Champion, please stay!

Chapter 27.27. I've gotten used to Brook having great talents in every way.
Yi Shui was naturally happy to achieve a new high score, but he wasn't exactly excited.

The news also included the Big East League's single-game scoring rankings for the season, with Harlan Godwin's 33 points against the Marquette Golden Eagles and Alexander's 29 points against the Rutgers Red Cavaliers both scored tonight.

Yi Shui remembers that Durant averaged 25+ points per game in his freshman year... The reason I thought of Durant was because he made a pull-up long two-pointer tonight. The opposing backup shooting guard, Jamal Wright, is only 1.88 meters tall. He pulled up from the spot and triggered a hot hand, making the shot cleanly. It felt really good.

However, when he returned to Stamford the next day at noon, an unexpected situation occurred: his 26 points in the previous night's game received more media coverage than Harland-Gaudi's 33 points and Alexander's 29 points!
If you only look at the number of experts who commented and analyzed, it's even more than when he got 14+11+8 last Friday!
He was puzzled. After reading through the comments on him by some well-known basketball experts, he finally understood the reason. It all boiled down to two words: prospects. They were all analyzing his growth direction, growth potential, offensive and defensive potential, and so on.

Harlan Gaudi is now inextricably linked with the label of 'Big Bird'.

Alexander did attract the attention of NBA teams because of his excellent running and jumping ability, but before he was forcibly paired with Marion and Kirilenko, as a tall white small forward, he was still labeled as "The Bird," giving the impression that he would not be effective in the professional arena.

But Yi Jianlian, playing defense, can get 11 rebounds, 3 steals and 8 blocks; playing offense, he can get 25+ points in a single game. He is clearly more sensational and more worthy of hype than the other two.

After figuring it out, he shifted his attention away from the news, had lunch with Yad, and then went to the main campus together. Today, he was scheduled to train defense and free throws with the forwards.

Upon arriving at the Kangda Gymnasium at the School of Education, Yi Shui suddenly felt something was missing today… That’s right! There were no classes on Monday!
Looking at his forward teammates who were obviously also out of class, he understood why most players, even those who had good grades in high school, saw their grades plummet in college.

A high school season consists of more than 30 games. In most states, the season lasts from early September to late February or early March of the following year. In some states, there is even one game per week. Including the final state championship, a season lasts for eight months. As long as you are willing to study, it will not affect your studies.

During the warm-up matches, Yi Shui didn't feel that it would affect his classes. If it was a home game on Friday, the team would gather at lunchtime. Even if it was an away game on Sunday, the game would be at 3 pm, and he would fly back to school that night.

But after the season officially started, the games were all played at night. Last night he played an away game, and he didn't get back to school until almost 11 o'clock today. Plus, he had training on Friday morning last week... If you take everything into consideration, he can't attend nearly half of his professional courses each week.

Yi Shui thought of Duncan, Okafor, Jeremy Lin... It's truly remarkable that these guys were able to get their degrees before leaving college and entering the professional arena.

He felt he should also try harder. Since he was taking Duncan as his role model, it seemed a bit embarrassing to graduate from university without a degree...

...

Yesterday, although the coaching staff assigned Yi Shui the task of helping defend the inside, it was actually very rushed. They only practiced a few simple plays, and the help defense task was also very simple. Calhoun almost said directly, "Hashem, you hold off Brook and let him interfere with the shot."

Yi Shui and Thabeet dominated close-range play at the start of the second half, with Thabeet contributing 80% of the points.

Today, Calhoun gave Yi Shui a full experience of help defense and rotation training at both the power forward and small forward positions. His intention was to find some suitable tasks for Yi Shui and assign a few to him.

He was also worried that Yi Shui, as an offensive guard, would resent doing these things, preferring to collapse and block shots, which was different from being willing to take on the hard work that should belong to the power forward.

But to his surprise, Yi Shui seemed very willing to learn these skills. Even when Yad charged at him head-on, he bravely blocked him, giving the center behind him time to move into position.

Furthermore, Yi Shui's talent for disrupting shots when collapsing during training, his awareness of judging the landing point of high lobs from the opponent, and his aggressiveness in fronting and competing for rebounds are all very high!
In the opening game, Yi Shui solved the team's weakness in the ability to collapse and cover in defense. Calhoun, the experienced old coach, did not really place his hopes on Yi Shui. It is very likely that Yi Shui just wanted to prove himself in the first game of the new season and did so by playing desperately. Yesterday, he gave Yi Shui a simple task of collapsing and covering in defense, which Yi Shui completed very well. Only then did he begin to take this matter seriously.

Now, facing Yi Shui's overwhelming talent, Calhoun's emotions are not as volatile; he has gradually gotten used to it.

On the bright side, at least his talent has been shown.

On a more extreme level, just like Clark said, if this kid had been well-behaved and obedient after entering college, without making any mistakes or pushing himself to the limit after "turning back," who would have known he had such talent?

As a radical coach, Calhoun did not think about further observation and experimentation. After the afternoon training session, he called the coaching staff together and immediately began to optimize and adjust the defensive system based on the rim protection combination of Yi Shui and Thabeet.

The main thing is defense. If you can defend, you can defend. Of course, if you don't want to defend, there's nothing you can do. But if you don't have a talent for defense, no matter how hard you practice the basics or how enthusiastic you are about defense, it's all in vain.

Like Yi Shui, he has some basic skills in one-on-one defense, but almost none in help defense or rotation defense. However, relying purely on his talent, his help defense and rotation effectiveness are much better than those of Price and power forward Edwards, who have solid basic skills. In fact, it can be said that he completely overwhelms them.

First, adjust the zone defense system and assign defensive roles; then practice the basics later!
After the coaching meeting, Calhoun and Clark went out for drinks. When they talked about Yi Shui, they both expressed the same sentiment—there were so many things that Yi Shui could develop and improve, but so little time… but it was better than having no talent at all.

...

On Tuesday noon, when Yi Shui arrived at the Kangda Gymnasium for his nutritious lunch, Clark told him about the results of the coaching staff's meeting the previous day.

He knew he would one day take on the role of interior defense, but he didn't expect it to come so soon... But since that day has come, he is learning very hard, because it's always good to have more skills.

However, Calhoun did not give him a full defensive drill like he did yesterday afternoon. He only arranged less than half an hour of zone defense movement and half an hour of basic defensive footwork training. After that, he continued to practice passing, ball handling, shooting, and other basic skills. The focus of his development remained on offense. During the training, he tried practicing the jumping and power generation posture when using the "Sky Block" skill to block shots, as well as pull-up jump shots.

Believing in the power of technology is definitely not wrong. When he sprints to receive the ball and goes for a layup, he imitates the jumping posture of a blocker to generate power, and his body control has improved significantly! However, it is still impossible to reach the exact same level, and if he wants to avoid the defender, it is difficult to imitate it accurately. He simply cannot do a dribbling breakthrough layup... But at least it has proven to be feasible!
Just like practicing the basics of a layup, practice slowly until your body can instinctively make that movement. He doesn't need to achieve the perfect jump and power like when triggering a block skill; he just needs to optimize his existing jump.

On the contrary, the pull-up jumper, which he previously thought was the 'easiest' shot, turned out to be not so easy to practice. He was sure he could make the first shot, but his accuracy in consecutive shots was quite worrying.

We still need to improve our shooting fundamentals... However, at the 45-degree angles on both wings, we can still hope to make 'tower sniping' a regular occurrence.

Friday marked the start of another home game for the Huskies against the University of Notre Dame's Irish Warriors.

This time, the Husky team failed to emerge victorious and suffered their first loss of the new season!

Yi Shui made 10 of 27 shots tonight, including 1 of 6 three-pointers, and 3 of 5 free throws, for a total of 24 points. His shooting percentage was extremely poor, but his teammates fared even worse, making a combined 14 of 40 shots.

Their defense was actually very good. Their star center, Luke Zeller, was shut down by Yi Shui and Thabeet, going 0-for-5 from the field and scoring only 6 rebounds and 2 blocks.

The Warriors' point guard, who relies on drives and passes, was also held to a 2-for-12 shooting performance, scoring only 5 points and 8 assists.

但哈兰高迪19投13中、其中三分球7中6，在罚球只有2中1的情况下，狂轰33分！主要就是那差点百发百中的三分！

The Huskies almost won thanks to their tight defense and Yi Shui's reckless shooting, but were overwhelmed by Harlangodi's outside shooting.

The Huskies lost to the Warriors 57-63 at home, bringing their record to 2 wins and 1 loss!
The Husky team was devastated by their loss. Yi Shui was particularly upset, as this was the first defeat he had suffered since transmigrating... and he was also short 5 hours of training time!
On Sunday, the Huskies visited the UnionPay Center in Philadelphia to challenge the Villanova Wildcats. The two teams engaged in a fierce offensive battle, but in the end, the cats had the last laugh, and the Huskies lost to the Wildcats 88-94, suffering their second consecutive defeat.

Yi Shui only scored 13 points, 6 rebounds, and 2 blocks in this game, all three of which were season lows. The opposing team paid close attention to his defense, especially Dante Cunningham, nicknamed "Forward Duncan," who ignored everything else and focused on him the whole time, providing solid defense.

However, his 7 assists set a new career high for him in college!

He had already noticed during the game against the Warriors that the opponents were paying more and more attention to his defense, and were focusing more on passing and playmaking, but he still couldn't help the team win.

The opposing team, comprised of several former top 100 high school players with exceptional outside shooting talent, including Corey Fisher, Scott Reynolds, and Corey Stokes, possessed incredibly accurate outside shooting.

This defeat made Yi Shui realize something—their adjustments to the joint defense had gone too far.

Playing against the Warriors gave Harlangodi many opportunities to shoot from the outside, and this time the Wildcats' outside shooting opened up again.

Fortunately, during the team's practice on Wednesday of the second week, he found that the coaching staff had also noticed this and strengthened the help defense training for wing shots. They also learned from previous experience and did not overemphasize it, but tried to balance the two.

Of course, the effectiveness of zone defense will be reduced as a result, and the rim protection will be weakened, but it is still better than creating such a large vulnerability on the perimeter.

If conditions allow, things will naturally be perfect; if conditions don't allow, then trade-offs and balances must be made.

November 23rd, Friday, is the fifth round of the Greater East League stage.

The Huskies are facing another formidable opponent at home... After the first four games, the Huskies players have come to realize that even if they get back on track this season, they are no longer the team of their 'golden decade'. Teams predicted to be in the top eight or even the top ten in the league are formidable opponents for them.

For example, their opponent this time, the Marquette University Golden Eagles!

This team won a championship in the last century, but declined after entering the 90s. It wasn't until 01, when Dwyane Wade, a sophomore, joined the team, that it began to take off. In the 02-03 season, they made it to the final four, and they have been a regular team in the "Mad Men" series ever since.

At the start of this season, the Golden Eagles' three star perimeter players have performed exceptionally well, currently boasting a 3-1 record, with their only loss coming against the Notre Dame Warriors.

However, the Huskies showed no fear when facing the Golden Eagles; instead, they were filled with a strong desire for revenge!
When Yi Shui, Yad, and Ostri greeted each other before the game, they started arguing with the three star guards on the opposing team—Dominique James, Jerry McNeil, and Wesley Matthews. Like the three of them, they were all from the class of 05!

In their first meeting during their freshman season, the two teams clashed over a fight between a few of their players. In their second meeting, elbows flew everywhere, but the Huskies, who were the stronger team, won both games.

Last season was different. The Golden Eagles dominated the Huskies, and those three guys ridiculed the three Huskies' classmates to the extreme.

When they meet again, enemies are filled with intense hatred!
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(End of this chapter)