One day, a friendly girl named Haruko Akagi approached him and asked him if he likes basketball, Sakuragi immediately falls in love with her and decided to play basketball to please her. She showed him the way around the gym, Haruko informs him about the slam dunk, one of the most exiting and epic moves in basketball. After noticing that he can palm the ball, Haruko asked him to attempt to slam dunk the ball, which the latter does by hitting his head into the backboard. Even though he missed his shot, Haruko was impressed by his jump, and convinced him to join the basketball team. Sakuragi is overjoyed after he found a new love, but his happiness is short-lived when he found out that Haruko is in love with a guy named Kaede Rukawa, a talented basketball player back in junior high, which left him once again heartbroken.
On his way, he met two basketball players as he headbutted both, until he met Takenori Akagi, who punches the two players' heads and Sakuragi smashed him with the basketball in his face, insulting basketball, which enrages Akagi to challenge him in a 1-on-1 handicap match. Sakuragi is easily outmatched by Akagi who scored 9 baskets, until Haruko intervenes and urged Sakuragi to stop embarassing himself. Mistaking that she is cheering for him, Sakuragi managed to snatch the ball from Akagi, and tearfully regained his senses after Haruko really cheered for him. Sakuragi eventually won the match by a slam dunk, and reconciled with Haruko. Sakuragi began to humorously mock Akagi until he realized that he is in fact Haruko's older brother. After that, Sakuragi officially joins the basketball team in order to compete with Rukawa and earn Haruko's love.
Shohoku's last opponent before entering the Interhigh was Ryonan. During the match, Sakuragi managed to suprise everyone once again with his fast growth. Firstly, he surprised Yayoi Aida and the referee of the match by making a basket interference foul, that was never made in a high school match before. Aida commented that his jumping ability is beyond high school level. Secondly, he suprised everyone when he scored the first two points of Shohoku under the basket, surprising both of Moichi Taoka of Ryonan and Riki Takato of Kainan. He even successfully blocked Uozumi's dunk, and scored a free throw underhanded. However, near the end of the first half, he was defeated by Kicchou Fukuda, unable to stop his alley-oop, and left him bleeding from his forehead after falling into the ground.
After 101 episodes, the show came to a close with Sakuragi and his teammates leaving for the inter-high competitions. No one was happy the show was ending because it had already become part of their lives. Simply put, it was difficult to accept that something that created so many memories would not be there anymore.