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8.

Indiana. Michigan State. Florida. These schools aren’t going anywhere. Neither is anyone else texting and calling and peeping my lines. They might be in a rush to sign me, but it’s not like they’re gonna stop playing college basketball if I don’t give them an answer.

But junior year at Marion East? That’s disappearing with each second. So I best make it count. And if Jasmine’s bailing on me, and Wes has his head all fogged up with smoke, fine. That just means it’s me and my boys.

So come the next Friday, I’m not checking the stands to catch a smile from Jasmine or a fist pump from Wes or to take inventory on the recruiters. Sure, I give a nod to my people, but all my attention’s on the other end of the floor. Louisville Ballard. Stacked. All five starters are going Division I, and they have a freshman coming off the bench—LeGarrett May—who’s going to be better than any of them. It’s the first game of a four-team tourney in Louisville, the kind of thing Marion East never got invites to before I hit the scene.

I make the rounds during warm-ups, pumping my boys up. They’re all juiced for the chance to take on a big-time team from another state. I just want to make sure they’ve got confidence in themselves, so I talk each of them up. But with a minute left in warmups, Coach Bolden grabs me by the elbow and pulls me toward the bench. “What do you think you’re doing?” he asks.

“Getting guys amped,” I answer.

“Amped,” he repeats, like I’ve said some dirty word. “Why not focused instead? Derrick, I know you can go toe-to-toe with any player on Ballard, but that’s you. We don’t want Josh Reynolds thinking he needs to put up 20 tonight. We don’t need J.J. Fuller thinking he’s a three-point threat. What we need is for them to know we want to make them work on defense. That we’ve got to give up crashing the offensive glass so we can get back in transition.”

“I hear you, Coach,” I say. The man’s the man, and there’s no changing that. I jog back out to get a few more Js in before game-time. A pure three from the corner. A pull-up from the right wing. And then one rip to the hole for an up-and-under. Ready.

In the huddle, Coach runs through our game plan, shouting at us like we’ve already messed it up. Then it’s time—starting line-ups and tip. Just before I hit the boards though, Coach Murphy gets in my ear. “Hey, don’t sweat Bolden,” he says. “The old man gets amped too, and that’s how it comes out. Help rein the other guys in, but you attack when you get the chance.”

That’s the message I want to hear. As I put my D Rose 5s on the hardwood, I just know—feel it in my bones—I’m about to drop the truth on this gym.

As soon as I get out to center court, I see what Coach means. Ballard’s the real deal. They’ve got size across the board, especially down low with a 6′10″ beast named James Lacy. And I know from watching game film that everyone but Lacy can stretch the D out to the arc.

Lacy controls the tip over Stanford, and they come at us. I know they can rip it and run in transition, but in the half-court they’re pretty methodical. They reverse and look for Lacy. We sink down to scare off the entry, so they zip it back around the perimeter. Not a lot of cuts. Hardly any screens. But all it takes is one slow rotation. And they get it from Reynolds, who keeps his kicks in the paint a split second too long. He can’t get back out to challenge his man at the arc, and—zip—Ballard’s got a 3-0 lead.