Chapter 421 1998 NCAA Tournament 3
Another thing that was happening was that Aaron continued to train with the American Football team, with the training he did with Jake while he was away from the team helped Aaron to get a prominent place on the team.
Aaron hopes he could play this season and the next one together with the team and if he went well who knows he might have a chance to go to the NFL, Jake hoped for Aaron a lot even though he knew it was difficult for his friend to go to the NFL because he hasn"t played in the first two seasons.
In the next few days while Jake trained with Yuen Woo-ping the sports media just talked about the Tar Heels team again, everyone was excited after the Tar Heels team managed to match the San Francisco team record of 60 games without losing.
With Jake on the team, everyone knew that the Tar Heels team had a good chance of breaking that record and many even talked about the possibility of the Tar Heels team breaking the UCLA team"s 88-game record without losing.
This was not impossible because there were still 4 games left for the end of this season and then the Tar Heels team had to win just 25 more games without losing in the next season, of course, few thought this was possible, but the media also thought it impossible that the team Tar Heels broke the San Francisco team record of 60 games without losing earlier this season.
In addition, all the broadcasters that broadcast the games were excited about this because the latest games by the Tar Heels team broke the broadcast records at College basketball, this was normal because the Tar Heels team was doing an incredible thing that was difficult to see in modern times.
Several basketball fans who didn"t use to follow College basketball and even College basketball fans who didn"t watch other teams" games were looking to see the Tar Heels team making history.
The UCLA team record was unbreakable, so seeing the Tar Heels team break the San Francisco team record of 60 victories was the maximum they would see, and many broadcasters thought that these fans would continue to follow the Tar Heels team until the NCAA tournament final. if the Tar Heels team went to the final.
So as the broadcasters saw this as an opportunity, they talked about the Tar Heels team"s next game whenever they could, the other sports media also wanted to talk about it to sell more to fans.
The NCAA was happy to authorize Jake to be the first sponsored player to play at College basketball, after all, Jake was instrumental in bringing even more visibility and fame to College basketball at a time when several players were considering joining the NBA directly.
Of course, not everyone could do like Jake who received sponsors.h.i.+p because he was also an athlete who ran marathons and won several marathons and even an Olympic gold medal, but that helped a little to solve the problem.
The Wachowskis brothers were happy with this situation because when everyone knew that Jake was making a film as an actor again and this time he would have an important character in the film, many basketball fans would definitely go to the cinema to see The Matrix.
Of course, they thought Jake was a great actor and so they invited him into this film, but his fame would only help publicize the film, if Jake knew about it he would laugh because he knew how successful the film would be even without him.
In the coming days Jake continued to learn a lot from Yuen Woo-ping and also doing Sparring with him every day, it was only a few weeks that they trained, but Yuen Woo-ping thought Jake had already learned more than the actors who spent months training with him.
Of course, Jake really had to learn more because he would have to fight in the movie and also Jake hadn"t learned to fight using cables yet, it would be more difficult to fight to be in the air hanging by cables.
In addition, Jake was an athlete and could learn more without tiring and the actors did not have this facility and took more days to learn, even so, Yuen Woo-ping had to admit that Jake was very talented.
While training with Yuen Woo-ping, Jake also trained with the basketball team after everyone rested for 2 days, the players were all much better after that rest and much more excited because of the record they could break in the next game and also because the season was ending.
So the day came for the next NCAA tournament game, the next two games for the Tar Heels team if they won would be at the Greensboro Coliseum again, it was the place where they played the entire ACC tournament this season and last season, so the Tar Heels team I was more comfortable playing at the Greensboro Coliseum.
The crowd was much greater for the Tar Heels team that was close to breaking the San Francisco team record, which made the Tar Heels team players more confident and more excited to achieve victory.
The opponent for this game was the Michigan State team, the Michigan State team was playing very well this season and was in a good conference too, so this had everything to be a difficult game.
But the pressure on that game was greater for the Michigan State team and it was impossible for them to have such confidence in playing against the Tar Heels team that they wanted to win to have a streak of 61 straight wins and had the best players of the season.
In addition, the Tar Heels team was the current NCAA tournament champion and was the favorite team to win this season again, so it was impossible for them not to feel the pressure with everyone in the stands cheering for the Tar Heels team.
But Jake knew that in the coming years this team would have a great season and would win the NCAA tournament in the 1999-00 season, in addition, they would arrive in the NCAA tournament semifinal in the next three seasons.
It showed how strong the Michigan State team was and would be even stronger, so even though Jake was confident he still knew he had to be very careful against this opposing team.
"Welcome to everyone who came to watch this NCAA tournament game, this game could be historic if the Tar Heels team wins again because of the Tar Heels team wins this game they broke the San Francisco team record of 60 games without lose."
"So the Tar Heels team will have a record of 61 games without losing and will be the second team with the highest record after the UCLA team that has an unbreakable record of 88 games without losing."
"That"s right, I believe that the Tar Heels team is the favorite to win this game with a team that has Jake Smith, Antawn Jamison and Vince Carter, but the Michigan State team is also doing very well this season."
"So I think this can be an exciting game that the Tar Heels team players will have to do their best to achieve victory."
The game started with the Tar Heels team attacking very hard in the first minutes pressing in the attack, the players were very rested and the opponent was difficult, so Jake wanted to take advantage of the fact that the opponent would be feeling the pressure to increase the advantage on the scoreboard at the beginning of the game.
Just as Jake expected the Michigan State team backed off when he realized that the Tar Heels team would press on the attack, everyone knew that the Tar Heels team had the best attack of the season and the Michigan State team had a good defense and preferred to rely on that.
In this game Jake did not intend to have anyone from the team on the three-point line to play with him, only he would do the three-point shots and the rest of the team would stay within the three-point line to make the points, so Jake thought he could make things more difficult for the opponent.
In another move the Tar Heels team was attacking with speed and Jake pa.s.sed the ball to Williams from the right before pa.s.sing through the middle of the court, Williams advanced with the ball and pa.s.sed ahead to Okulaja who was playing well in the last games.
The defense of the team Tar Heels soon pressed Okulaja who had to pa.s.s the ball to Jamison on the left, Jamison received the ball and pa.s.sed back to Williams, Williams received the ball and tried a feint and managed to get rid of the opponent, then Williams drive to the basket and made the layup to make 2 more points for the Tar Heels team.
In this move, the Michigan State team"s defense expected Jake to receive the ball and did not defend well against Williams who managed to advance and lay up in a good move, that was another thing that Jake had discussed with the other players, the attack moves they didn"t need to go through it for players to score.
This was the opposite of what Jake normally did and what Coach Guthridge asked the team, so he could take the Michigan State team"s defense by surprise at the start of the game and thus increase the lead.
Just as Jake had said in the first minutes, the Tar Heels team managed to score a lot and increase the lead, when the Michigan State defense managed to straighten the defense, Jake also made more three-point shots.
So the Michigan State team decided to attack with more intensity so as not to give freedom to the players of the Tar Heels team to worry only about the attack, Coach Guthridge expected this to happen and had already given the instructions for the defense.
Jake would defend against Mateen Cleaves who was the best player on the Michigan State team and Williams would defend against Charlie Bell, so the Michigan State team could not attack smoothly even if he wanted to.
In another attacking move by the Michigan State team, after a good play the ball was left for Cleaves, Jake did not approach to defend, but Cleaves knew it was more dangerous that way and he did not think about trying a shot from outside.