If they had been facing any other team, that three-pointer might actually have gotten off.
But Anhua's shooting guard was facing Shintaro Midorima.
Shintaro Midorima suddenly burst into view and swatted the shot away with one hand.
Players from both teams immediately turned and chased after the ball.
As several of them raced for it, Daiki Aomine pulled ahead with overwhelming speed, leaving everyone behind and reaching the ball first.
On Anhua's bench, the substitutes cried out in surprise.
"He's so fast!"
After securing the ball, Daiki Aomine charged straight toward the frontcourt.
Once he got there, he planted his left foot hard against the floor and launched himself into the air, looking almost as if he were flying as he slammed the ball through the hoop.
A dunk!
Daiki Aomine landed with a grin and was just about to head back on defense when Anhua's coach suddenly roared from the sideline.
"Useless!"
At the same time, Anhua's coach called a timeout.
"Beep! Anhua High School requests a timeout!"
After both teams returned to the sidelines, Daiki Aomine immediately heard shouting coming from Anhua High School's bench.
Anhua's coach pointed directly at the shooting guard and yelled, "What made you think you could shoot from there?!"
"Huh?!" the coach barked. "Answer me!"
Anhua's shooting guard clenched his teeth, unable to meet his coach's eyes as he stammered, "The shot clock was almost out... and I saw an opening to shoot..."
"An opening, my ass!" Anhua's coach snapped. "That's not an excuse! There were still four seconds left! You had time to pass, so why didn't you?!"
"There wasn't anyone I could pass to..." Anhua's shooting guard replied quietly.
"More excuses!" Anhua's coach shouted. "I saw him standing wide open! Did you somehow miss that?!"
The coach was referring to Anhua's center.
And technically, he was right.
At that moment, Teppei Kiyoshi had been pulled toward the perimeter after rotating over to help defend, which meant Anhua's center had been left open.
But from where Anhua's shooting guard had been standing, he could clearly see Daiki Aomine behind the center.
Which meant Daiki Aomine could have rotated over to cover him as well.
And the shooting guard really had been in a position where taking the shot made sense.
The only reason he had been blocked was because Shintaro Midorima himself was absurd.
Yet in Anhua's coach's eyes, every bit of it became the shooting guard's fault.
That was the reality of Anhua High School.
Every player had to follow the coach's instructions to the letter on both offense and defense.
Every possession, every defensive sequence, had to produce the greatest possible benefit for the team.
Bad shot selection and poor offensive timing were simply not allowed.
It was almost as though Anhua High School's players were robots, rigidly following a predetermined program.
And because that approach had won them the championship last year, the school had become even more convinced that it was the right way to keep moving forward.
"Sit down and think about what you did," Anhua's coach said coldly.
He pointed at another shooting guard on the bench.
"You're going in."
The player nodded numbly, stood up, and prepared to enter the game.
Meanwhile, Teikō Middle School had also begun to notice how strange Anhua High School was.
It felt less like they were playing against basketball players and more like they were facing machines.
Every offensive possession unfolded as though it had been programmed in advance.
"Beep! Play resumes! Both teams, take the court!"
The game restarted.
After Anhua High School's next possession was shut down once again, Teikō Middle School began to take complete control of the match.
And the way Teikō Middle School played left Anhua's coach completely dumbfounded.
They had stopped running plays entirely.
It was all isolation.
Daiki Aomine alone kept toying with all five defenders.
For several possessions in a row, he completely ignored whoever was guarding him and casually flung the ball toward the basket while hanging in midair.
And somehow...
Those ridiculous shots kept going in.
Shintaro Midorima was no different.
It didn't matter how many defenders stood in front of him.
He simply rose up and shot.
Anhua's players couldn't even reach Shintaro Midorima's release point.
And his shooting percentage was just as absurd.
Thirteen shots.
Every single one of them a three-pointer.
And the most terrifying part was that he hadn't missed once.
One hundred percent.
The result left everyone stunned, yet somehow, it also felt almost reasonable.
After all, they had already witnessed one absurd match the day before.
At this point, they had at least been mentally prepared for something like this.
Early in the game, Anhua's coach had still been shouting constantly, berating his players whenever they deviated from the system.
But as the game went on, he fell silent.
Because by then, he understood.
This was no longer a question of whether his team was coordinating properly.
It was a question of whether they were even strong enough to compete.
And clearly, they weren't.
All of Anhua's players put together might not have been enough to handle even one of the players on the other side.
Anhua's coach stared at Teikō Middle School's players as they tore through his team and could barely believe what he was seeing.
Where did all these monsters come from?!
Every single one was more ridiculous than the last!
By the end of the fourth quarter, the match between Teikō Middle School and Anhua High School ended with a final score of 136 to 21.
Teikō Middle School had completely crushed Anhua High School, the defending champion!
With that, both the champion and runner-up from the previous tournament had officially been eliminated.
...
In the days that followed, news of Anhua High School's crushing defeat at the hands of Teikō Middle School spread throughout the country.
Basketball fans everywhere were stunned.
They had originally assumed the two teams from Japan were merely there to fill out the tournament.
Instead, they had come to steamroll everyone.
And it didn't stop there.
In the matches that followed, Kirisaki Daiichi and Teikō Middle School seemed to be playing on an entirely different level, crushing every other school they faced.
Not a single opponent managed to score more than forty points against either team.
Every one of them was completely overwhelmed.
The results sent shockwaves through the entire national basketball association.
At the same time, they gave Miyamoto Hiroshi the opportunity he had been waiting for.
A chance to change the basketball association itself.
He knew his son loved basketball, and because of Miyamoto Tokima, he had gradually grown fond of the sport as well.
But when he looked at the NBA, he couldn't find a single player from his country.
That bothered him deeply.
With such a massive population, was it really possible that not even one player could make it into the NBA?
Given his own high-ranking position, Miyamoto Hiroshi naturally knew that the domestic basketball association was partly responsible.
He had wanted to change the situation for a long time.
But he had always lacked one thing.
A reason.
Now, his son Miyamoto Tokima, together with his friends and teammates, had placed that reason directly into Miyamoto Hiroshi's hands.
And with it, Miyamoto Hiroshi finally had the justification he needed to reform the national basketball association.
Perhaps the path of basketball in this timeline would begin to change from this very moment.
...
...
If you'd like to support my work and unlock advanced chapters, you can follow me on p-@-treon.
p-@-treon/GhostParser (45 Chapters Ahead)
You can also follow as a free member to read a few advanced chapters.