Chapter 313 1997 NCAA Division I Men“s Basketball Tournament 1
After a few more days of training the first game day the NCAA tournament arrived, the game would be at the Lawrence Joel Coliseum which was where Wake Forest team normally played, if Team Tar Heels won they would play the next game there too.
After a few hours, both teams were ready for the game, Team Tar Heels was the first seed in this NCAA tournament and would face Team Fairfield Stags who were not having a good season so far.
So it was only natural that everyone expected the Tar Heels team to win this game very easily, everyone expected it and even Coach Smith was not worried about this game, Jake who knew that the team would win with some ease was not worried either.
But he remembered something that could end up changing the outcome of this game if he wasn"t careful, Greg Francis who was one of the highlights of this team would be playing very well that day and would hit 8 shots from three points.
So Jake didn"t know what position he would play in this game but made a point of asking Coach Smith to personally score Greg Francis, Coach Smith trusted Jake as a defender and accepted Jake"s request.
That made Jake very happy, so he would defend Greg Francis the entire game and at least not allow the opposing player to score so many points in that game, as Coach Smith was confident in the team he decided to change the initial lineup for that game.
Jake, Carter, Zwikker, Williams, and Jamison were playing very well in the attack of team Tar Heels and Jake, Jamison and Zwikker also stood out in defense, so Coach Smith decided to let the five players in the initial lineup and leave Okulaja on the bench beginning of the game.
Coach Smith believed that in this game if they scored more points with this team the defense would not matter so much and they would still win, plus he was confident in defending his team for this game.
"Today all our viewers will be watching home the first round of this NCAA tournament, a first seed game from East Regional North Carolina Tar Heels against team sixteenth seed team Fairfield Stags."
"Everyone looks forward to an easy win for the Tar Heels team in this game for the great phase the team has had 28 wins and only 2 losses to that match and comes from a winning streak of 19."
"It"s normal to think that in addition to winning a lot of games they have great players like Jake, Jamison, Carter, and others, and still managed to win the ACC tournament."
"But we all know how unpredictable basketball can be and nothing is decided before the end of the game, the Fairfield Stags team can surprise us all in today"s game."
In the early minutes of the game, Fairfield Stags seemed to be in for the win and soon a very strong and unexpected attack began in the early minutes, only Jake expected it and was like a shadow defending closely against Francis.
Just in the first two minutes of play, Jake gave some s.p.a.ce on purpose and soon saw Francis receive the pa.s.s when Francis tried the three-point shot Jake was already prepared and approached quickly and went to the block.
Francis was 1.90 m and did not expect the block, so Jake can easily take the ball off his 1.98 m, a few minutes later Jake again got a block against Francis.
After these two plays, Jake was sure that Francis"s confidence was shaken and that he would hesitate to try the outside shot with Jake around, Coach Smith was very pleased with that on the bench and thought Jake was particularly good today.
In the first 5 minutes Jake also managed to score 5 points and 2 a.s.sists so Tar Heels team had the lead, Jamison and Zwikker were a little distracted at the start of the game so it was still a difficult start.
"Good start to the game for Jake in this game, it looked like the Fairfield Stags team was planning to start pus.h.i.+ng in those early minutes and maybe open up some advantage, but Jake broke their hopes."
"These two blocks at the beginning of the game were unexpected for the Fairfield Stags team and maybe even for the Tar Heels team, after all, Jake had only 3 blocks in the whole season and made over half of it today going to 5 blocks this year."
"The most amazing thing is the detail of these plays, Jake defends closely against Francis and only for a few moments moves away from the defense, but is still watching closely Francis when Francis leaves the three-point line and receives the ball Jake still does not move."
"Only when Francis starts the move to try the three-point shot that Jake quickly advances and still jumps after Francis to get the block, that"s both."
And that went on, the whole first time Jake realized that Zwikker and Jamison were not playing well so made more moves with Carter and Williams, the two matched by scoring a few points.
Jake also calmed the team and valued each time before completing the play, Jake still hit 4 shots from 3 points in 7 attempts and was therefore unable to support the team with several steals and rebounds as in other games.
In compensation by the end of the first half, Jake had made 6 blocks, 5 of them in Francis and yet Francis managed to make three points in that first half, it did not look like he had lost confidence even after several blocks of Jake.
In the first half, Jake played for 19 minutes and managed to score 18 points, 6 a.s.sists, 3 rebounds, 2 steals, and 6 blocks, with this excellent first-half performance of Jake the Tar Heels team was winning easily.
"What an incredible first half Jake has been leading the Tar Heels team in this game, a normal performance for him in offense considering the other games, but in defense, he has been saving the Tar Heels team from perhaps finis.h.i.+ng behind in that first half."
"You say normal, but he was directly 34 points out of the 42 points that the Tar Heels team scored in the first half, we can"t treat that as normal even if he does the same every game."
"He seems to be really paying attention to Francis in this game, Jake made 5 blocks in Francis in the first half, we don"t know if any of these three-point shots would hit, but Francis certainly has the team"s confidence in this game."
In the second half, the Fairfield Stags team played at the same pace trying to win the game, but the Tar Heels team improved a lot in the second half, Jamison and Zwikker who was not playing so well began to show a great performance.
Especially Zwikker who was taking several rebounds and doing more than double the points in the first half in that second half, Jake still controlled the game calmly and always defended against Francis.
In the second half, Jake made another 5 blocks and 4 more of them in Francis, yet Francis still scored 6 more points in this second half of the game, even though Jake could feel that Francis could have a better average hit than him in this game if Jake allowed.
Before halfway through the second half everyone knew that the Tar Heels team would win this game, Coach Smith was calm and even smiling when talking to the players, it was completely different from the difficult game that Jake saw in his past life.
In that second half, Jake played for 18 minutes and managed to score 15 points, 5 a.s.sists, 2 rebounds, 2 steals, and 5 blocks with another triple-double. Jake secured an easy game for the team and he disrupted the best player of the team Fairfield Stags in this game.
Team Tar Heels won 94 points against 61 points for Fairfield Stags, it was a difficult game that was made easier because Jake was on the court, yet Jake did not perform so well and even missed a lot of three-point shots.
Even though he was pleased with the triple-double and being able to make 11 blocks in this game, it was shameful for him to have made only 3 blocks this season, so he took advantage of knowing that a player from the opposing team would have a great performance and even made several blocks.
"And so ends that first round of the NCAA tournament, a great game and an easy win for the Tar Heels team, Jake Smith as always controlling the game and Serge Zwikker having another great game as well as Vince Carter."
"Defensively Jake did exactly what he set out to do and so the Fairfield Stags team failed to play so well and lost by so much difference, just by those 9 points that Francis did even with Jake in defense already showed how he was inspired by this game. "
"Hahaha, that"s true, I"m sure Francis will have nightmares with Jake after this game, a player who had only 3 blocks in the whole season decided to play very well in this game and made 9 blocks in it, Francis must be very angry."
"This is another game that perfectly ill.u.s.trates Jake"s versatility as a player, I"m sure he will make history in the NBA as he is already making history in college basketball."
"That"s right, a few games ago Jake made a quadruple-double and now he shows that one day maybe he can make a quintuple-double playing like that."
Commentators naturally praised Jake for the great game and because the Tar Heels team seemed to be doing well to win this year"s NCAA tournament, so reporters came to interview the players.
The first interviewee was Greg Francis who had made an interesting dispute with Jake who was the best of the game in this game, reporters were curious about what Greg Francis was thinking.
"What did you think of this Francis game?"
"I thought the Tar Heels team played very well and deservedly won, our team did what we had trained to do and yet we lost by a large margin of points."