no shortcuts in basketball

Chapter 12 Herb Sandek

There are only two days until the start of the regular season.

At eight o'clock that night, Herb Sandek came to the arena office and took out the video of the University of Arizona Invitational Game to watch.

He got the video through his connections, and it was not easy to get it in this era.

And from his focused eyes and tense body, he could feel the pressure on his shoulders.

Before coming to the Devils, he coached at North Carolina State University for ten years. In the last year, he had a record of 22 wins and 10 losses, but after coming to Arizona State University last season, he went straight to 8 wins and 22 losses.

Although there are reasons for the talent of the players, the team's record is worse than the previous season (11 wins and 17 losses), and he, the head coach, is also to blame.

Although the NCAA head coach is much more stable than the NBA, if he can't improve this season, he will also be fired.

So this past summer, he first went to Seattle to find Xu Yong, and observed Xu Yong's games for two and a half months. He won Xu Yong with a full scholarship and a starting commitment.

Then, he came to another wave of "atmospheric operations". When others were persuading Harden, he directly persuaded Pella, and then successfully won Harden.

Judging from the performance of the invitational tournament, all the work he has done has met or even exceeded expectations.

But he knew that wasn't enough.

So before asking his players to do better, he has to do more himself.

Two hours later, he turned off the video and left the office.

When passing the team training hall, he heard the sound of dribbling inside.

He raised his hand and looked at his watch, it was already past ten o'clock in the evening.

Driven by curiosity, he walked to the door and saw the scene inside through the half-hidden door.

Xu Yong was in a one-on-one attack and defense with Cooksix, and the two men collided with each other with great intensity.

He looked relieved, and before he spoke, someone was already working hard.

But soon, his mood changed from relief to surprise.

Because after one-on-one offense and defense, Xu Yong directly started three-point training.

Immediately after this kind of high-intensity confrontation, it is difficult to guarantee the shooting percentage, but the result is that Xu Yong's shooting percentage is quite good.

He knows that Xu Yong's three-pointers are not stable, but if he thinks about it carefully, Xu Yong's three-pointers have indeed stabilized a lot in the recent period, but because he didn't shoot many shots, he didn't feel that the amount was up.

Seeing the end, he nodded with satisfaction. He put Xu Yong's "priority" first, even before Harden.

Facts have proved that his choice is right.

……

The next day, in the devil's locker room, half an hour before the start of training, Shipp went crazy in front of the Xbox360.

"Jaylen, did you go out with your girlfriend to practice ball handling last night, it feels so good!"

Ayres, who had just been defeated, put down his handle and got up and complained.

Before Shipp could answer, a group of teammates started whistling and booing.

Because Harden sat down.

"It seems that your winning streak will end here." Glasser, who also has rich experience in ball handling, said.

Harden is also calm. He has been playing the "Halo" series since it was released in 2001. He is even more familiar with this game than basketball.

Xu Yong was also standing aside at this time. Although the other people's advanced pictures looked like .mp4 quality to him, he was also curious about the result of the battle between the two.

The two are playing a battle mode, similar to the future CS, split-screen battles, two wins out of three.

In the first game, Shipp maintained his fiery touch and output a burst of damage to Harden. Harden's health bar soon bottomed out after failing to dodge consecutively.

Everyone shook their heads as they watched, there really was no one who could cure Shipp today.

Then the second round was extremely fierce, the two played their dodge to the extreme, and they fought for almost 10 minutes.

In the end, Harden showed his absolute strength, killing Shipp with blood, and won the second game with difficulty.

The moment Harden won, the locker room was boiling, with whistles and cheers one after another.

This scene has the thrill of beheading the game boss.

But this is only the second game, the third game is the tiebreaker, and everyone is staring at the screen.

Shipp was reckless when he came up this time, and he was confronted with Harden.

Harden was caught off guard, with blood left at the start, and gave up directly.

As Ayers said, this guy Shipp feels really good today.

Shipp also jumped up from his seat excitedly after winning.

Compared to him, Harden is the real Boss of this game.

This is the first time anyone on the team has beaten Harden.

"One more game, I was careless just now." Harden said immediately.

"James, if you lose, you lose. Don't make excuses." Shipp complained.

"One more round, I will definitely beat you." Harden continued.

"Guys, the training is about to start." Xu Yong reminded him that he knew that Sandek was a very strict person.

"It won't take a lot of time, 5 minutes at most." Harden began to use aggressive methods.

Hearing this, Hipp sat down again, and Harden humiliated him a bit.

"What if you lose?" But before picking up the game controller, Hipp asked Harden.

"I invite everyone to dinner." Harden said.

When he said this, the other teammates suddenly became interested.

No student can refuse Cengfan!
"Get started!" Harden urged.

Hearing this, Hipp didn't hesitate any longer, and picked up the game controller again.

The two are still playing fiercely, and Shipp really played at a super level today.

However, Harden played more seriously this time than in the previous game. In the end, relying on his hard power, he defeated Shipp 2-1 to justify his name.

"One more round!" Shipp also got a little bit on top.

But before Harden could speak, the locker room door was pushed open.

Sandek stood at the door with bloodshot eyes and a serious face.

Seeing this, Harden and Shipp were so frightened that they threw away the game controller and stood up.

The power of the NCAA head coach is much greater than that of the NBA. It is no exaggeration to say that he can completely determine the future of most players.

Under the gaze of all the team members, Sandek walked to the TV and began to dismantle the Xbox360.

However, perhaps because he is not familiar with the Xbox360, he took it apart for a while and then directly pulled it off.

Everyone looked at each other in blank dismay, not daring to speak.

Sanders didn't say anything after tearing off the Xbox360, and left the locker room, leaving a group of players at a loss.

"Ahem!" After a while, Pera came in and signaled the players to go to the training hall.

"Will the Xbox be pulled down?"

"Even if it wasn't broken, the coach probably took it apart..."

"It's all Jaylen's fault!"

……

After leaving the locker room, all the team members who came back to their senses talked a lot.

"Scott, why is the coach so angry today?" Harden stepped forward and asked Pella, trying to find out something in advance.

His question also made the others stop talking and look at Pera.

You must know that although they played a bit too much, they would not make Sandek so angry.

Pera shook his head, it's not that he didn't say anything, but he didn't know either.

Ever since, everyone came to the training hall nervously.

After a while, Sandek also came to the arena.

Pera called the crowd together.

"How confident are you that you can enter the championship in the new season? James." Sandek didn't talk about the Xbox360, but suddenly asked a question.

Harden didn't know why Sandek asked such a question, and after thinking about it for a while, he replied: "Seven points."

Sandek nodded, then looked at Xu Yong.

"very."

Sandek froze for a moment, then looked at Ayers.

"Eight points."

"Seven points."

……

Most of the players' answers were seven points or above, and the results of the invitational tournament gave them a lot of confidence.

"So, you guys now feel like you can beat Arizona, or OJ Mayo and Taj Gibson at USC, or the Lopez brothers at Stanford, or Russell Westbrook and Kevin Love's UCLA?" Sandek continued to ask calmly.

The players were all silent. No matter whether they had played against these teams or not, no one dared to say that they could beat them with absolute certainty due to the background of these players and these wealthy teams.

Or in other words, Sandek's words made them aware of their situation.

They are in the Pac10 league, the strongest league in the NCAA Division I league, none of them!

One of the most direct evidences is that six out of ten teams in the league made it to the final tournament last season.

Perhaps this number will be stronger when compared horizontally. There are 32 minor leagues in the first-tier league, and 36 wild-card teams in the tournament. On average, there is one wild-card team per league.

But there were five teams in the Pac10 league last season!

That's not to say that being in this league has a better chance of making it to the tournament, on the contrary, they were born in "hell."

"If you make it to the tournament, I will give each of you an Xbox, but before that, your Xbox will be with me, and this is the price you pay for not being able to attend training on time." Sandek finished, directly Signal Pella to lead the training.

This training session was extremely dull, not only because of Sandek's attitude, but also because of what Sandek said.

If the results of the Invitational Tournament made them float to the sky, Sandek's words pulled them down from the sky and fell heavily to the ground.

After the training, Harden followed Xu Yong to the cultural class, and he took Xu Yong to sit in the last row of the classroom.

"Xu, is Coach Sandek too strict?" Harden put his book on the table and asked over his head.

Originally, the team played well in the invitational tournament, and the morale was high, but this training session completely destroyed the morale.

Xu Yong shook his head, stood up the book and replied: "I used to think that Sandek was strict, but after today, I think he is a wise coach."

Harden was startled and knocked the book down with his head. He immediately helped him up again and asked suspiciously, "Why?"

"James, don't you think our opponents in the invitational tournament are average?" Xu Yong asked back.

Harden thought for a moment, then nodded.

The University of Oklahoma, Kansas State University, University of Texas, and Indiana University are not the strongest teams in their respective leagues, and the others are even mid-lower teams.

"After all, we were a team that didn't win much last season. We need such games to build confidence." Xu Yong continued.

The opponents in the invitational tournament are all negotiated between the schools themselves, who to play depends entirely on their own wishes, as well as the wishes of the other party.

In other words, you can choose to play against a strong team, as long as the opponent is willing, and once you win, your impression points on the NCAA organizing committee will greatly increase, but you may lose a lot of games.

On the contrary, if you choose a weaker team, it will be like the Devils now. The record will be very good, but if you win, you will just win.

Harden reacted immediately: "Coach Sandek used the invitational tournament to build confidence for us, but because we won too many games, we were a little overconfident, so he found an opportunity to pour cold water on us?"

Xu Yong nodded, Harden is very smart.

He continued: "Even if there is no Xbox thing, there will be other things, don't you want to prove yourself now?"

Harden suddenly realized that although he felt that Sandek was very strict, he did have a strong desire to play now.

"We will make it to the championship." Xu Yong said firmly, and put down his book after speaking.

The team is strong on paper, and the head coach is on the level. Their goals can even be set in the longer term.

Harden also put down the book, his eyes full of anticipation.

(End of this chapter)