Chapter 292 Unhappy Beginning of Year 4
And so it was for the next two days, Jake did his training every morning with Zack and the afternoon trained with his teammates, none of the coaches came to talk to him and Jake didn't want any more problems either and wanted to play again as soon as possible.
On January 7 which was the day before the team's second game of the year, Jake had one more surprise, Eva had arrived in the morning and Anna was with her too, they had come from Miami and closed the restaurant that day to celebrate Jake's birthday.
Jake was very happy with this surprise and that he could spend his birthday together with his mother again, they decided to throw a small party for Jake in a restaurant near the university, all players of Jake's basketball team and his roommates were called.
Even though some of Jake's classmates had been invited, this was Jake's 18th birthday which was an important date for anyone, everyone laughed a lot and most of the party Jake had spent with Eva and Anna who didn't know anyone.
After the party Eva and Anna left for Miami again, they did not like to spend the night in hotels and in the morning had to open the restaurant again so decided it was better to travel back at night.
After going through this celebration Jake was excited again even trying an unfortunate start of the year, even though the team could miss these next two games when Jake resumed playing normally he had to make sure they wouldn't lose anymore.
Even if they lost a few more games at least in the NCAA tournament games he had to make sure they didn't lose any games and be champions, another thing Jake worried about was whether he could continue to participate in marathon competitions this year.
After all, he would have to miss training or even games during the season, with Coach Smith's personality it was hard to think that the coach would accept that Jake lost any games in the season.
These were concerns Jake had for the season, in fact, he honestly had to admit that he had underestimated the difficulty of college games, he thought he would have more freedom and could do more things than in the NBA, but it seemed he had even more things to do than in the NBA.
On his birthday several of his friends called to congratulate him during the day, so Jake can be even happier feeling dear to his friends, even Joseph called congratulating Jake and apologizing for eventually falling out during the holidays.
It looked like Joseph had gone back to college earlier this year and said that if Jake was going to play again there they could talk again, Jake knew they wouldn't meet, but said nothing about it and just agreed.
After spending the whole day happily celebrating the birthday the other day Jake had to worry again about the team's next game in Regular Season, after the first loss everyone wanted to win the second game, only Jake wasn't excited about that game.
He hoped he didn't have the opportunity to play many minutes in this game either, so it would probably be his team's second straight loss, yet he would still do his best while on the court.
Unlike the game against Wake Forest that had Duncan making a difference in the game, his next opponent had no player who would make such a difference, meanwhile, they had a very strong team.
The other day later the Tar Heels team went to the Dean Smith Center to prepare for the game, all the players did the warm-up exercises and the players wondered if Jake would play normally in today's game.
The opponent did not look as strong as Team Wake Forest in the previous game, they would face Team Maryland Terrapins who also came from a sequence of over 11 straight wins earlier this season.
They also lost a game, but it was a tough game against the Georgia Bulldogs team that was also having a strong season this year and that game was even for overtime.
This was the Maryland Terrapins team's only defeat this year, so Jake thought it was only fair for the Tar Heels team to lose this game in their past life, surely Coach Smith and Coach Guthridge had the same opinion of him.
After a few more hours the two teams were ready for the game, the Maryland Terrapins team came with Šarūnas Jasikevičius as PG, Laron Profit as SG, Rodney Elliott as PF, Keith Booth as SF and Obinna Ekezie playing as Center.
Four of them played for some time in the NBA and the best player of this team this year was Keith Booth who had almost 20 points average in all games and 8 rebounds as well, Booth was playing very well and was compared to Jamison this season by the experts.
Just like Team Wake Forest this Maryland Terrapins team played more attacking inside, the difference is that the Maryland Terrapins team did not have a player like Duncan as a reference in the attack and the team Tar Heels could defend better.
If they changed their attack style to attack more with the three-point play they could win this game more easily, it was the same solution as the last game, but as the Tar Heels team would have the same initial formation as the previous game it didn't look like Coach Smith thought of doing this.
In the first minutes of the game, the team played much better than in the previous game, yet the Maryland Terrapins team had the advantage in control of the game and in the scoreboard, even with the whole team playing better lacked a differential to bring them control. about the game.
Shammond Williams was playing well and hit two three-point shots, but he couldn't organize the team as well as Ed Cota and Jake, so in the attack Carter and Jamison's plays were limited.
After 6 minutes Coach Smith decided to put Ed Cota into play, but the team lost in three-point play even though they gained more momentum with Carter and Jamison and without Williams bothering with a three-point play the Maryland Terrapins defense came back to focus on internal defense.
"Ten minutes have passed in the first half, the game is still very close, but the Maryland Terrapins team has clearly taken the lead in that game."
"I can see what happened in the past game repeating itself in that game, if the Maryland Terrapins team had someone like Duncan on the team they would be more advantageous, clearly Tar Heels' offensive strategy is wrong."
"True, in this game it was a mistake to take Williams off the team, one player was missing to set up the moves, so Jake would have had to come in and Carter would have to leave for Williams to play as SG."
"It's like you said, again we don't understand why Jake isn't playing in this game unless he's injured. These two games were perfect for him to make a difference and bring victory to the Tar Heels team."
Coach Smith seems to have realized this was the case and put Jake in place of Ed Cota and let Williams play in place of Carter, so he had done what the commentators thought.
Unlike the past game, coach Smith told Jake that the strategy of the game was to make more three-point play in that first half, so Williams had joined that game with him, when Jake came in the defense didn't care about him and continued defending in the internal area.
So after two minutes in two plays, Jake had fired two shots off and hit both of them with 6 points, so Maryland Terrapins' lead on the scoreboard dropped to just 2 points.
After this move, Maryland Terrapins decided to score Jake more closely in the three-point play, so in another play Jake passed the ball to Williams who tried another three-point play and missed.
But Jamison caught the rebound and passed to Zwikker to make the 2 points with a layup, so the game was tied again, the Maryland Terrapins team reacted by making 2 points with Booth, but the advantage was only 2 points.
After a few more minutes, both teams finished the first half with Maryland Terrapins ahead by 2 points, but the Tar Heels crowd was still looking forward to a second-half turnaround.
In that first half, Jake had played for 10 minutes and made 13 points, 3 assists, 3 rebounds, and steals, clearly, he had been instrumental to the Tar Heels team keeping the slight difference in the score.
"Again the team Tar Heels changed completely with Jake's entry into the game, from an 8-point lead to just 2 points in the first half."
"In that game, Jake came in long enough to change the tempo of the game, we hope Jake can start playing in the second half and play longer."
"I think Coach Smith is aware of the team changes and knows that it is important for Jake to start playing and they continue this three-point play strategy."
Coach Smith naturally understood that in this game Jake could be the key to victory, he also remembered what Jake had said to coach Guthridge and had to assume that he respected Jake's game vision at a time when the whole team was excited about the winning streak.
So in the second half, Jake started playing and Williams also took the place of Carter, the Maryland Terrapins team noticed the Tar Heels offensive strategy change and also changed their defensive play.
So in the early minutes, Jake was not having opportunities to try out plays and was having to leave for inbound play and make the 2-point play, Jake also had more freedom to pass the ball to Jamison and Zwikker to make more points.
Williams was having the hardest time making the moves, so Coach Smith put Carter in place of Williams, yet the team's attack strategy didn't change, they still tried the three-point play with Jake and Okulaja and even Carter.
That way any countermeasure that tried to use Maryland Terrapins would still leave room for Tar Heels to attack, in another play Jake received the ball from the left and as the defense approached it passed to Jamison ahead.