Shiori wiped the sweat from her forehead. The first practice at Akaito was indeed brutal. Coach Tabuse did not hold anything back as he put the girls through the paces. They had just finished up a tough full court scrimmage, requiring multiple passes to be made before a shot could be taken. The junior that had been assigned the tough task of guarding Shiori was not holding back on the physical play just because it was practice either. But she held her own, and thought she did fairly well until the coach broke up the game and ended the practice.
"Hasegawa, need to talk to you for a second. The rest of you, good stuff today. See you next week."
"Yes, Tabuse-sama," the team replied. Shiori followed over to a secluded portion of the gym while the rest of the team headed for the locker rooms. "What is it, Tabuse-sama?"
The coach had his hands on his hips as he looked up and shook his head, "I gotta tell you Hasegawa, I can see why a special transfer case was made to bring you in here. You are the real deal. Nakata threw everything she had at you, and you still were in complete control of the battle."
"Thank you, Tabuse-sama," Shiori said, accepting the compliment. It was nice to hear that from a coach as respected as Tabuse was. He was a former NBA player, if only for a few minutes, but that's still better than almost everyone in the country.
"But, if your dreams are to play in America, and judging from your status as one of the top young players in Japan as well as your father's history, I'm guessing that is the case, you have a major problem ahead of you."
Shiori was a bit taken back by this revelation. "What, what is that?"
"You see, you have an excellent post game, very refined," Coach Tabuse explained. "And you use your height to your advantage. But the flaw is that this is Japan. It doesn't take much height to get you an advantage. The women you would face in the posts of the USA would have an easy half a foot on you. And all the post moves in the world aren't going to work if a girl just has to reach up to swat it from you. Scouts aren't going to like that."
This was a bit hard to take for her. If this was true, then any chance of getting a scholarship would be out the window, and all her plans would have to be re-evaluated.
"But, you showed some good mobility out there," Tabuse continued. "That's what I was looking for when I put Nakata on you in the first place. I think you could make it as a shooting guard over there if you worked on your dribbling and outside shooting a bit more. I plan on giving you a fair amount of time at the two spot, in practice and maybe in games, just to get you used to that position, OK? I want you to be able to succeed over in America, I got my seven minutes over there. I have faith that if you work at this, you can get quite a few more."
"Yes, Tabuse-sama." Shiori bowed before him.
"All right, get out of here," he said as he headed back to his office.
Shiori scurried off to the locker room to clean up with the others. This wasn't the ending she had hoped for when she started practice today.
