Roosevelt Ravens Intrasquad Match – Starting Lineups
Team White (Home Squad)
Balanced, strategic, built around movement and playmaking.
PG – Darius Navarro (Freshman) Floor general in progress. Vision sharp, handle sneaky, memory of greatness still syncing.
SG – Noah "Noodle" Brooks (Sophomore) Lanky shooter. Hits threes like prayers—miraculous when they land.
SF – Terrence Cole (Senior) Silent slasher. Doesn't talk, just cuts and scores like a ghost with good footwork.
PF – Denzel "Diesel" Osei (Junior) Brute strength wrapped in knee pads. Favorite move is "run through you."
C – Owen Lee (Sophomore) 6'4, over-eager, fouls like it's a love language.
Rolling Sub – Bryce Chandler (Freshman) Hustle king. Can't shoot yet. Can guard anyone with shoes.
Team Blue (Away Squad)
Grit-heavy, defensive-minded, older lineup.
PG – Jason Dobbins (Junior) Veteran starter. Efficient, calm, looks like he was born mid-pull-up jumper.
SG – RJ Okoro (Senior) Physical. Gets into your jersey. Has never committed a foul in his own opinion.
SF – Quinn Avery (Junior) Trash talker. Also… kind of backs it up.
PF – Miles Haney (Senior) Stretches the floor. Thinks he's a guard in a power forward's body.
C – Caleb Knox (Senior) Intimidating presence. Once blocked a shot so hard the ball deflated.
Rolling Sub – Zion Mejia (Sophomore) Feeds on fast breaks. May or may not have ankle insurance.
Coach Daniels blew his whistle. The gym went silent, except for the bounce of a single ball and the shuffling of sneakers into position.
The whistle popped. The ball snapped into play.
Jason Dobbins, the junior vet, took the first possession like it belonged to him—cool, methodical. He dribbled into the front court, called for a screen, and when Team White's defense adjusted, he slipped a disguised one-handed dime through the pocket.
Layup. Easy.
Clean enough to make the bleachers whistle.
Darius blinked. He didn't even see it coming.
But he didn't flinch. Just nodded once, tucked the ball under his arm on the next inbound.
Time to respond.
He crossed the half-court line, scanned. Diesel set a hard screen on Quinn, just like they'd drilled. Darius slipped left, rhythm dribble once… twice… then snapped the pass to Noodle in the corner.
Splash.
Three up.
Coach Daniels marked something on the clipboard. No reaction.
The duel was on.
And it wasn't polite.
For the first quarter, Jason Dobbins ran his squad like a thesis. Calculated. Safe. Two passes ahead. Every trip down the floor looked like it had been storyboarded.
Darius answered with flashes—smart rotations, hard pushes in transition, one possession where he wrapped a bounce pass through traffic like it was heat-seeking.
But the score was ugly.
Blue ran up a quick lead. Threes fell. Team White missed rotations. Players started getting subbed out, sweat-soaked and rattled. The scoreboard was a bully. Darius didn't check it anymore.
He knew they were losing. And he hated it.
So, when the opponent bricked a rushed jumper and Diesel snatched the board, Darius didn't even call a play—he took off.
One look over the shoulder. A two-bounce sprint.
He picked the ball clean from Diesel's outlet and whipped it on the move—a tight low bounce, threading through Quinn's trailing leg to Noodle streaking to the basket.
Layup. Clean.
Two points, barely enough to breathe.
But the pressure didn't shake Darius.
Because somewhere in his chest—just behind the steadiness and between the hunger—he could feel it.
Jason might have the lead. But he didn't have the floor anymore.
Not really.
Not with Darius controlling pace. Not with every cut tightening. Not with White playing his rhythm.
Jason glanced at him from across the timeline.
And for the first time… there was no smirk.
Still, Darius didn't celebrate.
Didn't point.
Didn't speak.
He just turned, tapped the top of his head once for the next set, and dug into his stance.
He wasn't here to outplay anyone.
He was here to win.
The rhythm was Darius's now.
Everything felt sharper—each possession, each cut, each read. Passes that clanked earlier in the game were now hitting hands in stride. The plays weren't perfect, but they flowed. White Team had found something that Blue Team was steadily losing: chemistry.
Across from Darius, Jason Dobbins—once the engine of Blue—was crumbling in silence. His reads got slower. His handle less tight. Missed layup. Late closeout. Then a turnover that bounced directly into Coach Daniels's clipboard.
Timeout was called, and Jason didn't even sit—Coach gave the nod, and the rolling sub, Zion Mejia, popped up like he'd been waiting for that exact signal since warmups.
Jason walked off tight-lipped, jaw flexing. No one said it, but everyone knew.
Darius had taken that matchup.
The game rolled on. White Team closing the gap bucket by bucket.
Then came the possession.
Darius brought it up slow, just past half-court. Crowd silent, almost like they felt it coming. He waved off the screen. Isolation. Him and Zion, who shuffled into a defensive crouch with a bit too much bounce.
Darius sized him up. Rocked left. Right. Left again.
He dropped low, hit a between-the-legs into a fake spin, then snapped it back behind his back—and Zion's knees went out like expired Wi-Fi.
The boy sat down.
There was a moment. A silence that sounded like open-mouth shock.
Then Darius stepped into the three.
Release clean.
Net whisper.
Pop.
That was all.
No celebration. No flex. He just turned, backpedaled to defense while White's bench absolutely lost its mind.
Coach Daniels didn't even react.
He simply marked something down like, That one… might start.
And the system pinged in Darius's periphery:
[Creative Instincts: UNLOCKED] "Style, impact, improvisation. Welcome back, Kai Monroe."
Darius smiled without smiling. He wasn't done yet. But now the floor belonged to him.