Coach Anzai's wife tells Rukawa the story of Ryuji Yazawa, a talented basketball player from Anzai's past 10 years ago who became dissatisfied with Anzai's tough training for him alone and left Japan to play in the United States, where he thought he would have better opportunities to show his talent, only to become depressed as a result of the unsupportive American college basketball culture and die in a high-speed head-on car collision five years later, reportedly under the influence of drugs. This revelation forces Rukawa to rethink his views on basketball playing.