Chapter 275 The Beginning of the Season at College Basketball 7
In this third game, Team Tar Heels won even more easily by 91 points against just 58 points from Team Pitt Panthers, Jake could play longer and knew that at least he had secured the spot as a sixth player and could play longer in the next games.
Jake went back to the dorm and told his friends about the win, then called his mother to tell him about the win, Jake was someone more modest, and although he always told his win friends he didn't talk about how many points he made at the games.
So for a while, his friends thought that maybe Jake wasn't even playing games and so didn't count what his performance was like, but after the third game, they found that even though Jake wasn't a starter he still played many minutes and scored several points.
Just as they were their friends, they decided to watch Jake games that were played at the Dean Smith Center, so many already watched those games so they thought they had to do it for Jake at least.
Jake didn't know that and really missed seeing someone he knew in the stands, fortunately in those early games he was so focused on trying to play well and doing his best in the minutes he couldn't remember staring into the stands.
The days passed and Jake continued his training routine, he had only 2 days to train while his teammates rested because he had a game every 3 days.
The fourth game was against the Bethune-Cookman team at the Dean Smith Center, again Jake would start in reserve and enter the game when Coach Smith thought the time was right, Coach Guthridge always tried to convince Coach Smith to put Jake in the starting lineup, but could not.
The Bethune-Cookman team was also considered weak for this season, they had no players to stand out either, so the Tar Heels team that was coming from a 2-win sequence was very confident in this game.
Jake wasn't blindly confident like the others and just remembered that in his past life the Tar Heels team easily won this game by a large number of points, in fact, he thought these victories could be more dangerous for the blind team confident even winning against weaker teams.
In this game Jake played 22 minutes, he scored 22 points, 7 assists, 5 rebounds, and 3 steals, this was one of his best games at the university and the team won the game by 112 points against 60 points from the Bethune-Cookman team.
In this game, Vince Carter and Antawn Jamison scored 25 points each and were the best of the team in the game, but again Jake was the most efficient in enjoying the time he had in the game, after this game he would have scored 62 points, 22 assists, 17 rebounds, and 10 steals in 63 minutes played in 4 games.
He was already the third player to score the most and was the most assisted and steals player in the team even playing on average half the time of his teammates, this is the report that Coach Guthridge made to convince Coach Smith letting Jake play as a starter.
This report was different from seeing a player play in person, it showed accurate performance data, so comparing Jake with his teammates it was impossible for Coach Smith to keep leaving Jake in reserve.
He didn't mind the criticism of others as he decided what was best for the team, but if he didn't put Jake in the starting lineup he could now be called blind and be doing something that would hurt the team.
So unbeknownst to Jake he had been placed as a starter for the next game, Shammond Williams would have to play sometime in the positions of Jake, Vince Carter and Ademola Okulaja, so he could play a few more minutes and help the team.
Unfortunately, Ed Cota had lost this match and would have to stay most of the games in reserve, coach Smith put Ed Cota to play because he was confident he could play very well and do great things for the team.
But with someone like Jake on the team, Coach Smith could not place someone as a starter who played less than Jake himself, now he had to wait for Jake to respond positively to his expectations.
Jake realizes during this game by chance that his roommates came to watch his game, it made Jake very happy, his roommates were also very surprised to see how well Jake played in this game.
They thought Jake played better than the team stars this year that was Vince Carter and Antawn Jamison, after all even though they were better at some things, Jake was someone who played for the team and with quality.
Jake called his mother again to tell him that he had won, Eva was very happy for him and thought that this winning streak was normal for Jake as a player, of course, it didn't depend on Jake and it was the team's ability.
But the media did not think so and had already made Jake one of the best newcomers of the year, Jake was not the best at the moment because he had no opportunity to play as a starter in the team as other newbies already did in other teams.
For the next few days Jake kept training hard without knowing he would be a starter, so the day before the game it was Coach Guthridge who personally called Jake to talk, as this had not happened many times before Jake was curious why he had been called.
"Jake, I have good news for you, Coach Smith has decided to put you in for the next game."
"Thank you so much, coach."
Jake was delighted to know that he could play as a starter in the next game, he knew that did not mean that he could always play as a starter nor that he could play a whole game, but he would try his best to take advantage of this opportunity.
"It's good that you're happy with that, but know that these upcoming games will also be a test for you."
"What do you mean, coach?"
Jake naturally knew that his starting games would be a test, if he didn't play well in some games he could end up going back to the team reserve and getting back into the starting lineup after losing coach confidence would be much harder.
But Jake felt that Coach Guthridge was mentioning something else when he said that Jake would have a test, it was not about the games themselves, but something else that Jake didn't know what it was.
"This is a time of great pressure for the players, classes are over and the team will have two games in two straight days with no rest days, and after these two games with the tired players you will have the tests in school to worry."
Now Jake understood what Coach Guthridge meant by hard testing, really for other players this would be the worst time to come in as a starting lineup, after all for players like them who always have to play and train and travel often don't have time to study.
And the grades are also important for the player to stay in the team, not to mention that many players were tired after this game and will have to play for two games in a row, it could be said that this was the worst time to play as a starter.
"Thanks so much for the advice, Coach Guthridge."
But it wasn't like that for Jake, so far as he was playing only half the game he had no problem with his stamina and could still play a lot more games, and classes weren't a problem for Jake who had learned almost everything.
So what would be a fire test for other players would be just a normal game for Jake, if he could perform well even with the coach thinking it was a tough test for Jake, it would be even better to ensure the coach's confidence.
Jake was also very grateful to the coach Guthridge who had given these councils to him, after all, many players would not think about these things too much and would just be happy to have the opportunity to play as a starter.
So the Tar Heels team with a 3 straight winning streak came full of confidence for this game, everyone knew this was an easier game and the next one that would be more complicated because of tiredness.
On the day of the game, everyone knew that Jake would be the first starter in the team and he received the sincere congratulations from the whole team, everyone who saw Jake's last games knew he was very talented and at some point would get the place as a starter.
After a few hours, both teams were ready for the game, the team's opponent Tar Heels for today's game was USC Trojans, this was a team that had a good team for this year's season, it wasn't a favorite team to win But it was a good staff.
In the first half Jake played for 14 minutes and was replaced by Ed Cota, in that first half Jake scored 18 points, 5 assists, 4 rebounds, and 2 steals and helped the team a lot in the defensive part.
In the second half, Jake played for another 15 minutes and scored 13 points, 6 assists, 5 rebounds, and 3 steals and even helped the team in defense too, in this game Jake was deservedly the best player of the game and made a double-double in his game debut which is amazing.
Team Tar Heels won the game with 110 points against 75 points from the USC Trojans team, all celebrated this fourth straight victory a lot and served to take some of the stress out of some players who were stressed out for the week if evidence was coming.
Jake was highly praised by everyone and even Coach Smith who didn't think Jake could play that well, scoring more than 20 points was normal in college basketball, but scoring over 30 points and still getting a double-double was harder to achieve, and Jake had played less than 30 minutes.
So with this performance, Jake confirmed that he deserved a place as a team starter, yet Coach Smith's test was not over yet, the next game would be the next day, and the team would play even more tired than today.