Chapter 86 - Preliminaries, Once Again. (1/2)

Tokiwadai first-string gathered in their gym. All the players knew the reason for the gathering.

Today was the day the coach was going to address them about the Tokyo Preliminaries.

Coach Koetsuji walked to the front of his charges and smiled as he saw them excited for the upcoming tournament.

Coach: ”We all know what we are here for, but to clarify, we are here for discussing the Tokyo preliminaries.”

The coach then proceeded to explain the preliminary system.

Coach: ”Tokyo preliminaries go longer than the other prefectures because we have so many teams here in the capital, but that also means there are rest days in between.”

There was a board behind him. He picked up a marker from the sill of the board, uncapped it, and wrote Block-A and Block-B on the board.

Coach: ”There are two Blocks; Block-A and Block-B. We are in Block-B this time.”

Then he wrote Day-1 and Day-2 on the board.

Coach: ”The prelims are a six-day affair, and on Day-1 and Day-2, both teams will play there Round-1 and Round-2 games. Block-A will play both of their matches on Day-1, and Block-B will play on Day-2.”

He wrote Round-1 and Round-2 in front of Day-2 and then circled Round-1.

Coach: ”Tokiwadai is a seeded school, so we get a bye for Round-1. We will only play Round-2 on Day-2.

The advantage of being a seeded school is that we will be playing a team that has already played a match, while we still have full stamina.”

Coach wrote Day-3 and Day-4 on the board and turned to the group, and then wrote Round-3 and Semi-finals on the board.

Coach: ”Day-3 and Day-4 are tough.”

He circled out Round-3 and continued.

Coach: ”Round-3 is the game teams take easy and preserve energy. The scores are the lowest in Round-3, but then comes the game from hell.”

He palmed the area near Semi-finals and said.

Coach: ”Semi-finals are tough as teams go all out to come out on top, there is no holding back. Semi-finals here at Tokyo are more intense than our Finals.”

Coach: ”As there is a rest day on Day-5, there is no use for any preservation. Teams duke it out and give it their all, without thinking if they would be able to move after the game.”

The players, who joined the first-string this year gulped as coach told them about the Semi-finals.

Older members were also affected as they remembered the hustle during the last year's prelims.

Coach smiled as he saw the nervous faces of his charges.

Coach: ”Finally, we arrive at Day-6, the Finals. There are two finals, one for each block. Two teams that one gets the ticket to the Nationals.”

Coach wrote FINALS in bold letters.

Coach: ”Our goal, of course, to win that ticket and go to Nationals.”

He smiled and addressed all the players.

Coach: ”We are a strong team, we have a deeper bench than last year, but I don't want you guys to become overconfident and take your opponents lightly.”

Same as every year, the preliminaries were going to be held in Tokyo Metropolitan Arena. There was a large hype around this year's Tokyo preliminaries as Tokiwadai and Teiko were two super teams, and a lot of people wanted them to play.

Many high school basketball fans were also interested in the Tokiwadai and Teiko games.

It was almost a certainty that all of Tokiwadai and Teiko's matches were going to be held in a larger arena to accommodate the viewers.

There were even quite a few sports journalists there to watch their matches.

A lot of people were gathered in the lobby of the Gymnasium. You could see groups of people in the same tracksuits, loitering around, mingling with each other.

Hustle-bustle brightened the place as people hurried, talked, laughed in the area.