Chapter 417 1998 ACC Tournament 5
The Duke Blue Devils team continued to press to see if they could still win, the defense of the Tar Heels team also started to press and hinder the Duke Blue Devils team"s moves, Jake also stopped defending only against Wojciechowski and hindered the attack much more. from the Duke Blue Devils team like that.
In another attacking move by the Duke Blue Devils team, they made a good move and the ball was pa.s.sed to Wojciechowski who was further behind, Jake was away from him and tried to approach using his speed, but Wojciechowski soon tried a shot from outside to make 3 more points for the Duke Blue Devils team.
Jake was doing it on purpose and making the Tar Heels team push in defense because of that too, the Tar Heels team still had a big advantage and that advantage had only increased in the 2nd half.
Then Jake realized that for some reason the Duke Blue Devils team was trying to attack more in just three-point shots, the players on the Duke Blue Devils team were good, but they weren"t as good as Jake and Williams and so naturally they made a lot of mistakes more than they hit.
That way the Duke Blue Devils team wasted attacks and Jamison and Jake just had to fight for the rebounds, the Duke Blue Devils team coach seemed to approve of this and Jake thought they could use it to not get so tired.
Even so, the Tar Heels team continued to attack and Jake tried a three-point shot whenever the Duke Blue Devils team pressed hard on defense and he had already made many points in that 2nd half as well.
In another move, the Tar Heels team was on the attack and Jake received pressure from the Duke Blue Devils defense just after the ball, so Jake pa.s.sed the ball to Williams and managed to move forward.
Williams advanced the ball for a while and pa.s.sed it back to Jake in the middle, Jake continued to advance slowly and soon reached the three-point line and pa.s.sed the ball to Carter from the left.
Carter held the ball for a while and then pa.s.sed it to Jamison later on the left, Jamison was playing very well in that game too and had scored more points on the Tar Heels team after Jake.
Jamison soon received pressure from the Duke Blue Devils defense and pa.s.sed the ball to Okulaja on the right, Okulaja also received pressure from the defense and pa.s.sed Jake further back through the middle.
Jake received the ball and soon the defense of the Duke Blue Devils team sent two players close to him, Jake did not delay and pa.s.sed the ball to Williams who was free from the left, Williams came out behind the defense of the Duke Blue Devils team to receive this ball and tried a shot from outside to make 3 more points for the Tar Heels team.
The game went on like this and the Tar Heels team ended the game by winning 106 points against Duke Blue Devils" 60 points, the Tar Heels team"s lead advantage increased when the Duke Blue Devils players started to miss more shots from three points and Tar Heels team players did not miss many attacks.
In this 2nd half of the game, Jake played for 20 minutes and had 23 points, 6 a.s.sists, 7 rebounds, and 6 steals, with this triple-double Jake secured the victory for the Tar Heels team and was happy because the team won another ACC tournament.
It was Jake"s best game in the ACC tournament and he was happier to help the Tar Heels team win and can also show his skills to his mom and Kate who had come to see the game.
"What a great game we had here today, the Tar Heels team won with a big advantage in this game full of rivalry and thus won for the second year in a row the ACC tournament."
"This victory for Team Tar Heels is well deserved for everything they did this season and also in that game against the Duke Blue Devils team, the first t.i.tle for new head coach Bill Guthridge."
"It is true, I also think that the Tar Heels team deserved that victory, even if they had been out of the game without losing a game if they lost in that game the fans would not have been happy."
"The Tar Heels team currently has perhaps the best team in college basketball, with Jake Smith who made a triple-double today with 44 points, and with Antawn Jamison who made a double-double today with 22 points and 14 rebounds."
"The team also has good players and played a good game today, but they were unable to beat the team Tar Heels, who are champions of the 1998 ACC tournament, after that victory the team Tar Heels will try to win the NCAA tournament again and continue with the sequence. of victories."
Everyone celebrated a lot to win the ACC tournament and Jake was more relieved because one of his goals had been fulfilled, Jake was elected the best player in the ACC tournament, the best player of the year and also had the best conference averages.
Jake, Jamison, and Carter were chosen for the first team of the ACC tournament and Okulaja and Williams were chosen for the second team of the ACC tournament, this year Jake also joined the first defensive team of the ACC conference.
After celebrating a lot with his teammates Jake wanted to talk to his mother and Anna and also to talk to Kate who had come to watch his game, but the team had to go back to the university and Jake didn"t want to ask too much for Coach Guthridge and so he just called them thanking and explaining what had happened.
They all understood why Jake couldn"t meet them and was happy that Jake won the ACC tournament, Jake had to go back with the team because they would have 2 days to rest and then another day of training just before the next game.
If the Tar Heels team managed to reach the NCAA tournament final again, there would only be 6 games left until the end of this season, if they managed to win the NCAA tournament they would win the NCAA tournament for the second time in a row and enshrine this perfect season in history and still be able to break the record for second place victories.
The second record of undefeated games was for the San Francisco team that was 60 games without losing, the first place was impossible for them to achieve because it was 88 games without losing for the UCLA team.
The Tar Heels team was already 58 games without losing and with 3 more games it would break the San Francisco team record, so it was important that Jake was back with the team and that they were united in this important moment for the team.
Coach Guthridge was getting even more stressed than the players because this was his first year as a head coach and he could never have imagined that something like this could happen, he won the ACC tournament and now the team could win the NCAA tournament.
Bill Guthridge also thought that this record was not just theirs and was also that of coach Dean Smith who coached the team last season when that record of undefeated games had started, so he didn"t want the team to lose.
Those two days of rest would help the players a lot, even though Jake, who had excellent resistance, had grown tired after playing three games in three consecutive days without resting, Jake had played 40 minutes in all games and was therefore very tired.
So he apologized to Yuen Woo-ping but said that he would not train this week at least, then he would have a few days of rest and he could train again not to be doing anything too.
Yuen Woo-ping naturally understood and knew that Jake had stopped his marathon racing training just to train with him, Yuen Woo-ping couldn"t ask Jake to harm basketball either.
While Jake and his teammates rested the sports media only talked about them, the Tar Heels team had had an excellent season that had not been seen in a long time and they had won the ACC tournament and were close to breaking the record they wanted to break.
Even though the sports media always talked about how good the Tar Heels team was and how they hoped they could win the ACC tournament and break the game record without losing when it was really happening everyone realized how incredible it was and difficult to happen.
Players like Billy Cunningham, James Worthy, Sam Perkins and Michael Jordan who were excellent basketball players and played on the Tar Heels team talked about the current record-breaking team and talked a lot about Jake Smith, Antawn Jamison, and Vince Carter.
So the whole country was watching the Tar Heels team again to see if they would win the NCAA tournament again and continue to break records, of course, they would still have to beat excellent teams if they wanted to win the NCAA tournament again.
Jake was less nervous now that he had won the ACC tournament and also knowing that he had the support of his mother and also the support of Kate, he would do his best to win the NCAA tournament, but if he didn"t win he knew they would break the record games without losing and you wouldn"t feel bad going to the NBA draft.
As Jake also expected after his excellent performances in the last games and winning the ACC tournament being chosen as the best player and with the record of games without losing being close to being achieved by the Tar Heels team, the companies were looking for David Falk again.
Everyone who was negotiating and even the company that had decided to break the verbal agreement was looking for David again to try to get a new contract with Jake, everyone understood more in recent days about Jake"s potential as a player and his commercial potential as well.