Full Scholarship

After finishing the road game against the University of Pittsburgh, the team returned to Connecticut.

After training that day, Cahoon called Tang Tian into his office alone.

"Tang, you may not know how difficult it is for a non-scholarship NCAA player to earn a full scholarship. There's a story about that here." After gesturing for him to sit, Cahoon began by telling him the story.

Tang Tian listened patiently. Cahoon could not possibly have called him over just to hear a story.

"There was a student named Jerome who joined a Division I NCAA team. He trained hard and persevered for four years, but in the end, he never received a full scholarship. In the team's final game, they gave him thirty seconds of Playing Time as a reward. His story later became widely known throughout the NCAA as an inspirational story, but it also reflected an unwritten NCAA rule: players without scholarships basically never got Playing Time."

Tang Tian nodded after listening. Cahoon was using the story to make a point, telling him just how special he was.

"Of course, you aren't an ordinary player. You proved your ability, so I've kept trying. Yesterday, the school finally gave me an answer. They agreed. You'll become the team's ninth full-scholarship recipient."

After all that buildup, Cahoon finally delivered the news to Tang Tian.

"Thank you, Coach. I'll work hard and play well. I won't let down the faith you've shown in me." Tang Tian stood with a smile and replied calmly.

Cahoon was an old-school coach. He simply liked going through these formalities. He was doing this only so that if Tang Tian ever made it big, he would not forget the mentor who had helped him.

That was only human nature. Tang Tian did not think much of it. As long as he got the full scholarship, he had achieved his goal.

"Good, very good." Cahoon smiled happily.

"Oh, right. I also applied to the school for a nutrition plan for you," Cahoon suddenly remembered.

A nutrition plan?

Tang Tian looked puzzled.

"I know you've been training your conditioning, and your methods are good. But besides training methods, your nutrition has to keep up too. That's the only way to get better results," Cahoon continued.

"Thank you, Coach." This time, Tang Tian's gratitude truly came from the bottom of his heart.

Cahoon had his old-school ways, but just as Tang Tian had known before, he was fundamentally still a good coach.

Cahoon had only informed Tang Tian of the news. Not long afterward, someone from the school came to speak with him and told him where to collect his scholarship.

As a renowned institution in Connecticut, UConn invested heavily in scholarships. A full athletic scholarship alone was worth 50,000 dollars a year, something many other universities could not match.

Of course, that was only compared with other schools in Connecticut. Across the country, plenty of schools offered more than UConn. Schools like Duke and Kentucky probably offered twice as much.

Still, 50,000 dollars was already more than enough for Tang Tian.

When he returned to the dorm, his roommates were all in class, so he pulled up the system interface.

He glanced at his top-up points.

50,600 dollars.

The 50,000 was the money from the full scholarship he had just received, while the 600 was his pay as a ball boy.

Since he had become a member of the school team and received a scholarship, those 600 dollars were also his final paycheck as a ball boy.

But the extra amount did not matter. What mattered was the bulk of it.

With 50,000 dollars in top-up points, he had enough to splurge in the shop and directly exchange for a White Skill.

Compared with skills of other grades, White Skills were the most common and weakest. But when he had first encountered the system, he had already made his choice.

Among these White Skills, King of Jumps (James White) was the most useless. Forget the NCAA—it probably would not even work in lower-level leagues. It was only good for exhibition games. As for flopper (Varejao) and King of Free Throws (Calderon), he had no use for them for the time being.

He had already picked his target long ago.

Open Three-Pointer (Novak): A skill belonging to the three-point sharpshooter Novak. It allowed its owner's Three-Point Percentage on open shots to reach 97%, but under defensive pressure, the Shooting Percentage would plummet below 30%. As stamina declined, the open-shot percentage would also decay from 97%, eventually dropping to 50%.

It was a rather bizarre skill, but it matched Novak's abilities perfectly.

In Novak's most accurate season, his Three-Point Percentage reached 75%. Even across his entire career, his Three-Point Percentage exceeded 43%!

That was an incredibly terrifying number. Many elite three-point shooters never even surpassed that mark in a single season throughout their careers.

At the NBA level, shooting above 40% already made someone an absolute sharpshooter.

Yet a shooter like that had spent nearly his entire NBA career bouncing from team to team, because other than shooting, he could do nothing. No defense, no physicality, no passing. Other than opportunities his teammates created for him through plays, he did not even know how to get open by himself.

To put it plainly, he was a machine that could only shoot, and only from a standstill.

But for Tang Tian, that was enough.

What he possessed now was exactly what Novak lacked: defense.

With defense and an open shot that was nearly impossible to miss, he could firmly establish himself in the NCAA.

Although UConn had recently put together a three-game winning streak, Tang Tian had gradually started getting targeted by opponents. During games, he was often left completely open.

That was perfectly normal. At first, opponents did not know what he could do, so naturally they did not dare defend him that way. But as his Playing Time increased and his reputation grew, they would definitely study him and then target him.

For example, after looking at his postgame stats, they would see defense, steals, and rebounds, but his points were always zero. That was obviously abnormal!

When something looked abnormal, they would test it. Once they discovered that he really could not shoot—or that he almost never made one when he did—leaving him open would naturally become an option.

So exchanging for this Open Three-Pointer would definitely be the most effective choice.

There was also another important point for Tang Tian. The NCAA was unlike the NBA, where players could earn money through endorsements and advertisements. In the NCAA, players were not allowed to make money in any form. Even under-the-table payments from the school were forbidden. Once they broke the rules, there was a high probability they would be kicked straight out of the league.

That was one of the things people had always criticized the NCAA for. After all, the money the league earned every year from March Madness was even greater than the NBA Playoffs!

But those were the rules. They were not something one person could change.

So these 50,000 top-up points might be the largest sum he would ever receive. Under those circumstances, he should choose this Open Three-Pointer even more.

With this Open Three-Pointer, and once he improved his body, he would become a solid 3D Player.

As basketball continued developing faster and faster in the future, that kind of player would be extremely sought-after—one could even say scarce.

And he was only eighteen. Under normal circumstances, his body would continue growing. By then, a stretch Power Forward or a 3D forward swingman would both be entirely possible for him.

This round of spending would definitely be a sure profit.