Champion, please stay!

Chapter 41. Locking in the three spots for the Madman, Rose strikes!
February 1st marks the start of a new month.

A few days ago, Yi Shui was happy to have grown 7 centimeters taller and his athletic ability had improved instead of decreased. But when he woke up this morning, his agility decreased by 1 and his height increased by 1... He could only compare his height with Ya De to relieve his worries.

However, his wingspan has reached 215 centimeters, which is 16 centimeters longer than his height. This is good news, after all, every inch longer is an inch stronger.

The team's training intensity was reduced today; there was no training scheduled for the afternoon because their match is tomorrow.

Yi Shui's individual training schedule has been reduced, but he doesn't mind. He'll just go back and continue to practice. Recently, he's been focusing on passing and mid-range shots on the wings, honing his skills before the competition to improve his accuracy.

After finishing his morning training and returning to his dormitory in Stanford, Yi Shui had just sat down when he received a system notification: he had won an award!
He turned on his computer, and the NCAA officially announced the list of awards submitted by the Big East Conference. Just as the system indicated, he was selected as the Big East Conference's Most Improved Player of the Year.

However, the system didn't mention one thing: he was elected unanimously.

He initially thought it was just a bonus, but after seeing that several media outlets had given it prominent commentary, he realized that its value wasn't as low as he had imagined.

Seeing that the media and experts seem to be comparing his data from the competition stages of his freshman, sophomore, and junior years, he guessed that it might just be because he was the one who won the award?

It's not just narcissism; a player with a college career trajectory like his is probably one of a kind.

He won the award. Thabeet, another highly anticipated talent on the team, couldn't beat Hibbert, who won the Big East Conference Defensive Player of the Year award by a landslide.

However, Hibbert probably wasn't smiling either, as Harlangodie won the Big East League Player of the Year award with more than half the votes.

Hibbert's best perimeter teammate must be crying. The Big East Conference selected two Rookie of the Year this year, but Freeman was not among them. Blair of the Panthers and Jonny Flynn of Syracuse were jointly selected as Rookie of the Year.

In addition to these individual awards, there are also two All-Star selections.

This season, the Big East League selected a total of 13 players for the All-Rookie First and Second Teams, but the Husky team didn't have any. They haven't had a rookie win for two consecutive years, and Yi Shui feels really sorry for them.

However, the best lineup composed of 'two groups' includes several members from their Husky team!
Why use the word 'pile' to describe it? Because since 2005, the Big East League has abolished the previous award method of selecting three lineups based on positions. The reason is quite advanced - positions are becoming increasingly blurred. The boundaries between the two and three positions have always been very blurred. Now there are many players who are just over 1.9 meters tall playing power forward, and there are also players like Harlan and Gao Di who can switch freely between the three and five positions.

The new judging method involves judges scoring the shortlisted players. Players scoring above 400 points are selected for the first team, and the top 10 players scoring below 400 points are selected for the second team. The rest are eliminated. It's a simple and straightforward system.

Yi Shui scored 607 points, ranking behind Harlangodi's 672 points and Hibbert's 619 points, and was selected for the Big East All-NBA First Team. Only three of them scored more than 600 points.

Yad, who averaged 14.9 points and 9 rebounds per game, also barely made the All-NBA First Team with 412 points.

In the lineup, Yi Shui also saw a few names that he remembered: Sam Young of the Panthers, Joe Alexander of the Hills, Gransbury of the Bulls, Dominic James of the Golden Eagles, Terrence Williams of the Wildcats... To be honest, he liked this way of selecting the All-NBA team. Almost all the players he thought should be on the All-NBA team made it, leaving no regrets.

For the second team, Thabeet scored the highest with 392 points, unfortunately missing out on making the first team.

What surprised Yi Shui was that Price, who averaged 8.4 points and 5.8 assists per game, was selected for the second team, and his ranking was not low, with 313 points, ranking fifth in the second team.

Not only that, Price was also shortlisted for the Wooden Award regional shortlist along with Thabeet, which even Yad didn't make the cut for. Yad used to feel sorry for Price, as his teammate was never in the news. Now it seems that among professionals, Price's evaluation might not be lower than Yad's.

There are also some 'miscellaneous awards,' which are really miscellaneous. They haven't even been published on the NCAA's official website, so they may not be officially recognized. He's too lazy to even look at them.

In the system's view, it seems that only the Most Improved Player with a trophy is considered an award, while the Best XI with a certificate is not counted. In the system's judgment, perhaps these regional awards are not as valuable as the team's performance ranking.

Furthermore, the reward for the Most Improved Player was only a basic blind box, which contained a 10-hour shooting training card...

...

In the evening, after finishing his 'Day 7 Half-Standard Training', Yi Shui dragged his tired body back to his dormitory, took a shower, turned on his computer, and prepared to browse the news for a while before going to sleep.

Normally I would take a shower and go to sleep, but sometimes I was so sleepy that I would sleep until I woke up the next morning to take a shower.

The main reason is that the qualifiers have already started today, and he wants to see if there's anything fun to do.

And it actually happened! And it was hilarious! The Georgetown Amazings, the 'top dog' of the Big East Conference, lost their very first game! The team that defeated the Amazings was the opponent they were really looking forward to – the Memphis Tigers!
And it wasn't a hard-fought victory, it was a massacre!

老虎队头号球星克里斯-道格拉斯-罗伯茨拿到34分8板，加上罗斯的12分3板11助攻5抢断，两人率队以85比71干掉了惊叹队！

This upset was absolutely incredible. Since it was the first day of the competition, almost all sports media headlines were about the Amazing Team's upset loss.

The Tigers play in the American Conference, a prestigious name, but it's on the same level as the Southern Conference, where the Davidson Wildcats play. In the entire conference of 10 teams, only the first-place team is eligible to compete for the three spots.

The Tigers were scheduled to play 12 qualifying games against seven teams from the top half of the Premier League, including the league leaders: Georgetown Amazings, Oklahoma City Bruisers, USC Trojans, Arizona Wildcats, Texas Longhorns, Tennessee Volunteers, and UConn Huskies.

This treatment was even worse than that of the Davidson Wildcats. In the eyes of the NCAA officials, they were clearly cannon fodder. But the Tigers did something big right away!
Because of the passage of time and a lack of familiarity with Rose, Yi Shui had only been looking forward to playing against Rose, and did not know much about the Tigers or Rose's short college career.

Now he remembered that he had seen an interview with Westbrook, in which Westbrook said that the player he 'hated' the most was not Durant, but Rose, because he lost to Rose in the March Madness semifinals and failed to realize his college championship dream. He also believed that if he had won that game, he would have been the number one draft pick.

If Rose wins the semifinals, then the Tigers are at least the runner-up team?
Yi Shui feels that the difficulty of his first 'sacred battle' in his basketball career has skyrocketed! He's really... looking forward to it!
However, Gao Yuanyuan is truly unfortunate. She just lost to the Highland Tigers in the race for the league's best player at noon, and now she has become the first stepping stone on Rose's road to soaring draft stock.

...

On February 2nd, the Huskies thrashed the SUNY Fabro Buffalo at Harry Gamper Arena, kicking off the qualifying stage.

Rodney Pierce, the Buffalo's only top-100 high school player in the nation, a carefully cultivated prodigy, and an average of 21 points per game in the regional stage, had a terrible night.

他对位的易水，上半场打了16分钟，9投6中，其中三分球2中1，加上7中7的罚球，拿到20分3板1助攻3抢断3盖帽。

而他，半场被易水防得6投1中，只有2分1板以及4次失误！
Yi Shui didn't play in the second half, but Pierce had completely lost his fighting spirit. He played for 9 minutes in the second half and only took one shot, which missed. He still had 2 points at the end of the game.

Actually, the entire Buffalo team had a tough time. The Huskies scored a whopping 102 points and held the Buffalo to just 47, but Pierce, who mainly relied on drives and passes, fared particularly badly.

The Huskies played so hard tonight, and that's all the team's fault.

The Buffaloes are also a powerhouse in the minor leagues, securing a qualifying spot in the North American competitive league with an undefeated record of 20 wins and 0 losses, which has only 6 teams.

The Amazing Team got thrashed by the minor league champions yesterday, and Calhoun was immediately motivated. From the start of the morning's preparations, he repeatedly emphasized that they had to go all out and not give the opponent any chance to gain momentum. Then they pulled off their biggest 50+ point victory of the season...

The Buffaloes' home campus, NYU Fabbrie, was nearby, so they had at least heard of it. But the other Husky players, like Yi Shui, had never even heard of the names of the schools they were talking about, such as the North Florida Rattles, Gardner-Webber College Beasts, and Quinix Lynx.

The Huskies have been winning game after game at home, and the Harry Gamper Arena is becoming increasingly popular. According to local media reports, since entering the qualifying stage, UConn has earned more than $100 million per game from Harry Gamper Arena tickets alone. The average ticket price for these 10 games has reached $116. In the NBA, only the Knicks, Lakers, and Celtics have a higher average ticket price in the regular season.

Including the revenue from school team merchandise and local TV broadcasting fees, Conservative estimates suggest that UConn will earn over $2000 million from this qualifying tournament, and it will be mostly pure profit, making the Nets and 76ers from neighboring states extremely envious.

On February 25th, the Huskies defeated the Maine State University Black Bears at home, achieving a perfect record of 10 wins in the first 2 qualifying games! As usual, they secured a spot in the top three of the FIBA ​​World Championship series!

易水在这段时间的媒体评价也随着球队不断获得胜利而走高，10场比赛得分最低的1场就是第1战半场放学的20分，其中有3次30+，场均拿到24.5分8板3.6助攻1.5抢断3.8盖帽，得分和盖帽都高于赛区阶段，命中率也比赛区阶段高出一截，达到了48.3%。

His improved performance is partly due to his continued improvement in strength, and partly because, just like in the warm-up games, the strong teams in the minor leagues are generally not as strong as the mid-level teams in the division.

However, despite Yi Shui's outstanding performance, he was not the most talked-about person during this period. In terms of the number of times he appeared in the top news of major media outlets, he was even less prominent than during the regional competition stage.

Because this year, a monster has emerged in the minor leagues—the Memphis Tigers!
Following their resounding victory over the Amazing Team, the Tigers, led by Roberts and Ross, went on to defeat the USC Trojans 92-90, the University of Oklahoma Quick-Foots led by Blake Griffin 87-76, and the Arizona Wildcats, a powerhouse team boasting talented players like Jordan Hill, Chase Budinger, and Jerry Bayless, 69-63.

On the same night the Huskies easily defeated the Black Bears, the Tigers, thanks to Ross's drive and pass and Roberts' mid-range jumper, defeated the Texas Longhorns 81-80, securing their 9th consecutive win! Like the Amazings they defeated in the first game, the Longhorns are also top-tier league champions, and the Big 12 powerhouse has been knocked down!
Rose was originally considered a first-round draft prospect, having been ranked 5th in the nation in the 07 class of high school, won the American Conference Defensive Player of the Year award in his freshman season, and possessed exceptional physical attributes. However, this 9-game winning streak has led to him being regarded as having lottery potential.

Chris Douglas Roberts, despite his impressive stats of 20+ points per game, is relatively old, having already turned 22 as a junior in college, and playing in the minor leagues. He had virtually no draft prospects before, but has been making headlines recently, becoming a prominent figure during the qualifying season.

The Tigers are naturally the most talked-about team. ESPN predicts that the Tigers could become a seeded team in the Third Madness group, just like Adam Morrison's Gonzaga Bulldogs in 06! A minor league team becoming a seeded team is something that happens only once in a decade, and it may happen again after just one year!
At this moment, the media's attention is focused on UConn... next door is New York's basketball mecca, where the Huskies will face off against the Tigers!

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(End of this chapter)