Chapter 359 College Basketball Season Begins 3
In the first quarter of the game the team Tar Heels played very well and had a good lead, Jake played for every 20 minutes in that first quarter and scored 17 points, 4 a.s.sists, 3 rebounds, and 4 steals, Jake was not able to catch many rebounds because he wasn"t used to doing that in games yet, and because Jamison was taking a lot more rebounds than he was.
In the second quarter the team Tar Heels still played calmly and seemed to be in no hurry and still continued to hit offensive plays and Jake and Williams sometimes. .h.i.t three points shots and so the advantage just increased.
The Richmond Spiders players seemed a lot more nervous being behind the score with such a big difference, so the Richmond Spiders started to look forward to making more rapid attacks and at that point, the Tar Heels team also increased the pressure on the defense.
As the second quarter pa.s.sed, the other reason for the Tar Heels team to make that offensive 10-minute pressure began to appear was because of the physical condition of the players, the physical condition of the Tar Heels team players was better and so after that pressure the players could still hold on until the end of the game.
But the Richmond Spiders players could not stand all the excitement at the beginning of the game and still had energy until the end of the game, and the Richmond Spiders team had to press even more into the attack to diminish the advantage that the Tar Heels team had and try to win the game.
Thus at the end of the second quarter of the game, the players of the Richmond Spiders team started to get tired and the coach had to put in some subst.i.tutes and the team Tar Heels took the opportunity to attack further at the end of the game.
Jake and Williams attacked before the three-point line, and Jake always a.s.sisted Jamison and Carter to score points from the painted area, Okulaja was also always available to a.s.sist in attacking moves.
Even though Shammond Williams did not have a hit average as high as Jake on the three-point shots, he still had more than 40 percent hit on the three-point shots, while the Jake drawing the attention of the other teams" defense was even higher.
Thus the game ended with the Tar Heels team winning 91 points against 60 points of the Richmond Spiders team, in this second quarter Jake played for 20 minutes made 15 points, 4 a.s.sists, 4 rebounds, and 4 steals.
"A great game for the Tar Heels team who once again played with the same formation as the first game and could win again, it looks like we can see the Tar Heels team this season winning just as they did last season."
"Undoubtedly, all players on this team are very talented and could play in the NBA in the future or in basketball leagues around the world, with Jake being a distinguished player that team is certainly strong enough to win the NCAA tournament this year."
"I think so too, Coach Bill Guthridge seems to be running this team very well having worked for many years with Coach Dean Smith, and he managed to put some of his coaching styles on that team and even changed the lineup, now we hope to see this team will continue to delight us all."
"Jake played very well in this game as did Williams and Jamison too, if it goes on like this I see that the Tar Heels team will be the team that makes the most points this season as it was last season."
With this victory in an away match the team players got even more confident, Jake was playing well as always and Jamison looked even better this year, with the whole team playing the sports media well and fans expected the Tar Heels team could be champion again.
The families of the players who were caught off guard when Coach Dean Smith retired also calmed down realizing that Coach Guthridge also had quality just as Coach Smith had.
So Coach Guthridge finally had a calmer environment to work with and prepare players for this long game season, after this third game physical condition would no longer be a problem for any team so the Tar Heels team would only depend on their ability to win the games.
Jake intended to try more three-point shots this season and thus score more points in the games, but with Shammond Williams joining the starting team and with him playing longer, Jake had to give up on that idea for now.
He already intended to maintain the good rebound average he had last season and wanted to try to get more blocks and steals, so now he could think of further improving his a.s.sist average this season.
As he thought of joining the NBA after this season he knew he couldn"t break his scoring and a.s.sisting records, but he could further improve his average and break his steal record in his entire college career at least.
The most important thing for him was to win the ACC tournament and the NCAA tournament, Jake was confident that the team could do it and would try his best to do it, Jake knew the team was capable of it and he could just play even better to try it get.
After a few more days of training, the day of the third game of the season arrived, this third game was back home at the Dean Smith Center so the Tar Heels team fans came to watch the team play again.
After winning in the first two games the crowd began to get used to coach Guthridge and were excited again that the team continued to win many games this year as well.
In a few hours, both teams were ready for the game, the opponent in that game was the California Golden Bears team, it was a team that the Tar Heels team faced last season in the NCAA tournament and won.
Even though this team had a great performance last season, this season the California Golden Bears team would not play that well and have a bad performance for the fans.
In the first quarter, the team Tar Heels was playing with Jake still controlling the pace of the game, although in the last game they put offensive pressure since the beginning of the game was because of the opponent"s physical condition.
But as it was still early in the season the players were still getting used to the pace of the game and could not yet play their full skill so Jake played calmly for the Tar Heels team to have more control of the game.
They were lucky so far not to face any Center on the opposing team that was too strong offensively, yet without a Center, they could defend well, after all, one of the strengths of that team with Jake was the defensive part as well as the offensive part.
By the end of the first quarter, the Tar Heels team was winning by a good lead, but it wasn"t quite like in the last games, Jake had played for every 20 minutes and had scored 14 points, 4 a.s.sists, 3 rebounds, and 3 steals.
As the team was playing at a slower pace the players were not getting many points, but the opponent also had difficulty scoring points, and not all players were doing well in this game which made it even more difficult.
In the second quarter, the two teams continued this slow pace of play, the California Golden Bears team even losing did not despair and tried to press hard in the attack, so they posed no danger to the defense of team Tar Heels, but also gave no chances of receive counterattacks from the Tar Heels team.
Jake also only sought victory in this game to increase player confidence and knew how to control the entire team by setting up the game, so the game ended with the Tar Heels team winning by 83 points against just 40 points from the California Golden Bears team.
It was a great win for the Tar Heels team with more points in the scoreboard than in the last game, and even not trying so many exciting moves for the fans was still a victory for the Tar Heels team which made everyone happy.
Jake controlled the team well and even though the team did not have many opportunities to score points he was still the best player of the team, in this second quarter he played for 20 minutes and made 13 points, 3 a.s.sists, 3 rebounds, and 3 steals.
Jake came home and celebrated with his roommates as he did after every game and called his mom to talk about the win, Jake was happy with how this new season was going for him.
This time he was playing in every game the 40 minutes and having more opportunities to score points and lead the team to victory, he was also very relaxed with the team playing as well as he thought they would play.
Jake was also doing daily workouts with Zack and even though he didn"t feel he was getting as much better as before he still felt good running every day, after earning so many resistance points he no longer got tired of those workouts.
With everything going so well Jake was wondering what next season would be if he really went to the NBA, next year would be very hectic for him with the recording of the movie he had, the games of the season and the tournaments to play.
Besides, he could still have the draft to join some NBA team, with his NBA debut season he could even imagine how things would be hectic, fortunately, next year with the marathons would be much quieter.
For now Jake was only thinking of running two marathons next year and only in 1999 with World Champions.h.i.+ps in Athletics would be more hectic for him, Jake wanted to run more marathons, but figured that if he entered the NBA he would have to take time to adapt before to be able to partic.i.p.ate in more marathons.