Chapter 373 Business and Basketball 7
In the second quarter, team Tar Heels began pressing in on attack just as coach Guthridge had commanded, team Bethune-Cookman also had to attack to get the victory which gave even more room for team Tar Heels to attack.
After the middle of the second quarter, the Bethune-Cookman players had already lost their will to win and it made it even easier for the Tar Heels team to continue attacking, Jake was doing very well in the three-point shots which helped further increase the advantage on the scoreboard.
The game ended with the Tar Heels team winning the game by scoring 113 points against 36 by the Bethune-Cookman team, with the Tar Heels team scoring more than three times the number of points of the opponent the Tar Heels team ended well in 1997.
In this second quarter, Jake played for 20 minutes and scored 23 points, 6 a.s.sists, 4 rebounds, and 4 steals, plus this double-double Jake was also increasing his average a.s.sist per game making more than 10 a.s.sists in 4 straight games.
Jake"s goal this season was again to have an average of more than 10 a.s.sists per game and more than 30 points per game and if he could get more than 10 steals per game, with rebounds he knew it would not be possible because Antawn Jamison was the best in the rebound of the team.
After this game, the team Tar Heels returned to the university where they would have almost 5 days to rest before the next game next year, yet the players did not just want to rest and wanted to train more defense so as not to happen against the team Georgia Bulldogs.
Coach Guthridge was also pleased with the players and the work he had done so far, with this difficult mission to replace Coach Dean Smith that many thought he could not do so well.
Even without a Center, the team had not lost any games yet and when the team was not well they still had Jake to make great games and take the team to victory, he did not expect to win the ACC tournament or the NCAA tournament again and just wanted that his work was not criticized.
The truth was that the team players and the media did not expect the Tar Heels team to have a good season let alone win tournaments like last season.
Maybe only Jake thought this team could possibly play even better than last season and win the NCAA tournament again this season, but he didn"t have to talk about it with anyone and just had to play to win the games until he won the NCAA tournament.
While training for the team at the end of the year Jake was also spending Zack"s turn of the year as well as all his roommates, he couldn"t go to Miami whenever he wanted and New Year"s Eve wasn"t such an important date to Jake.
1997 was a great year for Jake in basketball winning his first NCAA tournament and winning almost every major individual player award, it was also important in marathons where he won more major marathons and improved his world record.
In business this was also an important year with the smartphone prototype that could guarantee him billions of dollars in the future getting ready, the stock also started to appreciate much more from that year and Jake had more than 100 million dollars after Amazon shares entered the stock market.
1998 promised to be even better in basketball if Jake really joined the NBA even if he didn"t play that year because of his lockout this season, but just entering the NBA would make Jake have one of the best years in his career.
So in the second half of this year, Jake could focus on marathons and still try to win again the ACC tournament and the NCAA tournament, this year Jake would also start filming for the movie The Matrix.
So this year would have everything to be very important to Jake and that made him very excited, Jake spent the New Year"s Eve at Zack"s house and soon came the year 1998, so Jake had to continue training with the basketball team and with the races.
Zack was still training with Jake and was getting better and better at training, just as Jake had thought after an athlete could improve his physical condition, it was much easier to improve in any sport.
Zack spent more than a year training for marathons while training for an athlete"s fitness, now that he had managed to run the 25 km every day was easy for Zack, this year his goal was the Chicago Marathon with Jake at the end of the year, he wanted to run under 3 hours and maybe get in the top 50.
After a few days of training and rest the Tar Heels players were ready for the first game of this year, it was another visitor game and so they had to travel back to that game.
It was the second game against an ACC conference team this season and it was important to finish first at the conference at the end of the season, after a few hours both teams were ready for this game.
The opponent of this game was Team Clemson Tigers, Team Clemson Tigers had a good last season and this season would only regulate the team"s performance, yet the Team Tar Heels did not underestimate the opponent.
With a 14-game winning streak it was normal for players on the Tar Heels team to have more confidence, but with the good performance also came the pressure to continue winning which made the players more focused.
Early in the game, the Tar Heels team started pressing in on the attack as they had in the last game and it worked, of course against Clemson Tigers Jake didn"t play at such a fast pace while organizing the team attack.
Clemson Tigers "defense was clearly much stronger than their last opponent"s defense, but with Jake, Jamison, and Carter in the attack, it was difficult for Clemson Tigers" defense to resist.
Jake had found the rhythm he had at the end of last season when he always made at least one double-double in every game and the opponents had noticed it, so Jake"s close defense had increased which only gave more room to he does the a.s.sists.
Also, this season Jake had an average of nearly 80 percent hit on three-point shots even though he tried more than 10 shots on average per game, which made things much harder for opposing teams.
After a few minutes of the first quarter, Clemson Tigers tried an attack that ended with a steal made by Jake, in this play Jake did not try a fast counterattack and just kept the ball.
So far this had been a balanced game with Tar Heels taking the lead, Jake advanced with the ball and after pa.s.sing through the middle of the court pa.s.sed the ball to Carter on the left.
Carter had performed well in recent games and that gave him more confidence, even though Jake and Jamison were still the top players of the team this season. Carter was happy with his good performance and the victories.
Carter advanced to the three-point line and pa.s.sed the ball to Williams on the right, Williams held the ball and then pa.s.sed to Okulaja farther on the right, the defender then pressed Okulaja who pa.s.sed to Jake behind.
Jake received the ball near the three-point line and soon two players approached him while still watching Jamison on the left, Jake made a feint and then with a crossover managed to move left.
One of the defenders was left behind and another opposing player who was scoring Jamison came to defend against Jake, with the Clemson Tigers defense messy. Jake pa.s.sed the ball to Carter who had gotten rid of the player who was in defense, Carter received the ball and advanced to make the Dunk and make 2 more points for the team Tar Heels.
What made Jake happier on this team was that all his teammates were very talented, so he was free to make the play he wanted and so he had an average of over 10 a.s.sists per game even playing against good teams in the university.
In another play at the end of the first quarter Jake advanced the ball to the three-point line and pa.s.sed to Williams, Williams advanced and pa.s.sed the ball to Jamison, Jamison pa.s.sed back to Jake behind.
Jake received the ball with s.p.a.ce to attempt the three-point shot and two opposing players came to defend against him, Jake pa.s.sed the ball to Carter again, Carter advanced and pa.s.sed the ball to Jamison who made the 2 points with a layup and increased the advantage of team Tar Heels.