Chubu Daiichi vs. Higashiyama: Shimada’s Winter Cup Challenge | Basketball 2025

In the Winter Cup lottery held in November, Chubu University Daiichi’s opponent was Higashiyama, who had lost in the third round of the Inter-High Tournament, in the first round. At Inter-High, the score was tied at 35-35 in the first half, leading to an even battle, but they quickly fell behind 12-29 in the third quarter, resulting in a loss with a score of 63-83. The rematch at the Winter Cup was an unusually good card for a first-round match.

While Chubu University Daiichi has many players over 190cm tall, coach Ken Tsuneta appointed Kenmaki Nishimura, Kotaro Shimada, and Natsuo Yamamoto as starters, considering the matchup with Higashiyama, which has three high-quality guards. Muamba Jonathan, who finished with 8 points in the summer matchup, has shown his presence not only by scoring in the paint but also by providing assists for his teammates. He showed his growth since the summer, scoring 16 points in the first half alone.

Early in the third quarter, Chubu University was leading by one point, but Shimada hit a jump shot off an assist from Jonathan to take the score back to 39-37. Yoshitaka Shimizu made a 3-point shot at 4:37, and Tsunada Otoyama made a 3-point shot at 2:56, making it 52-46. They took the biggest lead of the match.

The score at the start of the 4th quarter was 57-54. Coach Tsuneta reflected, “It was a good turn of events, even though we could have had a little more of a lead.” However, the team was unable to play the basketball they wanted to play, including the issue of not being able to secure defensive rebounds. Shimada, who started as a guard, also felt the same way as the coach.

“In the first half, we lost 15 rebounds, and we were following the basket in a way that wasn’t our own, but even when we did score, it was cheating, or it wasn’t about the international students or one-on-one individual skills, and it wasn’t about us scoring as a team.”

The 4th quarter started with such anxiety, and the game began to unfold like a reenactment of the 3rd quarter of Inter-High. Chubu University Daiichi was unable to find an answer to Higashiyama’s increased defense and highly executed offense.

Coach Tsuneta had high hopes for underclassmen guards Shimada and Yamamoto, but even when Nishimura and others attack the paint, they don’t aim to score, and their passes are increasingly being stolen. Hayato Nakamura, who had scored 21 points during the Inter-High match, was able to make three 3-point shots and a layup from a drive, giving the momentum to Higashiyama.

“I had a lot of trouble deciding whether to use the timeout at the end or not. If we took this, they would have to fight as a team when (Higashiyama) stepped up again, and I thought it would be difficult if they were up by 10 points, so I took a gamble and called the timeout.”

Coach Tsuneda used three timeouts less than three minutes into the fourth quarter in an attempt to stem the tide. However, Higashiyama’s ace Nagi Sato provided a series of skillful assists, and when the point difference widened to 22 points, it was time to win. Despite the efforts of the third-year students, with Jonathan scoring 18 points and Nishimura scoring 13, Chubu University was outscored 11-32 in the fourth quarter and lost in the first round, 68-86.

Although he is a sophomore, Shimada, who is expected to be an ace candidate by coach Tsuneda, scored 10 points, but had 6 turnovers. As he said, “I felt like I was lacking in ability,” and as he said, he was unable to use his true potential and the game was filled with frustration.

Along with classmates Otoyama, Magoshi, and first-year student Yamamoto, Shimada will be a player who will have to lead Chubu University Daiichi next year. Coach Tsuneta highly praises his attitude and mentality, and says that he has the potential to become closer to his seniors such as Seime Sakamoto, Kashu Tanaka, and Hiyu Ozawa. With the experience of the Winter Cup as inspiration, Kotaro Shimada takes the first step towards becoming a true ace for his new team.