Team Selection

"Everyone, assemble!!"

At the captain Murasame Kengo's roar, all the new and veteran players in the gym gathered in front of him.

The freshmen consciously lined up in a row, while the veteran players stood opposite them.

Once everyone had assembled, Murasame Kengo returned to his proper position, and everyone waited for Coach Harada to speak.

"Ahem!"

Coach Harada looked quite satisfied as he gazed at the twenty-odd young men standing before him.

These people were the guarantee of his career taking off this year!

"New club members, I'm very glad that you chose to join Miuradai High School's Basketball Club. Whether you're here out of interest or because you want to go further down the path of basketball, this place can meet your needs."

Miuradai High School had both a Basketball Club and a Basketball Team. Many larger private schools had similar arrangements, such as Shoyo, Kainan, and so on.

The Basketball Team went without saying. It was the team that represented the school in official competitions of all kinds, competing for honor for both the school and themselves. A basketball team needed at least a twelve-man rotation, while at most fifteen players could make the official roster.

The Basketball Club, meanwhile, was for students who had been cut from the Basketball Team because they could not meet all the requirements, but genuinely loved basketball.

The Basketball Team had fixed training hours every day, and the coach would devise all kinds of training plans. They received the most resources and attention, even scholarships.

The Basketball Club was purely for those who played out of enthusiasm. You could come if you felt like it today, or skip tomorrow if you had something to do. It was perfect for people who simply wanted basketball as a way to stay fit or pick up girls.

And when Basketball Team members transferred schools, dropped out, suddenly lost interest in playing, got injured, or encountered similar situations, the coach would also draw people from the Basketball Club to fill the vacancies.

By regulation, the Basketball Team could have no more than fifteen players on its official roster, while the Basketball Club had no upper limit at all.

As for the dozen or so first-year students standing here now, how many would officially make the Basketball Team, and how many could only play casual basketball in the Basketball Club, would depend on their performance in the upcoming assessments.

The second- and third-year seniors were not entirely safe either. If the first-year students performed exceptionally well, the coach would send them down to the Basketball Club too.

That was why, at the start of every new spring term, the basketball teams at the well-known high schools across the prefecture underwent a major reshuffle, keeping the Prefectural Tournament consistently exciting.

Coach Harada's speech lasted only ten minutes before the official selection process began.

For Wu Yufei, this process was really just a formality. After breezing through the tests, he took a basketball to a hoop in the corner and began practicing his shots alone.

Weekly Quest:

Sharpen Shooting: Over the next week, you must complete 500 mid-range shots and 200 Three-Pointers every day.

Current Task Progress:

Mid-Range Shots: 220/500

Three-Pointers: 98/200

Completions: 0/7

Task Reward: [Mid-Range Shots] Attribute +0.5, [Three-Pointers] Attribute +0.5

It was only a weekly quest, so its rewards were indeed rather meager compared to the Main Quest and the Sudden Side Quest. Still, even a mosquito's leg was meat. Besides, even without a quest pushing him, Wu Yufei would practice shooting on his own. Now that there were task rewards, he naturally had even more motivation to train.

By the time Wu Yufei had made more than three hundred mid-range shots, everyone else had finished the first round of tests. Next came the group scrimmages.

Wu Yufei and Ishiyama Jun were assigned to the Red Team, facing another group of five alongside three other first-year students.

With Wu Yufei alone, the Red Team had already been certain to win. Now that they also had Ishiyama Jun, who was quite capable in his own right, the Red Team was naturally far stronger than the Blue Team.

Though Ishiyama Jun was only 180 centimeters tall, he was highly skilled at mid- and long-range shooting, and his off-ball movement was excellent. Again and again, he shook off his defenders to get open, then caught Wu Yufei's passes and fired without hesitation.

Less than five minutes into the game, Ishiyama Jun had gone five for seven and scored twelve points, while Wu Yufei had steadily picked up eight assists before Coach Harada subbed him out from the sideline.

Going through the motions—this was probably what that meant.

At six thirty in the evening, all the other clubs had already finished their activities for the day and gone home, but the basketball gym was still brightly lit.

All the first-year students lined up once more, each of them drenched in sweat.

Coach Harada looked at the roster in his hand, his expression full of satisfaction.

"I'm very glad that all of you held on until now. Aside from the three people who left midway through, among the fifteen people standing here, I have selected three to officially join the Basketball Team. When I call your name, step forward."

Everyone pricked up their ears. After fighting desperately for hours all afternoon, no one wanted to be told at the very last moment that they had failed to make the cut.

Coach Harada cleared his throat and began reading out, one by one, the names on his roster that had been marked with checks.

"Wu Yufei!"

"Here!"

"Ishiyama Jun!"

"Here!"

"Ohno Kazuki!"

"Present!"

Wu Yufei, Ishiyama Jun, and Ohno Kazuki stepped out of the line, while the remaining twelve all showed expressions of regret and unwillingness.

"There's no need to look like that. My assessment of you isn't over yet, and being called now doesn't necessarily mean you'll make the school team."

After offering a few calm words of comfort, Harada announced that today's training was over and dismissed everyone on the spot.

Wu Yufei naturally had no intention of going back so early, so he picked up his basketball again and went to the hoop in the corner for extra practice.

Coach Harada had selected three people today. Wu Yufei went without saying; he was already certain to become Miuradai's starting point guard. Ishiyama Jun had caught Coach Harada's eye with his excellent accuracy in the scrimmage and the shooting drills afterward.

Indeed, Ishiyama Jun's height was only average among this batch of freshmen, and he was not particularly muscular. But he was fairly quick, had refined off-ball movement, and shot decisively. With a little training, he would become a very good shooter.

As for the third, Ohno Kazuki was a rather sturdy interior player. He stood 190 centimeters tall and weighed 90 kilograms, overpowering his matchup several times in the scrimmage to grab rebounds.

In Coach Harada's plan, once this year ended and Kawasaki Akio retired, he could become a powerful substitute in the paint.

A point guard, a shooting guard, and a center/power forward—Coach Harada had done quite well for himself today.

Wu Yufei kept up his extra practice until nearly nine that night before finally packing up with satisfaction and leaving the gym.

He had long since completed the shooting quota required by the task. Everything beyond that had been voluntary extra practice.

His father was a workaholic anyway, and there was nothing much for him to do at home. He might as well stay in the gym and practice basketball.