Chapter 93 National Championship 5
Of course, the president of the Elite school was already prepared for this and it was not like what he did was illegal, so he just said about the complaints that the students came because they wanted to study in a better school.
The president of the Elite school, of course, did not expect to be able to do this every year of inviting players from other schools, so he hoped to have the best teams so they would win the national competitions as early as the first year and so he could attract more students with talent for sports for years to come.
And the school got good publicity for being encouraging the sport and trying to better results in school events, such as events like the national championship although it may be important to give only prestige to schools and not prizes in money the school was not suspected for anything.
Not even the other schools mistrusted that the reason that the president was getting good new students in various sports was to have a better relationship with the universities, and so the parents of the students will choose their private school instead of the others.
Clara and Tiffany despite being very busy still congratulated Jake for reaching the top four of the national championship, if Jake could win or at least reach the final will be great publicity for their companies.
Especially in Miami that the population already knows the city more and Jake also from the newspapers, it is good to see that a team from the city has the best school in the country in basketball, so Clara could already imagine another great influx of young people buying materials from his company.
Oliver and Joseph also congratulated Jake for getting so far, yet everyone knew that Jake could only be really happy if he won the national championship.
Even Jake knew he had been lucky to face a weaker opponent in the last game, yet he was confident in his team's ability to make a good game and win.
So another week went by and the day of the fifth game came, Eva wanted very much to go to this game, but Jake asked that she not be in this game because so he would have more motivation for the final game when she came so Eva accepted and also can stay cool because if Jake was talking like this was because he had confidence in reaching the final.
The opposing Elite team in this fifth game was called Dogs and they were a team from a very traditional school that has always been in the top 16 of the national championship in the last 10 years.
The players who stood out in the Dogs team were PG Mike, PF Lucas, and SG Troy, Lucas was a player with a style of play that was the opposite of Carter, instead of standing out in the defense he stood out in the attack, so it would be an interesting duel on that part of the court.
Troy was a good player both in defense and in the attack, he always performed well, when the ball was passed to him, Troy made the points, he was also the player who stole most balls in the Dogs team.
But who was the best player on the team was Mike who always had good performances in the matches and was the main player of Dogs, but in this game, Mike was the player that least worried the Elite team because Jake would be marking him.
So the game soon began and the ball went into the possession of the Elite team, Jake received the ball to arm the first attack of the Elite team, David was being strongly marked by Troy so Jake gave the pass to Harrison.
Harrison as soon as he received the ball made a feint and managed to dribble and pass the opponent's SF, then he continued advancing until making the first two points with a layup.
Harrison was excited because he knew that with Jake's personality he would be the most played player in the game as David was well marked, it was another game where he could show off his skills.
When Mike set out to make the first attack for his team he planned to pass the ball to his SF to tie the game, but he saw that Harrison looked very dedicated in scoring and so passed the ball to Troy.
Troy received the ball made two feints until he managed to fool David and open space to tie the game with a 2-point shot, David was annoyed by that and looked at Jake who just ignored him.
Jake who had many years of experience in his past life had already realized that David was very agitated for this game and got even more agitated after the opponent seemed to want to focus on him.
Jake knew that if he relied too much on David that he was not calm to attack it would not work, David would put that game in a very fierce and lively rhythm that was not what Jake wanted.
The pace of the Elite team's attack should not change if it were not for the fact that the opponent was stronger which did not seem to be the case for now.
Even if he did not want to change the pace of the game if he could not trust David for the attack he would have to change the way he would attack.
So when Jake reached the 3-point line instead of stopping to arrange the play or move to David, he just made a feint and when the opponent waited for him to stop he accelerated when Mike realized that Jake was going to try to go to the key Jake had already passed and quickly did the layup and made the 2 points.
No one expected Jake to go in to punctuate the inside, so he cheated the whole defense and even Jake's teammates.
So Mike started another attack on the Dogs team, this time everyone was well marked and then he decided to trust Lucas and passed the ball to him.
Lucas received the ball and tried to use his body to force the passage, Carter used his strength and did not allow Lucas to approach the basket, as Lucas realized that he could not go to the layup he just turned and did the 2-point shot.
Despite being a basic move this turn after being turned to face space with space to give the shot requires a lot of skill and is very difficult to defend as well.
So Jake calmed his team that was getting anxious and began to organize the attack, this time Mike was more attentive and so hoped for anything that Jake did, so he just made the pass for Mark to do the layup and 2 more points for the team Elite.
The game remained balanced, but even when the first period ended the Elite team was leading the score by 4 points, the Dogs team thought it was normal of the game and did not care.
But Eric who was in the stands knew that the Dogs had fallen into the Elite team's rhythm and trap and if they did not realize it fast, they would lose the game like all previous opponents.
But it was obvious to everyone that the Dogs team were the most difficult opponents Elite has had so far, proof of which was that Jake was starting to make more individual moves.
Mike also realized that Jake seemed to have many individual abilities, but he was helpless about what to do about it, after all, Jake could attack in several different ways or just give the passes as always.
In the second period, the Dogs team tried to push more in the attacks and the defense, but there was nothing in particular that they could do, although it seems that the Elite team was being pressured, the score continued with the advantage the whole game, the pace was always controlled by Jake.
The Dogs players realized that only David seemed to lose his temper more easily, but they could not use this to their advantage because Jake also knew this and did not pass the ball to David.
David was also starting to get annoyed with this, he did not realize he was getting agitated and despite relying on Jake's decisions on the court not to like not being given any passes so far.
As soon as the second period ended and the elite team was leading by 8 points on the scoreboard, despite the Dogs team knowing something was wrong, as the advantage was still small and they were pressing more and more they thought it could turn the board.
Meanwhile, Jake took advantage of having a longer time in the break and called David to a corner, David though not knowing what it was after seeing Jake's ugly face was quickly near him.
"You realize what you're doing in this game, why am I not passing the ball to you?"
David was very annoyed that he was not getting a pass all this game, but when he heard Jake's question that he seemed to be angry and began to calm down and realize that something was wrong, otherwise he did not see why Jake suddenly did not pass the ball for him.
"No, I do not know what I did wrong."
"It's good that you do not really know, what I had said about your habit the other day?"
So David remembered the conversation the other day and was embarrassed because he was so shut up and did not have many friends. David never found someone who had the courage to tell him he had a problem.