Chapter 309 1997 ACC Men“s Basketball Tournament 5
After Jake hitting the 90mph hitting cage without missing a beat Brett told Aaron and Zack to try, the two didn"t want to be ashamed of the 70mph hitting cage.
But Brett insisted and everyone realized he was doing it on purpose, Zack knew well what his brother was like and gave up and went to try to counter, he just regretted trying to show off before, Zack still managed to hit 5 hits from 20 attempts, but if embarra.s.sed anyway.
After Zack went Aaron also had to go and try to hit the 90mph batting cage, he hit 7 out of 20 attempts and came out a little less embarra.s.sed, yet everyone had fun thanks to Brett.
Even though Zack spoke so badly of Brett he was one of the most fun and was like a kid, after going to the batting cage they went to a mall in Jake"s car to watch a movie.
They went to see the movie Jerry Maguire in which Jake appeared again to Brett who did not watch being able to watch, seeing for the second time they could enjoy more of the movie and even laughed at the scenes where Jake appeared.
To their surprise after the movie, two girls who appeared to be high school age turned up to ask Jake for an autograph, he was well known to people after appearing so often on television and in commercials.
Also, these girls had just seen Jake appear in the movie and with him being so tall it was hard for them not to recognize him, then his friends joked that Jake was so famous that he had to wear gla.s.ses.
It had been a few months since Jake had been shopping, so he went to the music store and bought several new Kate CDs and even gave her friends a gift, his friends knew her too because now Kate was known all over the country, even more, famous than Jake.
After they still stopped at a diner in the mall to eat and talk some more time, it was hard for them to have some free time to hang out with friends to talk to so they had to enjoy it.
"So we find out today what Jake Smith"s future is in sports, he"s going to be a great baseball player and win the world series."
"True, with that batting talent you can win any game you want Jake."
"I thought he would play American football like me, Jake already played in high school so it"s more possible than baseball."
"Don"t forget that there is still football, we have to go to some field and see Jake kicking a ball to see Hahaha."
"You say that because you"re jealous, I can play a lot of sports and you none, Hahaha."
"Oh so Jake knows how to be arrogant too, then we"ll see how you fare in boxing."
Everyone joked because they knew Jake"s talent was so great, only Brett didn"t joke much because he didn"t have much intimacy with Jake, Jake was happy to see that everyone was joking and no one was jealous.
Of course, it wasn"t because he could easily hit a fastball thrown by a machine that he would be a baseball genius, in fact of all sports Jake was least interested in baseball.
That"s because he always thought baseball was the sport where it was hardest to become a star and to be the team"s highlight, there are over 160 games in a season and each team has several hitters who can do the same for the team that is making home runs.
Defensively the player can only cover a small part of the field, pitchers can do more than others and have highlights, but pitchers are most likely to get hurt in games and can become heroes or villains with a single pitch.
So just having a lot of talent one could think of standing out in baseball and would have to have a good mindset to withstand the criticism that would surely come, then came American football which also has a lot of risk for players to get hurt and few games in a season.
And there was basketball, which was the sport that Jake had heard from his past life that he had the talent of many people, it"s a sport Jake loved and even though he has over 80 games a season there is no risk of injury if he is not very unlucky.
That"s why since his last life Jake thought that if he had a sport he wanted to play it was basketball and he wanted to win various awards and NBA rings, while athletics Jake didn"t think it was possible and just enjoyed running.
Of course, he wouldn"t tell this to his friends and just treated it all as a joke, Jake also knew that if he was a talented player throwing the ball to himself even if it was slower than 90mph he would still not be able to hit.
Not to mention that baseball was not just about hitting and had many fundamentals to be a good player, Jake could do well in baseball if he tried today, but that"s all because he gained so many running and training statistics in basketball.
If Jake wanted to start playing baseball from the age of 10 and trained for many years he couldn"t even join a normal team even with the help of the system with his lack of talent, so Jake always remembered how basketball and Athletics helped him with basketball being the main one.
After relaxing with his friends for a day Jake spent the other days doing nothing and just relaxing his body, he thought of doing various things before entering university, such as running multiple marathons or even making movies.
But just a few months after entering college Jake found that he had no time to do anything he thought, fortunately after the NCAA tournament final he would have several months to rest and do whatever he wanted.
Even if Coach Smith didn"t like it he would only re-train with the team after the start of next semester in late August, by then he would have four months of freedom.
In those days when he was resting, Jake wondered how Matthew"s company was doing this early in the year and whether Tiffany and Clara"s companies had already started investing better for their company.
But Zhang Yi knew that if he started thinking about business he would be very busy and couldn"t solve all the problems that would arise until the first game of the ACC tournament began.
So for the next few days Jake was really just resting and hanging out with his friends and even with the basketball team"s Charlie, Jamison and Carter they found time to go out and talk.
After all, this rest finally came the day of the first game of the ACC tournament, the day before this game on day 6 the NC State Wolfpack team beat Georgia Tech Yellow in the first round.
No one cared about this result and only Jake knew that the NC State Wolfpack team would surprise and become the first team to leave the first round and reach the final of the ACC tournament, of course, they would lose in the final to Team Tar Heels as Jake wanted.
So on Day 7, while Team Tar Heels faces Team Virginia Cavaliers, Team NC State Wolfpack will beat Team Duke Blue Devils if everything happens as Jake remembered in his past life.
Even though none of this happens Jake had the confidence to beat the Virginia Cavaliers team and any opponents they had in the final, after a few hours both teams were ready to start the game at the Greensboro Coliseum.
Since the game was in North Carolina, the Tar Heels team felt they were playing at home, from the first minutes of the game the Tar Heels team pressed their opponents into attack and defense.
Team Virginia Cavaliers this year was not that strong and Team Tar Heels was having one of the best seasons of recent years, they were coming to that game with a 16-win streak.
In the first half, Jake could play for 18 minutes and managed to score 15 points, 5 a.s.sists, 3 rebounds, and 4 steals, so he helped the Tar Heels team to have a good lead at the end of the first half.
Even though it was not an easy game, the Virginia Cavaliers team knew they would not have much opportunity to win the NCAA tournament and so the ACC tournament was their last chance to win something this year.
At least they didn"t want to be eliminated in the first game, so Virginia Cavaliers were making a lot of effort in defense and were determined to have a difficult game.
Even in the second half the Tar Heels team had difficulty setting up plays and players had to use individual skill to gain s.p.a.ce to make the move, so with Jake, Jamison, and Carter playing well the Tar Heels team had the advantage.
In addition, Team Tar Heels had the most restful and stamina players in this game, as Team Virginia Cavaliers did not have the opportunity to rotate the starting team because the reserves did not have the same strength.
So throughout the game Team Tar Heels always had the lead on the scoreboard even though Team Virginia Cavaliers was trying hard to win, in that second half, Jake played for 17 minutes and scored 16 points, 5 a.s.sists, 4 rebounds, and 4 steals.
Jake can do one more double-double and Tar Heels team won 84 points against 69 points Virginia Team Cavaliers was a good start and the other day they would have another game.