Seirin High

Seirin High (誠凛高校, Seirin Kōkō) is a high school basketball team in Tokyo where Tetsuya Kuroko and Taiga Kagami play. The basketball club was founded only one year before the current story-line by Teppei Kiyoshi, so the team only consists of first and second-years. Quite unusually, the team's coach is a woman, daughter of sports trainer, Riko Aida. Her sex caused some to think that she's a manager. The club's captain is Junpei Hyūga.

Seirin High is noted for having an exceptional high-leveled run-and-gun style. Their offensive firepower is considered one of the best in the region. Their main line-up is composed of the rookie-duo Kuroko and Kagami, "Iron Heart" Kiyoshi, the clutch shooter Hyūga and the control tower Izuki.

Seirin got through the Interhigh preliminaries, but were defeated in the final league. In the current Winter Cup, they have already beat Tōō Academy, Yōsen High and Kaijō High in the semi-finals, and have now advanced to the finals of the WC, where they will face Rakuzan High.

History
Last year, when Seirin High School was just opened, there was no basketball club. Because of Hyūga and Kiyoshi's encounter, Kiyoshi founded the club and started recruiting members. While Hyūga didn't want to participate, his best friend Izuki did, and a bit later Koga and Mitobe also joined. Kiyoshi eventually succeeded in pursuing Hyūga and he agreed to join. After the basketball club's speech at the morning announcements, Riko (who initially refused) was convinced and joined as well. The club also gained Tsuchida as a member at the first training.

At the Interhigh preliminaries, Seirin broke through all the rounds and eventually got to the finals, where they had to face Kirisaki Daīchi High. They won closely, but lost Kiyoshi due to an injury indirectly caused by Hanamiya. Kiyoshi had to stay in the hospital for at least a year and Seirin was crushed in the final league of the preliminaries, against the Three Kings of Tokyo.

The next year, Seirin gained 5 new members: Kagami, Furihata, Fukuda, Kawahara and the phantom player of the Generation of Miracles, Kuroko. Seirin got through the preliminaries of the Interhigh again, with wins against Seihō High in the semi-finals and against Shūtoku High in the finals, two of the three they lost to last year. In the final league, they were defeated by Tōō Academy and couldn't win against the other opponents and were thrown out of the Interhigh.

The team trained for the Winter Cup next, with a summer training camp at the beach. At the Winter Cup preliminaries, they won against Josei High and advanced to the final league. There, they had to face Senshinkan High, the opponent they lost to twice in the Interhigh preliminaries. They won and had to face their rivals Shūtoku High next. This match ended into a tie, so the deciding match wether or not Seirin could advance to the actual Winter Cup was against Kirisaki Daīchi. They won after a very turbulent match and gained a ticket to the Winter Cup.

Now, Seirin is competing in the Winter Cup. The first round was against Tōō High, the opponents they lost to last time. All odds were against Seirin, but with the awakening of Kagami and the battle of Aomine and Kagami's Zone ability eventually led to Seirin's win with one point. In the second round, Seirin played the whole game with all freshmen benched and narrowly won. In the third round, Seirin played the first three quarters in the same way, but used Kagami and Kuroko in the final quarter to secure victory. In the quarter-finals, Seirin won a tough match against the powerhouse Yōsen High and was set to play Kaijō, their original rivals, in the semi-finals. After an extremely tough match, with both teams and aces performing exceptionally, Seirin eventually emerged victorious. The finals are next, where Seirin will face Rakuzan, the Emperor.

Offensive style
Since the team has changed significantly from last year, their strategies and plays were also different, hence the distinction.

Last year

 * Run_and_gun.pngRun & Gun Speed Basketball: Developed during the team's first year and their primary offensive style. It relies on fast breaks after a defensive rebound or inbound after an opponent's goal. The team comes invading in an instant, both with passes and fast footwork. It's a super offensive style and aims to quickly get the ball inside, before the defense can organize. It's a fast-paced point war.


 * In-and-out: With Hyūga being a threat from the 3 point area, Kiyoshi managing the middle with his delay techniques while acting as both center and point guard, and Izuki controlling the offense, they fall to this style in a half court situation when Run & Gun fails. It's very unique, as it seemingly uses two point guards, both inside (Kiyoshi) and out (Izuki), and is perfect for circulating the ball until it reaches a free man, this often being outside shooters, Hyūga. In comparison to the Run & Gun, this strategy relies much less on speed.

Current year

 * Ever-changing Run & Gun Speed Basketball: A variant of their Run & Gun which uses Kuroko's Misdirection to confuse opponents with irregular passes. It is said that this is and will be Seirin's complete offense style. It highly relies on passwork, getting it to the right player in the right spot using Kuroko's strength to its highest extent. This evidently confuses the defense, as it is ever-changing.


 * (Complete) In-and-out: Kagami joins Kiyoshi in the middle for increased firepower. Hyūga remains a threat from the outside. Kuroko acts as a relay passer to send the ball to either the inside (Kagami usually), or outside to Hyūga. Kuroko may also initiate the offense himself by using Vanish Drive, or use Misdirection Overflow to make his teammates use Vanish Drive.


 * Independent_Kuroko.png(Surprise) In-and-out: Kuroko uses Misdirection to vanish from both opponents and teammates, and moves independently from play to intercept his teammates' passes and sends the ball to a teammate in a good position. Both teammates and opponents do not exactly know when or where he passes, and are surprised when he does so. This is used in the match vs Kirisaki Daichi to prevent Makoto Hanamiya from stealing the ball.


 * Full Court Pass: On some occasions, Kuroko will pass the ball across the court to a teammate on their half for a speedy goal. Such an occasion occurred to counter Midorima's high-arching shot. In the end, it's a simple fast-break, but still specialized for Kuroko and either Kagami or Kiyoshi.


 * Rookie Duo Combination: In some situations, Kagami and Kuroko pass the ball to each other in order to break the opponents' defense and usually ends with Kagami's dunk. They can use this on a two-on-one situation, but also use it to pass multiple defenders.


 * Kagami - Kise showdown.pngKagami Isolation: A style opposite of Seirin's "Team Oriented" plays, Kagami receives the ball and takes on his defender one-on-one. During occasions they fall into isolations, Kagami is either very focused or "in the zone". Notable occasions are matches versus Tōō and Kaijō.

S.A.M. Defense
S.A.M. Defense is a special defensive formation, designed by the Seirin team. It's an abbreviation of the tactic's full title: Stealth All-court Man-to-man Defense. This formation consist of a full-court man-to-man pressure defense, literally the players marking their man tight from the inbound to the other side. But the difference from a regular man-to-man defense, is that this formation switches their mark constantly and in a way so that Kuroko ends up in the passing line, making use of his Misdirection skill perfectly and stealing the ball, explaining the Stealth part in the tactic's title.

Pool training
Seirin's infamous drill at Aida Sports Gym. The training consists of regular footwork and muscle training, but while submerged or partially submerged in water. The water makes sure that the high schoolers' bodies are fully supported, causing the risk of injuries to drop drastically. The downside of the water means that the pressure and resistance make the training extra hard. Seirin used this training to prepare for the final league of the Interhigh.

Beach running
At their first training camp, the summer camp, Seirin practiced their regular training scheme at the beach, so on sand. It is much more difficult to move and run on sand, so every player increased their muscles strength. But that is not the only reason why the training was held on the beach. Because when a feet hits the ground, the toes come first, so by running without shoes on the sand, you can easily strengthen your big toe, which causes the players to move faster on the court and to improve their movements.

Fartlek
A fartlek is a system of training in which the player runs in nature. By running on irregular terrains using their entire body, the player can achieve a balanced increase in fitness. Seirin underwent this kind of training on their second camp, the winter camp. Kagetora, Riko's father, ordered Seirin to split up in two teams and then let the one team try to catch the other team in the mountains. This was just a way to make them run fast in nature, applying the fartlek. This training purpose was to make every player adapt his body to the acquired muscles throughout the regular trainings. Kagetora called it mixing up muscles in your body.

Matches
Seirin High/Past Interhigh|Past IH Seirin High/Practice matches|Practice matches Seirin High/Interhigh preliminaries|IH preliminaries Seirin High/Winter Cup preliminaries|WC preliminaries Seirin High/Winter Cup|Winter Cup

Trivia

 * Seirin High School exists in real life, but is more specialized in baseball than basketball.
 * In Q&A section from volume 13, the question was who is the most popular guy in Seirin. The answer was Izuki, but it was noted that they all run away when they see his "joke book".
 * Tsuchida is the only team member who is dating.
 * Izuki is the team's accountant and has to pay a lot after Kagami binge eating.
 * In the manga after the Winter Cup preliminaries, Tōō Academy and Seirin High players "coincidentally" met up in the hot springs and during that meet up they had a small competition to who stays longer inside the sauna. Seirin won the competition since Mitobe stayed the longest inside the sauna.
 * All of their players are named after the days of the week in Japanese, with exception of Kuroko, Fukuda, Furihata and Kawahara. Starting from Sunday, Hyūga (日), Izuki (月), Kagami (火), Mitobe (水), Kiyoshi (木), Koganei (金), and Tsuchida (土).
 * According to the Characters Bible, Seirin is a new school with good facility and pretty small compared to other well known school in the series but located in strategic location in Tokyo and near a station.
 * Interestingly, 4 out of 11 players share the same star sign - Taurus.
 * Seirin team's height / weight / age / blood groups data:
 * This age comparison is true if following the Japanese school year (in which school begins and ends in April).
 * Read more about Japanese point of view on personality through blood types here.

Who is your favorite Seirin member? Tetsuya Kuroko Taiga Kagami Teppei Kiyoshi Junpei Hyūga Shun Izuki Rinnosuke Mitobe Shinji Koganei Satoshi Tsuchida Koki Furihata Hiroshi Fukuda Koichi Kawahara