Chapter 318 1997 NCAA Division I Men“s Basketball Tournament 6
"Jake may not be performing well, but it"s not his fault, after all, Jake plays PG and if the team is not performing well he also can"t stand out without making individual plays."
"I really don"t understand, you can tell by seeing this game that the California Golden Bears team is working harder on defense because they are without their best player, but the Tar Heels team is complete."
"Even though the California Golden Bears defense is fine, it"s hard to understand why the Tar Heels team is having such a hard time making the moves, only Jamison is performing well and Carter is playing only moderately."
"This is certainly something we cannot understand, but the Tar Heels team fans can rest a.s.sured that Jake is doing his part very well and is thus leading the Tar Heels team to an easier win."
Jake was really struggling to make moves involving his teammates to see them gain more confidence in the game and make a better match, in another move Jake made a steal intercepting a pa.s.s from the opposing team.
Jake decided not to run as in other plays and held the ball waiting for his teammates to advance to the attacking court, Jake advanced and after pa.s.sing through the middle of the court pa.s.sed the ball to Williams on the right.
Williams advanced and continued to advance on the left even after receiving pressure from the California Golden Bears defense, Williams pa.s.sed the ball to Jamison who was on the left.
As soon as Jamison received the ball, he could see that California Golden Bears" defense was stronger in the painted area, so Jamison chose to step outside the three-point line and restart play.
Jamison wanted to pa.s.s to Jake, but soon a defender appeared in the path of his pa.s.s, so Jamison pa.s.sed the ball back to Williams who was more to the left, Williams received the ball with some freedom.
In that first half of the game, the right side of the Williams He and Zwikker Tar Heels team attack was not enjoying Jake"s pa.s.ses, so when he received the ball more freely Williams stepped back and then attempted a three-point shot.
Unfortunately, the ball didn"t come in and Williams missed the three-point attempt, Zwikker jumped and got the rebound and tried to push in to make another 2 points, but he also missed and then had to jump again to catch the rebound.
Zwikker did not attempt another attack and pa.s.sed the ball to Carter on his left, Carter caught the ball and left the painted area and pa.s.sed the ball back to Jake, Jake naturally had no problems with Shammond Williams and Serge Zwikker.
His reason for not pa.s.sing the ball to them is because he knew they were not having a good game, so Jake held the ball to pa.s.s the time and thus made the opposing team more nervous as they were more than 6 points behind on the scoreboard.
When the time of possession was nearing its end Jake advanced into the three-point line, Jake made a quick crossover and took his defender off the pitch with this dribble, Jake took the speed boost and found a place to advance.
With speed and agility, Jake drove to the basket and made a dunk to get 2 points more for the Tar Heels team, after this play that spent almost 1 minute the first half soon ended.
"A first half that looked more like a two-team defense attack and had no good times ended with the Tar Heels team to great advantage thanks to the good performance of Jake and Jamison."
"Carter has also had a good first half, but even he missed a few plays in that first half, and Williams was the wrongest in the attack along with Zwikker and the two almost didn"t get many Jake pa.s.ses."
"Jake knows his teammates very well and has never been selfish in the plays, he is often criticized even for not trying more individual plays, but if in this game he didn"t pa.s.s the ball to Zwikker and Williams it was because he felt that his teammates were not having a good day."
"I understand who criticizes Jake for pa.s.sing the ball too much, he should not even be a PG and should play SG for his box score statistics, he has over 65% hit rate on three-point shots and over 72% hit in the attempts total shots in the game."
"With such a performance I can understand why some people say Jake should try more than 15 shots of at least 3 points per game, so in fact, he would help the team a lot more."
"But if he did that he wouldn"t have so many triple-double and a double-double in the games, moreover, just because Jake is like PG who can help the team so much in the games."
"But Ed Cota could also be a good choice for PG in this team, even playing a short time he has always made more than 2 a.s.sists in every game that comes in."
"But between leaving Jake as SG and taking Carter out to put Ed Cota who makes a lot of a.s.sists and doesn"t score points and leaving Jake as PG who makes a lot more a.s.sists and still can always make more than 30 points per game the decision is obvious."
"Also, Jake himself says that if he made more than 16 three-point shots per game he would probably have a much lower hit rate in the games, so it"s not worth it in the end."
Commentators talked about Jake"s chances on the team with always in the break, the first half was over and Jake had played for 18 minutes and scored 18 points, 4 a.s.sists, 4 rebounds, and 6 steals.
Jake wasn"t able to a.s.sist much in this game with his teammates missing so much, but in defense, he was doing very well and thus further ensured the team"s advantage.
What happened was that even with many steals, Jake had no way of knowing if the moves where he steals the ball or intercepts his opponents" pa.s.ses would really prevent them from scoring or if his opponents would miss the attack anyway.
After all in several games, Jake made more than 7 steals or more and his opponents had as many points as he remembered to see in his past life, of course, that"s not why he would stop stealing.
Coach Smith was unsure of what to do in the half-time but spent a few more moves and encouraged the team to play better, after all, he also realized that Williams and Zwikker were not well in the first half.
But Zwikker still helped a lot in defense and rebounds, and Williams struck two three-point shots in that game and was not playing so badly in addition to drawing attention from the opposing team"s defense thus making room for his teammates to make the plays.
Defending the team was not a problem and when he put Okulaja in the game the team"s attack didn"t improve either, so Coach Smith could only hope that Jake would continue to play well.
In the second half of the game, the California Golden Bears team was losing by many points the game and so had to stop defending so much and try to attack more, this ended up giving Tar Heels more opportunities to attack.
Also, while attacking the Tar Heels team with Jake so well was very good in defense as well, it was almost impossible for opponents who didn"t have a player like Tim Duncan to get offensive rebounds against the Tar Heels team.
When Ademola Okulaja was on the court the team"s defense of the Tar Heels team was even better even though the team"s attack usually got weaker, but against teams like California Golden Bears that were not attacking well in the game, Shammond Williams was a better choice.
In another play Jake had got another steal in the game to the desperation of team California Golden Bears, Jake as in the whole game preferred not to attack in a hurry and took advantage of the ball possession and the attack time.
Even though the Tar Heels team also had fewer attack opportunities this was the NCAA tournament"s Sweet Sixteen game, and even scoring fewer points it was much better to secure the win.
After the team advanced Jake also went to the offensive court and after the middle of the court pa.s.sed to Carter, Carter also did not hurry and calmly advanced from the left until before the three-point line.
Carter pa.s.sed the ball to Williams on the right, Williams had been given a little scolding by Coach Smith for attempting too many individual plays and stopped risking more shots, Williams pa.s.sed Jamison further left.
Jamison received the back pa.s.s to the basket and soon saw the defense arrive and had to move back to Jake further back, Jake received the ball and held for a while before attempting another crossover.
The opposing player in defense did not risk and went back in the painted area to not let Jake advance further, so Jake made a step back and was totally free to try the three-point shot.
So the game went on with Jake calmly leading the team to an easy win while the whole Tar Heels team also played very well in defense, with several three-point shots and many dunks and layup Jake also scored many points.
In the second half, Jake played for 19 minutes and scored 19 points, 4 a.s.sists, 5 rebounds, and 5 steals, with this Jake performance Tar Heels team, won the game very easily by scoring 82 points against just 49 points.
"So the game ends with the expected victory of team Tar Heels in a game that had a big difference in the final score between the teams, but team Tar Heels was not playing that well."