Chapter 9

In some respects, that is indeed not wrong.

People come into contact with basketball at the beginning, indeed because of passion.

It's just that holding onto this pure idea all the time is not feasible.

Modern basketball, or the entire history of basketball, the court is a battlefield!

Whether it's a professional league or an international tournament, every game is a war.

For the sake of victory, players can use war stomps to hit people on the court, or use flying kicks.

In short, a real game is never pure.

While thinking about this, the comments in front of him began to scroll again.

'Tiandao Jingyan?'

'What are you to Souji Tendou?'

'Reserved first, the number one arrogant king of this work!'

'This guy looks so handsome, he almost threatened me; he must be an important character!'

'Wake up, upstairs, your looks can at most compare to Gian!'

Brain-dead netizens are full of joy.

Tiandao Jingyan felt that this show must have only aired the first episode, the progress bar still had at least half left, and they hadn't even reached the exciting parts, yet these guys were already finding fun for themselves.

I haven't even made a move yet!

Enough idle talk.

After waiting for some time, Kozo Shirogane walked over with his assistant coach and the current team captain, Shuzo Nijimura.

"First of all, welcome everyone to the Teikou basketball club."

"As you can see, our basketball club pursues a philosophy of victory above all else."

Kozo Shirogane pointed to the beam hanging above the gym, where the four big characters "Hundred Battles, Hundred Victories" were written.

But come to think of it, although Teikou is a regular at the national tournament, the number of national tournament championships they've actually won isn't particularly high.

This is related to the national tournament's format, which uses BO1 throughout—a single-game elimination format.

Such a format is recognized as the most cruel and exciting.

It's not almost, but every year there will definitely be upsets.

Even a stronger team could be defeated because of a sudden explosion of a team or even a single player.

So wanting to repeat as national tournament champions is a very difficult thing.

It requires not only strength but also luck on your side.

Seeing everyone's expressions become solemn, realizing what kind of basketball club Teikou was, Kozo Shirogane nodded and continued.

"We are a victory-oriented team. Since it's victory-oriented, the entry ceremony will be decided by basketball."

"I won't arrange any physical tests for you now. If you want to get a spot at Teikou, you can only rely on yourselves."

"Now, we will start group confrontation training. Those whose names are called will form a team; your opponents are Teikou's second-string team."

Kozo Shirogane's arrangement was simple and neat.

Testing everyone one by one is definitely not feasible because there are too many people.

If they tested everyone, they would basically have nothing else to do today.

Whether it's a donkey or a horse, you'll know after taking it to the field.

However, he had actually already remembered a few faces in his heart.

The one that attracted him the most was Atsushi Murasakibara, who was young but already 190cm tall.

'Wow, so tall!'

'And he's a blank slate!'

'Stupidly cute, is this guy really a junior high student?'

Kozo Shirogane held the information in his hand and began to look forward to Atsushi Murasakibara's performance.

Atsushi Murasakibara had been a famous basketball genius since elementary school.

Because of his height, he was naturally spotted by the basketball coach and dragged into playing basketball.

Just like that fat guy Hiroshi Morishige in Slam Dunk, kids with this kind of physique and athletic ability are hailed as treasures of the basketball world.

Atsushi Murasakibara didn't disappoint the teacher who had expectations for him either.

Standing out from the crowd since he was little, once he got on the court, even if he didn't know much about basketball, he still caused a dimension-reduction strike on his peers.

In his first year of contact with basketball, he easily helped his team win the regional championship.

He is a true talent monster.

Soon, the grouping was completed.

Time is limited; Teikou couldn't arrange a 40-minute game.

This confrontation match would only last 20 minutes each, adopting a 10-minute half-time format.

Tiandao Jingyan had good luck; he was assigned to the same team as Kuroko, with a total of 10 people.

Unsurprisingly, these people would each get 10 minutes to show themselves.

Grouping completed, after changing into training clothes, the game started, and several games were going on at the same time.

Tiandao Jingyan sat on the bench with Kuroko for the first 10 minutes, with the other five freshmen playing first.

Unsurprisingly, these freshmen, who were temporarily put together, were beaten to a pulp by the second-string seniors of Teikou.

This is not surprising at all.

After all, it's Teikou; even the second-string team would be qualified to start for some other teams with less strength.

What's more, Teikou's second-string team is actually the reserve for the first-string team.

Teikou's first-string team, that is, the starters, only has a few people; the remaining substitutes are all selected from the players who perform well in the second-string team.

In other words, these newcomers were facing the substitutes of the powerhouse Teikou.

This was intentional by Kozo Shirogane, giving these newcomers a warning so that these greenhorns would know how high the sky is and how thick the earth is.

In just five minutes, the score became 16:4; the first-year students on Tiandao Jingyan's team only scored a mere 4 points in five minutes.