A/N: It's been a while, sorry for the long delay! No rants or responses just yet, you'll find that at the bottom. Enjoy!

Heart of the Hoops

Chapter 27: The Worst of Times

The following is a Metro-8 Conference Sports Moment:

On September 2, 1950, Jump City University played in it's first intercollegiate game of any kind when they visited Lincoln, Nebraska to tussle with the Nebraska Cornhuskers in the season-opener for college football. The game was rather uneventful, a 84-3 whipping by the powerful Cornhuskers. This game however, will be forever remembered for what happened in the stands. A young buisnessman, Bobby Campbell, penned the famous Titan fight song "The Black and Gold" while watching the game unfold in the stands.

You have your Big Red and your Big Blue

Your Sooner Cream and Irish Gold

We'll take our dear old alma mater's

We'll take our dear old Black and Gold!

There are so many other colors

But these we'll surely fight to hold

There are no colors like the Black and Gold!

You take your burnt-up Texas orange

Your Bama red and Navy Blue

We'll take our dear old Black and Gold, sir!

For us they're handsome, tried and true!

So Titans young and old will wear them

As our men promise not to fold

There are no colors like the Black and Gold!

The song was adopted as the official school fight song in 1956...three days after JCU beat Viridian 77-68 to claim their first Metro-8 Basketball Championship.

The proceeding was a Metro-8 Conference Sports Moment. We'll now send you back to your broadcast...

Hello people, it's Chris and Charlie here on the Sports Shack. We have all hands on deck tonight as Ken Lucas joins myself and Chris doing all the hard stuff. The beautiful Mimi Hines is producing tonight, she's got all the controls behind the glass. Even our intern Cody is in the house getting some work done! Well, we have some serious breaking news coming out of Domino City. The coach, Nathan Colby has been arrested.

Yeah, very serious charges against the rookie coach. If they are true, he'll probably not only lose his job but will be facing some prison time.

All that I know, Ken, is that they scheduled a press conference at DCU tomorrow morning. I don't know if Pegasus is going to give him the "vote of confidence" or fire him on the spot, so it's just going to be pretty interesting to see what happens.

Meanwhile, Tristan Taylor is in charge of the team and will take them out west to suit up against the Gonzaga Bulldogs. If they want to get one of those At-large bids into the NCAA tournament, this is a must-win. If they don't,I don't know if they can get into the tournament by ousting reigning champion Jump City.

Yeah, those Titans are on a roll indeed. They're 13-3 with the losses comming against Kansas, UCONN, and a surprising home loss to Vermont. Since that loss to Vermont, they've soared into the top 25 and currently hold the number 16 spot.

Nathan sat alone in his jail cell, completely baffled. He knew that he was innocent of the charges against him, but did not know who would set him up like this...or why.

"Mr. Colby."

He looked up from his cotempations to see a prison guard standing in front of him.

"Someone's posted your bail. Come with me, please."

Nathan breathed a sigh of relief as the guard unlocked the door and escorted him to the processing area.

"Excuse me officer, but do you know who bailed me out?"

"Not sure there, kid, but I do know that she's a pretty good lookin' lady."

Nathan smiled internally. I definitely owe Ishizu big time for this one. This is the second time that she's come out to help me after I've gotten in some deep trouble. And this policeman is right, she is a very pretty woman.

After Nathan finally filled out all of the processing papers, he walked out of the jail free to do buisness. When he stepped outside to greet his savior, he encountered a suprising and for the most part unwelcome sight.

"J...Jessie?"

The redhead put her hands on her hips and gave him an arrogant smirk. "I think the words you're struggling to find are 'thank you'."

Ryou/Bakura's Apartment:

Bakura was finishing up some homework for his Advanced Calculus class. He didn't have much spare time because of basketball, so whatever time he did manage to scrape up he used to keep his GPA up to his own lofty standards.

"Hello, Bakura. Nice game tonight."

"Don't bother me right now. I have a great deal of work to get done..." Bakura did not look up from his work as he continued to work what most college students would have considered a very difficult problem.

"Heh...I'm just trying to be nice."

"Why start now?" Bakura's voice had a cold, bitter tone to it...a tone not lost on his twin brother.

"You're not still mad about that, are you?"

"Let's analyze...you single-handedly screwed up my lovelife with your little head games and I'm not supposed to be upset?"

Ryou leaned down and whispered into his brother's ear. "Are you mad thatI had your girl before you?"

Ryou recieved a vicious right hand to the jaw for his efforts. He lay on the floor for a moment, holding his jaw. "I'll take that as a yes."

Yami/Yugi's Apartment

Tea, Mai, and Serenity were going the rounds with each other on the latest Dance Dance Revolution game while most of the basketball team met in the small kitchen area.

"What the hell is going on here? Who called this meeting?" An irritated and slightly tired Duke piped up as everyone arrived.

"We did." Yami and Seto Kaiba stood side by side, faces serious.

"We brought you all here to discuss something...a walkout."

Interesting developments in the offing...Nathan gets bailed out of jail by his high-school sweetheart. If he still has feelings for her, why is he so uncomfortable? Kaiba and Yami are talking walk-out, plus Ryou and Bakura have their own issues. Will all of this be resolved by the time they play Gonzaga. Well...will they even PLAY Gonzaga? Find out next time?

Sorry, but I gotta go. Three things...first thanks to EVERYBODY who reviewed the last chapter. I appreciate it a bunch. Second, there was a complaint about my rants. If you don't me to put such things in my fics, please let me know. I'm sorry if I offended anyone. I try to do a lot of things when I write, but offending someone isn't one of them. Third...the fight song I wrote (which is more of an exercise to relieve writer's block than anything else) is based on the Arizona University fight song "Fight Wildcats Fight!" If you can name the seven schools that I mentioned in the fight song, you get a prize! (OK, the prize I haven't determined yet, but three of the schools are pretty obvious...four of them are a little tougher.)

Well, that's it and that's all... I hope the juice was worth the squeeze.

BDB...out