Chapter 44 The Regional Champions.h.i.+p 1
So Jake responded to the coach without even looking at him and then left.
Roy was frozen by shock for a while and when he recovered Jake was already gone.
Roy really did not expect Jake to be so ambitious, he even thought coaching would be great if his team entered the national champions.h.i.+p, the more he won, he knew it was impossible.
Now he understood what Jake said the team was not enough, really to be the champion was still a long way off, and Luke would be the big flaw of his team in the national champions.h.i.+p, until the state they could let Luke score the worst player of each team, but the national team did not have a bad player, everyone had to be good.
After thinking a little he understood why Jake dreamed of being the champion, after all with his talent he could even be elected MVP of the national champions.h.i.+p, being the champion is normal for him to expect this.
More Roy knew that his school team was not enough, so he also wondered why Jake went to study at his school and not another famous for having a good basketball team.
Of course no matter how he thought about it he could not imagine that the reason was that just over a year ago Jake not even know how to play basketball knew how much more to think about choosing a school that was famous in that, in fact, Jake really did not expect to improve so quickly , he was hoping to reach the level of others in high school, but the system greatly accelerated his plans.
Roy was also glad that Jake was wise enough not to tell the others that he wanted to be the champion, it was too bad to give false hopes to his teammates, then they would be more depressed when they could not.
As weeks went by quickly and the day of the first regional champions.h.i.+p game arrived, there would be 32 teams from the city of Miami and the county as well, and the winning team would go to the Florida State Champions.h.i.+p, then another 64 teams would pa.s.s and the winner would go for the national champions.h.i.+p, that another 64 teams would dispute the champion trophy.
Today"s game was with a team from a not very well-known school, so they should win today so they were pretty calm, the Western School team always partic.i.p.ated only to complete the numbers.
Still, all the players who were having their first game were a bit nervous, Jake was also a bit nervous, although it is not a very important game for his future career can be said that he will always remember this game throughout his life.
The other team seemed more nervous still, last year Jake"s school team was a very strong team at least for the regional games, they won that champions.h.i.+p and were eliminated in the state, of course, that"s the mentality in sports, always someone wants to conquer more than it has before.
Jake"s team wants to get to the state more for this adversary team to reach the state already would be a great glory, besides, when playing with young teams the strong and weak team is never very defined, if the entire team that is strong Middle School way the team in the other year may be weak.
And if a player like Michael Jordan joins any team, that team becomes strong, of course, Jake"s team this year was stronger because he had him.
The league rules are four periods of eight minutes each and an interval after the second ten minute period, Jake could easily play the four periods without slowing down the pace but he knew his teammates would not hold out.
Another thing is that no matter how much of a score they score more than their opponent, they would play the same way because they were already prepared to lose and were only playing for fun or gaining experience, so their minds would be different.
So Jake"s work as PG was to control the pace of play so that his team did not have to run the whole game, in defense they had the confidence to mess up the other team"s plays so they were not afraid of a defeat.
In the beginning, Jake"s team gained possession and the ball was sent to Jake to organize the play, so he went calmly to the opposing court, 24 seconds for possession of the ball in a quiet game is a long time.
So he advanced to a three-point line and the other team"s defensive line seemed well posted, but that was the basics trained by all teams, they would have to make a play to test the waters.
The PG of the other team was marking Jake at some distance as he did not know if he was good at throwing or dribbling us into the basket he had to stay in the middle.
Jake soon signaled for the team to change positions they had practiced in training and the team changed positions, the defenders did not wait for it and Jake found SF Aiden free to receive the ball.
He made the pa.s.s quickly and Aiden straightened and shot 2 for the basket, so Jake"s team started in front of the board and Jake saw that his opponents had many problems in the scoring.
Soon the opposing team came on the offensive, their PG came with the ball and Jake was already on him for the marking, after all, he was not afraid to suffer a dribble with his speed, the opponent was a little surprised, he did not expect a marking so tight.
He tried to pa.s.s for Jake soon felt the pressure on the marking and realized that it would not be so easy to pa.s.s him, so he looked at his team to see who he could leave the ball.
Jake had agreed with his team that only he would make a tight marking and the others could give s.p.a.ce for the opponents to pa.s.s the ball, so the weaknesses in his defense would be masked and his team would tireless.
Soon the SG of the opposing team received the ball and made a feint that Lucas fell and he pa.s.sed finding s.p.a.ce to shoot and tie the game.
That was the problem for Jake, his team was lacking in game vision, simple feints so should not fool the defenders, not to mention that getting a dribble and scoring gives more confidence to the opponents.
More Jake did not complain as capital he had to know when to complain, and the game was only at the beginning, the next Lucas should not make a fault like that again.
Jake started another attack for the team and began the rotation of pa.s.ses in the attack that he had combined with his team, he was going to give pa.s.ses to all his teammates in the attack, and some would score and others would make another pa.s.s or return to the ball he.
So his opponent would not know who was the weakest or strongest in the attack and could not change the type of marking, and more importantly, Jake would try not to score much in this game to hide his strengths, after all this was only his first game and they did not have to go with everything.
So the game was pa.s.sing and soon ended the first period, as Jake continued to do a rotation of pa.s.ses in the first period, as expected the opponent team did not know who to tighten the defense and Jake"s team almost did not lose attacks finis.h.i.+ng the winning period by 16 to 8.
Although in defense Jake did not try to steal a ball, he did not give s.p.a.ce to the opponent who appeared to be the best player of the other team, when the defense tightened he had to risk the shot on the strong marking and hit a few of them.
And he did not have the confidence to do a 3-point shot, which made Jake"s pressure easier, as well as PG, SG was the other with good attack skills, but as it became more obvious after a while the defense concentrated and the other team had fewer options.
And so the game continued in the same way, until the end of the third period that the opposing team realized that Owen and Luke had not made any point, but with Jake"s organization, they still helped in the pa.s.ses so they could not be left alone.
It was an easier game than expected, at the end of the fourth period the opposing team was exhausted and Jake"s team that had let some players rest with Jake controlling the pace was more relaxed.
The game ended up 56 to 30 in favor of Jake"s team, it was an easy win with Jake making only 8 points and with a hundred percent advantage, so his team kept him as a card up his sleeve for another round of the champions.h.i.+p.
So at the end of the day, only 16 teams were left to the next stage, so would have four more games to discover who would be the regional champion who would go to the national champions.h.i.+p.
After coach Roy released the team, Jake called only the starters in a corner and pointed out the mistakes they had in that first game, he gave some tips on how to correct those mistakes and said that the strategy the team used had worked very well and that they should continue like this.
Jake did this just to show his authority and maintain the unity of the starting team, he wanted to show that they could improve and that he was watching the plays of the back, in fact everyone had a lot of respect for Jake to sacrifice himself not scoring many points for the team have a secret play in the other rounds, after all that young player does not want to show up in a compet.i.tion.