Chapter 273 The Beginning of the Season at College Basketball 5
It seemed like a reaction was going on, just Jake wasn"t that quiet, he could have changed a few things coming into the game but he couldn"t stop d.i.c.kerson from making his points.
While defending against Mark Bibby was already tiring and difficult for Jake, he again understood that university games were different from high school, only by using his agility that had greatly improved since high school that Jake could have some advantage in that game.
So Jake couldn"t help anyone in defense while scoring Bibby, as Bibby was the PG of the team he was the one who set up the moves, yet Jake defending against him couldn"t help much in the game.
In another Wildcats attack with an engaging play again d.i.c.kerson was left free and tried another 3-point shot to miss this time, Jake again was alert and managed to catch another rebound.
Jake pa.s.sed the ball to Carter who advanced while Jake went to position himself in the attack after Carter advanced without the opposing defense disturbing he pa.s.sed to Jake the ball again, Jake pretended to make a pa.s.s for Jamison and Bibby was tricked.
So Jake seized and stepped back and tried another shot from outside to make Tar Heels 3 points further and reduce the lead to just 2 points, all quickly rearranging themselves in defense and Wildcats was no longer calm and advanced to the attack.
"What an amazing game my friends, from a lead that reached 9 points dropped to just 2 points, only one attack can bring the upset to the Tar Heels team."
"It looks like the Wildcats team is relying a lot on freshman Mark Bibby and Michael d.i.c.kerson, they are having a great match, but everyone can go wrong and in two mistakes the Tar Heels team made the difference."
"We have to give a lot of merit to Jake who got into this game very well, he was directly responsible for this turnaround and in these two errors of the opposing team Jake got a steal and a rebound in addition to an a.s.sist and 3 points made."
"It"s really amazing what he did with just 6 minutes on the court, now the game is over, let"s keep watching to see if a historic turnaround can happen."
In the next attack by Wildcats, Jamison made a mistake in the defense and left Simon with a chance to score, Jake had to abandon Bibby"s defense to prevent Simon from making the move freely.
So Simon saw that Bibby got free and pa.s.sed the ball quickly behind when Jake was getting in the cover, so Bibby was free to try an outside shot and make 3 more points and return the lead to 5 points.
Tar Heels struck again shortly after, this time Jake only touched the ball twice and it was Jamison who eventually made the pa.s.s for Carter who made a feint and drive to the basket to make a layup to make 2 more points and decrease the difference to 3 points.
In the other play, Simon could advance again on Jamison"s defense and made 2 more points bringing the difference back to 5 points, the game was coming in the final minutes and the advantage was not diminis.h.i.+ng.
As the players from Tar Heels became impatient and Jake received the ball less, Jamison pa.s.sed the ball to Zwikker who was heavily marked, so Zwikker turned the ball over to Carter who was off the three-point line and attempted the shot.
Unfortunately, as he was not well-positioned, he missed, so Jake was far behind and could not fight for the rebound with Bennett Davison, so they missed the chance to lower the score again.
With less than 2 minutes left, Jake"s teammates became even more impatient and attempted a foul on Bibby to stop the clock, soon after another foul was committed by Carter on Simon.
That was the seventh collective foul, Simon easily converted the free throw and the lead increased to 6 points, coach Smith shouted at the edge of the court to stop the fouls, this would not help anything the advantage had in the game.
Jake took the ball and moved forward to arrange another move for the Tar Heels team, After advancing he pa.s.sed the ball to Carter who was on the right, Carter advanced and pa.s.sed the ball to Jamison who was on the left.
Jamison tried a feint in Simon who was in defense but Simon was alert and steadfast in defense so Simon pa.s.sed the ball to Okulaja who was in front, Okulaja couldn"t make the move and turned the ball back to Jake.
Jake used his agility and with a crossover and was able to pa.s.s by Bibby easily and went inside, Simon tried to stop Jake on the move and Jake managed to pa.s.s by Simon as well and drive to the basket and ended the move with a dunk to score 2 more points to Tar Heels and decrease the lead to 4 points.
In the next play the Wildcats attacked and after the ball went through several players ended up again in the hands of d.i.c.kerson who tried again the tenth outside shot to make 3 points for the Wildcats team.
Then in the last seconds of the game, Vince Carter still managed to score 2 more points, but the Wildcats team still came out with victory just as Jake remembered in his past life, he can prevent Mark Bibby from making some points, but can"t change the end result of the game.
Arizona Wildcats won 75-70 against UNC team Tar Heels, the score was different from what Jake remembered in his past life and Jake felt his team only lost because he can only play for 10 minutes and Michael d.i.c.kerson from the opposing team made a great game.
Jake didn"t like to lose any games, but he couldn"t do anything about it and just consoled himself into thinking that the outcome of the game could be different if he played longer.
"This was a really great game, a season-opening game being so good is a sign showing that the season for college basketball this year is very good."
"It is true, even though the difference in the final score was only 5 points the game was not so disputed, in the first half the two teams were very balanced and even ended the first part of the game tied."
"But the Wildcats were rewarded for their coach betting on freshman Mark Bibby who may be one of the top names for this team next year."
"On the other hand, Tar Heels lost this game as a result of Coach Dean Smith"s indecision to trust younger players."
"Only Ed Cota had more playing time than Jake and clearly Jake could make the outcome of this game completely different."
"In the few minutes he was on the court he could give Tar Heels a real chance to lead the scoring, with more time on the court he could definitely do that."
After the game was over the commentators criticized coach Dean Smith for having no confidence and putting Jake in the game, the reason being that a freshman like Mark Bibby was a major contributor to the Wildcats" victory.
Even though Coach Dean Smith didn"t think he was wrong and didn"t bother with the criticism he received, he thought it might be lucky that Jake had played so well in this game, one of the reasons the team lost was that Shammond Williams was the holder in PG position had a poor performance in this game.
So in the early games at least he intended to keep Jake still in reserve but would give him more minutes of play, after all, if he had a player who could do so well in a few minutes it would help a lot in the team games.
Everyone came back upset that they lost the game even though they played so well, but they didn"t bother much because they knew it was normal to lose a few games this season and the Wildcats team played very well in that game.
As soon as they arrived at university everyone returned to their dormitories and Jake talked to his friends about the outcome of the game, everyone felt bad for Jake who had lost the game but understood that this was normal in a basketball season.
Jake also called her mom to tell her about the game, Eva was surprised and sad that Jake had lost the game, even though it was normal for others it was not normal for Jake, for over 5 years Eva had not remembered hearing that Jake lost some game.
"I think your coach is wrong Jake, how can anyone who plays as well as you miss out on a game like this."
"I didn"t stay out, Mom, I played for 10 minutes."
"Still, doesn"t this coach know how many universities wanted you to go to play as the team star? Now that he has you on the team not letting you play at least 30 minutes is a waste."
"That"s normal, mom, he still doesn"t know how I can play at university, games are much harder than at high school, if I played for 10 minutes in a high school game I could easily score 16 points and still make 5 a.s.sists."
Jake was honest in what he was saying, in a high school game in 10 minutes he could do what he said, but in that game, he only scored 8 points and got only 3 a.s.sists, which served to show how much more difficult it is.
That"s because Jake has been able to greatly increase all of his physical stats and abilities in recent months, otherwise he could achieve even worse performance in this game, Jake could feel that perhaps in the next few years of college he could not reach a level of skill that made it superior to all other players.
After talking to Eva, Jake was much more comfortable even after losing a game after so long, which comforted him was that with more playing time he could do more and change the results of the games he remembered in his past life.
Not to mention that since this was an ordinary game it didn"t matter whether it was lost or not if it was an ACC Tournament or NCAA Tournament game he might not accept defeat so easily, so what Jake could do was play the best he could something like that wouldn"t happen again.