Slam Dunk: Muguro

Chapter 108 National Competition Grouping Situation
As time went by, it was soon August 8th.

The much-anticipated summer national competition is about to begin.

The summer national competition has 1 to 3 team quotas depending on the population and strength of each region.

Among these regions, Kanagawa Prefecture has two quota places.

During the intense preparation period, an interesting incident related to Hainan High School occurred.

Originally, Hainan High School wanted to apply for a place in the play-offs with its profound heritage and influence.

If nothing unexpected happens, Hainan High School will most likely qualify for the play-offs.

After all, Hainan High School was among the top four in the country last year.

Unfortunately, someone revealed to the organizing committee the disgraceful behavior of Hainan High School in the county competition, such as Ikeda Kazuhiro elbowing Watanabe Masao and Takamiya Motoyu stepping on Kogure Konobu.

This series of violations attracted the attention of the national competition organizing committee, who believed that Hainan High School had violated the spirit of sports ethics.

As a result, the application to Hainan High School was not successful for a long time.

In Kogure's opinion, this incident was inevitably fueled by the instigation of other teams, such as those competitors competing with Hainan High School for a place in the play-offs, or the Kanagawa team that had a bad relationship with Hainan High School.

Once Hainan High School participates in the play-offs, will the other teams participating in the play-offs still have a chance?

Answer: No!
In addition, Hainan High School has dominated Kanagawa Prefecture for 14 consecutive years. In order to consolidate its dominant position, it naturally resorted to dishonorable means.

In addition to hurting the opponent's ace in the game, they also poached players from major teams.

All these things naturally made other teams extremely dissatisfied.

With two places in the national competition, other teams still have a glimmer of hope.

The winter trials are different. Unless you are the host or win the first or second place in the national competition, Kanagawa has only one spot.

In the summer national competition, Hainan High School's best result was the semi-finals, and Kanagawa Prefecture had never been the host.

Therefore, Kanagawa Prefecture has only one spot for the winter trials in these years.

During these 14 years, the places for the winter trials have been monopolized by Hainan High School, and other teams have never participated.

To sum it up in one sentence: The world has suffered from Hainan High School for a long time!
So when the crisis occurred in Hainan High School, these universities naturally did not miss the opportunity to add insult to injury.

Even though Hainan High School has a great influence nationwide, it is still inevitable that it feels overwhelmed when faced with so many "pig teammates".

In addition, this is the first time in 14 years that Hainan High School has applied for the play-offs, so it has no experience at all.

By the time Coach Gaotou realized the seriousness of the problem, it was too late.

In the end, the play-off spots were divided up among other regions, and Hainan High School unfortunately lost the opportunity to participate in the play-offs.

After learning that Hainan High School's application for the play-offs had failed, the Kanagawa teams were celebrating, celebrating Hainan High School's bad luck.

This incident has a far-reaching impact on Hainan High School. The inability to participate in the summer national competition is not conducive to the growth of Hainan players, especially freshmen.

More importantly, this incident has affected the foundation of Hainan High School, and its attractiveness to outstanding freshmen is bound to decline next year.

This lost attraction is likely to be transferred to Buri and Shohoku.

Of course, everything will depend on how the two teams perform in the national competition.

This summer national competition is held in Kyoto in the west.

Kanagawa and Kyoto are more than 400 kilometers apart, so the Shohoku team chose to take the Shinkansen.

The Shinkansen is known for its high speed and comfort. It is an important means of transportation connecting major cities and can reach Kyoto in just two and a half hours.

Led by Coach Anxi, the Xiangbei team entered the carriage together.

“Wow, it’s so high!”

"I'm afraid it's close to two meters!"

……

The passengers in the carriage saluted them one after another. Most of them were attracted by Akagi, mainly because his height was too conspicuous.

In addition, there were many people looking at Murasakibara, mostly women.

Although Murasakibara is not as tall as Akagi, his handsome face and elegant and easy-going temperament naturally make him very popular among women.

I don’t know why, although Mitsui is quite handsome, he is not very popular among women.

"Coach, this magazine has published the group list for this national competition!"

Yuho Ikeda handed the latest issue of "Basketball Weekly" to Coach Anzai.

"Basketball Weekly" is published and distributed by the company where Yayoi Aida works, and is very popular among basketball fans across the country.

Everyone in Xiangbei gathered together, wanting to know the team's group situation as soon as possible.

"Don't be put in the same group with Sanno and Hakata!"

During this process, many Xiangbei players prayed silently.

They are very self-aware. Although Xiangbei is strong, there are huge flaws in its lineup, and it is almost impossible to defeat these two teams.

Needless to say, Sanno Industrial won two major championships last year and is recognized as the strongest team in the country.

Hakata University of Commerce Affiliated School was the runner-up in the two major competitions last year. Its strength is second only to Sanno Industry. The gap between it and Sanno Industry was only in single digits, which shows how strong its strength is.

These two teams are among the national powerhouses, and they have won nearly half of the championships in the two major national competitions, which shows how profound their foundation is.

The group situation of Xiangbei team will directly affect their fate in the summer national competition. Everyone hopes to be drawn into a relatively favorable group. There are 59 teams participating in this summer national competition, divided into four groups as usual.

Among them, the top four teams in the previous national competition will automatically become the seeded teams in this competition.

Compared with ordinary teams, seeded teams naturally have preferential treatment, such as a bye in the first round and will not encounter seeded teams from other groups before advancing to the semi-finals.

Since Hainan High School was unable to participate in the national competition this year, the seed spot was taken by Jimbo University Affiliated High School.

Similar to Hainan University Affiliated High School, Jimbo University Affiliated High School is a high school affiliated with Jimbo University, and it made it to the top eight in the national competition last year.

The most important thing is that Jimbodai Affiliated School is from Kyoto and is the host city, which is also the main reason why Jimbodai Affiliated School was awarded the seeded team.

Therefore, the four seeded teams are Sanno Industrial, Hakata Commercial University Affiliated, Aiwa Gakuin and Jimbo University Affiliated.

"Found it, we are in group three!"

When they learned that they were assigned to Group 3, the Xiangbei players all breathed a sigh of relief.

As we all know, the champion and runner-up teams of the previous session are automatically divided into the first and second groups.

This means that Shohoku has avoided Sanno Industrial and Hakata University of Commerce, and with the strength of the Shohoku team, it has a hope of becoming one of the top four in the country.

"The seeded team in Group 3 is Aiwa Gakuen from Aichi Prefecture. Unfortunately, it is not affiliated with Jimbo University!"

Aiwa College is as strong as Hainan High School. This year, Aiwa College recruited a super star named Dai Moroboshi, who will be given the title of "Aichi Star" in the future.

"Touou is also in the third group! If nothing unexpected happens, we will most likely meet Touou in the third round."

Touou is also a national powerhouse, having made it to the national top eight for three consecutive years.

The most important thing is that at this time, Toyotama had not yet fired coach Kitano.

This also means that this Touou team is very different from the one in the plot year, and is still in the "happy basketball" stage. It will not hurt the opponent's trump card for the sake of victory like in the plot year.

"By the way, which group is Buri assigned to?"

Xiangbei and Buri have a good relationship. They have played three friendly matches during this period, and Xiangbei has achieved two losses and one win.

In that friendly match against Buri, it was mainly thanks to the hot hands of Murasakibara and Mitsui that they rained three-pointers, barely defeating Buri.

The other two games were lost without temper. Although Akagi has made great progress, the gap between the two sides in the interior is still very large, especially in rim protection and rebounding, where Buri can be said to have done his best.

Coupled with the one-star and four-shooting offensive system, this Buri team is extremely strong.

"Buri is in Group 4, and the seeded team is the Jimbodai affiliate!"

"This is really good luck. With Wu Li's strength, if nothing unexpected happens, he can basically lock in the top four in the country."

The Xiangbei team was talking about it, and everyone was envious of Takeshi's good luck.

Compared with Aiwa Gakuin, Jimbo University Affiliated School is undoubtedly a level weaker.

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. When they were discussing Buri, the Buri team happened to enter this carriage.

Neither party expected that it would be such a coincidence that they bought tickets for the same carriage.

"Coach Anxi, what a coincidence!"

Coach Buri is a serious middle-aged man. He took the initiative to shake hands with Coach Anxi in a friendly manner.

While the two coaches were talking, Watanabe Masao happened to sit down next to Murasakibara.

Watanabe Masao asked with a hint of relief: "You Xiangbei are in the third group, you are really lucky."

"We have Aiwa Academy and Toyotama in Group 3. Both teams are very strong. Unlike your Group 4, there are no other strong teams except the Jimbodai Affiliated Team."

Mugure was envious of Buri's group situation from the bottom of his heart.

Jimbo University's affiliated university is at best at the top eight in the country, and may even be inferior to Toouma.

With Buri's strength, it can almost secure a place in the top four in the country.

Hearing what Murasakibara said, Watanabe Masao smiled confidently.

After learning about the group situation, Watanabe Masao couldn't help but get excited and was full of anticipation for the upcoming national tour.

"However, you should not take it lightly. After all, the Jinbo University Affiliated School is a national-level strong team. Even if its strength is not as good as yours, the gap is not as big as you think. If you are careless, you may lose the game."

As a friend, Murasakibara gave a timely reminder, hoping that Buri would not lose the chance of victory because of underestimation of the enemy.

In fact, Buri has another disadvantage.

Like Shohoku, Buri is also entering the national competition for the first time and has no experience in national competitions.

Naturally, Murasakibara hopes that Buri can achieve good results. If both teams representing Kanagawa can achieve good results, then Kanagawa Prefecture will have the opportunity to apply for a fixed play-off spot next year.

"Thank you for your reminder, Mumu!"

After being reminded by Murasakibara, Watanabe Masao became noticeably serious, and he finally realized that there was something wrong with his mentality.

Just as Muguruma said, no matter how bad the Jimbodai affiliated team can be, if Buri lets down his guard, he might really lose the game.

Thinking of this, Watanabe Masao looked at his other teammates.

Except for his younger brother Masayasu Watanabe, his teammates all acted very relaxed, as if the top four in the country were already in their pockets.

Masao Watanabe decided to communicate with his teammates after arriving in Kyoto to ensure that they could go all out in the next games and not leave any opportunities for their opponents.

(End of this chapter)