MidReal Story
Courtside Conflicts: A High School Basketball Journey
Scenario: playing basketball
Create my version of this story
Jamie Carter
star player, friends with Alex and rivals with Dylan, athletic build with short brown hair, competitive and loyal.
Alex Nguyen
team captain, friends with Jamie and Dylan, tall with a lean frame and black hair, charismatic and strategic.
Dylan Reed
newcomer to the team, initially competitive with Jamie but becomes friends, muscular with blonde curls, determined and hottempered.
The Lincoln High School basketball team was a big deal.
We were the best team in the state, and we had the trophies to prove it.
Our games were always packed, and the crowd was loud.
It was a great feeling to know that we had the support of our classmates and that we were making them proud.
I loved playing for my school, and I loved my team.
We were like a family, and we had each other’s backs on and off the court.
I’d been playing basketball since I was a kid, and I’d always been good at it.
I was fast, I had great aim, and I could read the game like no one else.
It was my passion, and I put everything I had into it.
I’d been on the varsity team since freshman year, which was pretty rare for someone so young.
But I’d proven myself time and time again, and my coach knew that he could count on me to deliver when it mattered most.
And this game mattered more than any other game in my high school career so far.
We’d lost to them the last two years in a row, and I wasn’t about to let that happen again.
The game was close.
We were down by three points with less than a minute on the clock.
I drove the ball up the court, faking left before driving right, my opponent a step behind.
I closed in on the basket, but the paint was packed and it was too risky to go for the layup.
So I dished the ball to Tyson, our center, who was hovering just outside of the key.
He slammed it in with authority, and the crowd went wild.
We were now down by one point with fifty seconds remaining.
We needed a stop.
Jefferson High brought the ball up, their point guard driving down the right side of the court.
I kept up with him, making sure to stay between him and the basket.
He drove hard, but I didn’t give an inch.
I reached out and swiped the ball from his hands, taking it up the court as fast as I could.
He barreled into me from behind, and I stumbled forward, losing my balance as I reached out to grab the ball that had flown from my hands.
I hit the hardwood with a thud, and the crowd gasped.
But I was on my feet almost as soon as I hit the ground, sprinting back on defense as my teammate did his best to stop their player from scoring.
He made both free throws, putting them up by three again.
And we were out of timeouts.
So it was now or never.
“Let’s go,” Alex said as I dribbled the ball up the court.
“Do what you do best.”
Alex was our team captain, as well as one of my best friends.
He was tall and lean, with black hair that he wore long on top and shaved on the sides.
He had a magnetic personality and an infectious smile, and he was always there to remind me that he had my back no matter what.
And right now, I needed him more than ever.
I shook Dylan and pulled up for the three-pointer just as the buzzer sounded.
The whole gym went quiet as I watched the ball fly through the air…
And then drop through the net a second later.
The crowd erupted into cheers, and my teammates mobbed me on the court, laughing and shouting with excitement at the win we’d just secured.
I threw my arms up in the air and let out a cheer of my own before taking off down the court to celebrate with the rest of my team.
It was one of the best games I’d ever played in my life, and I couldn’t have done it without them.
As soon as Dylan saw me take off for the basket, he sprinted to cut me off, his eyes locked on mine as he raced to beat me to the spot he knew I was aiming for.
He was a hell of a player, quick and aggressive with a killer crossover and a wickedly accurate shot.
He’d made some incredible plays during the game, and I had to give him props for his skills even though he was a total hothead on the court.
He’d spent most of the game talking shit to me and trying to get under my skin, but I wasn’t about to let him get inside my head.
He might have been a great player, but he wasn’t better than me—not today, not tomorrow, not ever.
I glanced at the clock—ten seconds left on the game—and then made a quick decision about how to play it.
I took off down the court at full speed, my gaze flicking to the defender who was running beside me.
Dylan was fast, but I was faster—and I had longer legs to boot.
So when he tried to cut me off, I switched directions in an instant and sped past him like he was standing still.
I heard him curse under his breath as he tried to recover but knew he wouldn’t make it in time.
And then I had only three seconds left to make my move.
I sprinted toward the basket with everything I had left in me and tried not to think about anything other than where I needed to be and what I needed to do.
The crowd’s anticipation grew louder and louder with each passing second—until it was so loud that it seemed to fill my ears with a deafening roar.
And then I jumped.
Time seemed to slow down as I arched through the air and released the ball from my hands, watching as it spiraled up and away from me and toward the target.
I held my breath as I watched it sail through the air…
And then drop through the net a moment later.
The crowd went wild as soon as they saw it go in—and so did my teammates on the bench—erupting into cheers and high-fives and whoops of excitement.
We’d just won one of the most important games of our high school careers so far.
The final score was 75-73, and the gym had never been so loud before in the history of Lincoln High.
My teammates mobbed me on the court, laughing and shouting and pounding me on the back, so happy and proud that they couldn’t even stand it.
I shook my head and grinned, clapping them on their backs and shoulders and chests as I pulled them into a group hug, thrilled to have won but even happier that we’d done it together.
It was one of the best games we’d ever played, and I knew that I would never forget this moment for as long as I lived.
“In your face, bitch,” Alex said as soon as he found me in the crowd, holding out his hand for me to slap.
I laughed and gave him a high-five before moving down the line to do the same with each of my teammates.
Some of them were laughing, some were shouting, some were dancing and jumping around like they couldn’t contain themselves.
He had a huge proud grin on his face and reached out to pat me on the back when he found me, his eyes shining with what looked like tears of pure joy and happiness for what we’d done, grabbing onto my jersey to yank me down so that he could whisper into my ear, “That is how it’s done.”
I laughed and hugged him back, clapping him on the back as he pulled away from me and held up my hand so that I could be the one to lead our team in our victory cheer, stepping closer and closer to one another until we were all standing shoulder-to-shoulder and could throw our arms around each other and jump up and down together, shouting “Lincoln High!”
at the top of our lungs, over and over again, until we were sure that we would never be able to forget what had just happened—even if we tried.
The crowd was going wild by this point too, still talking about what a great game it had been and how lucky they were to have seen it go down live and still not quite believing that we’d managed to pull it off.
I looked up into the stands to find my mom and dad so that I could wave to them, happy that they’d been there too so that they’d been able to see it happen, hoping that I’d made them proud.
My two best friends on the team, Alex and Tyson, were among the first few people to mob me after I made that last shot—and I was so grateful for that.
They laughed and shouted and pounded me on the back and shoulders and chest, giving me high-fives over and over again even though we’d done it at least twenty times already just in the past couple of minutes.
“Hell yeah,” Alex said when he finally let me go and stepped away from me to look me over one more time, making sure that I was all in one piece before he was willing to let me out of his sight again.
“I am so proud of you right now.”
I grinned at him and shook my head, clapping him on the shoulder one more time just because I knew that he needed it—before moving on to do the same with Tyson too, knowing that he would need even more reassurance than Alex did right now just because of how he was wired.
“Thank you,” I said as soon as I found him in the crowd right behind Alex.
“I knew you could do it.”
He grinned at me and then shook his head, looking like he still couldn’t believe that it had happened—no matter how many times he replayed it in his head.
“You’re amazing,” he said.
I smiled at him again and reached out to give him one last high-five before turning to see what else was going on around us.
My other teammates were doing the exact same thing that Alex and Tyson had done when they reached me—congratulating each other with high-fives and hugs and pats on the back, still not quite believing that we’d managed to do it.
We’d just beaten Jefferson High in one of the most important games of our season—and I knew that we would never forget this night for as long as we lived.
I looked up into the stands to find Coach Wilson standing at the top of them so that he could watch us celebrate, a proud grin on his face as he clapped his hands over and over again to show us how happy he was for us.