it off the backboard. He pushed the ball with his fingers, the ball hit the backboard and bounced into the rim.

Hyakuzawa was dismayed as he saw Shun push the ball right beside his arms.

Hyakazuwa: ”Ah! God Dammit!”