Chapter Fifteen: The Inter-School Basketball Match

  Recently, Lin Xiaoyu has been playing basketball with Yan Nang's older brother Zhang Zhihui at the "Tengyun" stadium every weekend. Lin Xiaoyu learned that the name of the stadium where Yan Nang took her was called "Tengyun". Lin Xiaoyu's ball skills are growing rapidly among those highly skilled people.

  Lin Xiaoyu has lost a lot of that childishness, and her delicate face has become more mature. Lin Xiaoyu's height has also increased significantly. Now Lin Xiaoyu's height is almost close to 171 centimeters. Although Lin Xiaoyu is still the thinnest among Zhang Zhihui's group of basketball players, compared to before, Lin Xiaoyu has become much stronger. His shoulders and arms have already developed some muscle definition.

  Lin Xiaoyu was no longer as helpless on the court as he was at the beginning, being beaten by those masters. Although Lin Xiaoyu was still considered to be relatively weak among these people, he also had his own advantages.

  Lin Xiaoyu's increasingly skilled ball-handling techniques allowed her to easily weave through the tall opponents on the court. Her high-arcing shots also became very stable, and Lin Xiaoyu was able to steadily throw the ball into the hoop most of the time. Her incredibly fast steals also became sharper, and if the opponent was slightly careless, the ball in their hands would often be transferred to Lin Xiaoyu's hands.

  Lin Xiaoyu also has a special skill, which is passing the ball.

  Xiao Yu Lin started practicing passing very diligently, idolizing Jason Williams. Xiao Yu Lin seems to have a natural observational ability, on the court, she can easily see every player's movement and even their expressions. This makes her passing routes very varied, unfortunately, her passing technique still lacks a bit of fire, the force and accuracy of her passes often become the main factors in her mistakes.

  When Lin Xiaoyu returned to school to play basketball, his feeling was different. After all, the people who played basketball in school were not as good as Zhang Zhihui by several levels. So Lin Xiaoyu was able to play with ease in school. There were already very few people in school who could defend against Lin Xiaoyu. Yang Tianxiao, who had never lost to Lin Xiaoyu before, also lost more often than he won in their one-on-one matches. In casual team games, due to the weakness of the opponents, Lin Xiaoyu was able to imitate his idol Jason Williams' playing style with ease.

  At first, those behind-the-back passes that were rumored to be all over the place, Lin Xiaoyu was slowly able to use them with ease; The fake actions that Lin Xiaoyu naturally liked were always making his opponents dizzy and unable to find their direction. Lin Xiaoyu's high-arcing shot was often able to let him hear the "swish" sound of the net that he loved.

  In the second semester of junior high school, Lin Xiaoyu and Yang Tianxiao led their class to win the championship in the junior high school group of the 2nd Basketball Tournament of Feicui No.4 Middle School. Lin Xiaoyu also got his first trophy in life.

  Principal Qiu of Feicui City Fourth Middle School has recently been appearing on the school's basketball court from time to time. This middle-aged man with a half-bald head and a big belly is not here to exercise, but to inspect work on the court.

  The rival of Feicui No. 4 Middle School, Experimental Middle School, although slightly inferior to Feicui No. 4 Middle School in terms of promotion rate, always comes up with new tricks that make the principal of Feicui No. 4 Middle School headache and win the praise of the leaders of the Ministry of Education.

  This time, the Municipal Education Bureau proposed to hold a basketball game between various middle schools in the city. The proposal was adopted by the leaders of the Education Bureau and strongly supported. Moreover, the venue for the event was also set at Experimental Middle School.

  This made Principal Qiu feel unhappy, so he immediately assembled the physical education teachers of the school and required them to select students who play basketball well in the school to form a team to participate in the competition. He also gave those physical education teachers the goal of achieving good results in the competition. Strive to make a name for Feicui Middle School in this competition at Experimental Middle School, and suppress the momentum of Experimental Middle School.

  This time the basketball match between middle schools was divided into high school group and junior high school group, so Lin Xiaoyu and Yang Tianxiao, who won the championship of the junior high school group in their school, also entered the Feicui Fourth Middle School basketball team.

  Lin Xiaoyu was a little excited when he first entered the basketball team, wearing the school-issued jersey. Lin Xiaoyu seemed to have a sense of pride. Unfortunately, the school's basketball jerseys only had numbers from 4 to 20, which made Lin Xiaoyu, who wanted to wear the number 55 jersey, choose to wear the number 15 jersey instead. Because at that time, Lin Xiaoyu was exactly 15 years old.

  The coach of the school's basketball team is a teacher from this school.

  Speaking of coaches, I have to introduce Lin Xiaoyu, the coach of Feicui Fourth Middle School's basketball team. Among the teachers at Feicui Fourth Middle School, there are only a few who can play basketball. Zhu Chenggong, who is over 40 years old, also played basketball when he was young. Although his level of playing basketball is limited to being able to dunk without taking steps, relying on his height of 1.9 meters and his sturdy physique, he became unbeatable in the first Teacher-Student Basketball Competition at Feicui Fourth Middle School and won the championship in the teacher's group. Now that the school needs to select a coach for the basketball team, Principal Qiu, who has limited knowledge of basketball, immediately thought of Zhu Chenggong as the candidate.

  Zhu Chenggong was a management teacher in the equipment room. When he heard that the principal wanted to appoint him as the basketball team coach, Zhu Chenggong was extremely excited, after all, managing a group of students who were usually cold and uninteresting was a bit boring, so Zhu Chenggong didn't even consider whether he understood the rules of basketball clearly before agreeing to take on the role. It wasn't until Principal Qiu left that Zhu Chenggong realized he didn't know much about basketball, let alone being a coach. However, in order to save face and leave a good impression on the principal, Zhu Chenggong had no choice but to pretend to be the coach.

  After Zhu Cheng became the coach, he immediately went to a bookstore and bought several books such as "100 Questions about Basketball Rules", "Basketball Must-read for Beginners" and "Teach You How to Play Basketball". He memorized some professional basketball terms by rote. When Principal Qiu came to inspect the basketball team's training, Zhu Cheng would loudly shout those basketball jargon that only he knew, pretending to be more professional than a real coach.

  Of course, Zhu Cheng's success is not only to make himself look like an excellent coach in front of Principal Qiu, but also to make the players look like excellent athletes on the court. So when Principal Qiu comes to inspect the basketball court, Zhu Cheng will let the students on the court practice their offense, and tell the defensive players to just pretend to defend, don't really defend, so that the offensive players can score easily.

  So in Principal Qiu's eyes, almost every shot on the court becomes a score, making him think that the players of his school's basketball team are extremely powerful.

  Lin Xiaoyu began a dull and meaningless basketball training under the leadership of such an extremely irresponsible coach.

  In the school basketball team, Lin Xiaoyu met a familiar person, who was the one who had played with Lin Xiaoyu wearing Lakers jersey. Lin Xiaoyu knew him when he played with Yan Nan's older cousin Zhang Zhihui at "Tengyun" stadium, and his name was Lin Pingfeng.

  Lin Pingfeng is a high school student this year. Because of his excellent basketball skills in school, Lin Pingfeng was chosen by Zhu Chenggong, the fake coach, as the captain of the high school basketball team.

  During training breaks, Lin Xiaoyu sat with Lin Pingfeng on the sidelines of the court chatting.

  "This training is so boring." Lin Xiaoyu complained to Lin Pingfeng beside her while spinning the ball in his hand.

  "Well, this coach doesn't understand anything. Xiao Yu, you've really improved your basketball skills recently." Lin Pingfeng said.

  "Spending the whole day playing with you guys who are so fierce, I have to improve my skills, otherwise I'll be played miserably by you guys." Lin Xiaoyu said with a smile.

  "Xiao Yu, your basketball talent is great, I've never seen anyone play like you with such a good feel for the ball. You play completely relying on your instincts, this is a gift, not many people have it like you do, it's something innate that can't be learned through hard training. You will definitely become very powerful in playing basketball in the future." Lin Pingfeng said seriously.

  "Not at all, I'm still not a match for you." Lin Xiaoyu said with a slightly embarrassed smile.

  "You're not as good as me now because you're still young, but at the rate you're improving, I reckon it won't be long before you surpass me." Lin Pingfeng said, watching Lin Xiaoyu spin the ball with his hands. Lin Pingfeng's tone was very sincere.

  "I can be as awesome as Brother Feng and I'll be satisfied." Lin Xiaoyu said, looking at the ball spinning on her fingertips.

  At this time, Zhu Cheng, the fake coach on one side of the court, shouted at the players to continue training. Lin Pingfeng stood up and patted Lin Xiaoyu's shoulder, saying: "I'm not your goal, your primary goal should be to surpass Li Zhihui. Alright, go Xiaoyu, go train. When you're training, just treat that coach's words as nonsense, don't let his words affect your way of playing."

  Lin Xiaoyu nodded at Lin Pingfeng.

  Then Lin Xiaoyu and his basketball teammates followed Zhu Chenggong, the fake coach, to start preparing for the upcoming middle school inter-school basketball tournament in these two weeks.

  Lin Xiaoyu found that playing the full court was much more interesting than playing half court, because on the wider court, Lin Xiaoyu felt that he could run more freely and smoothly. And when playing the full court, there were also four targets for him to pass the ball to, making his passing game more varied.

  Lin Xiaoyu's heart was also looking forward to the arrival of the inter-school competition.