Chapter 310 1997 ACC Men“s Basketball Tournament 6
Just as Jake expected the NC State Wolfpack team beat Duke Blue Devils in the quarterfinals and would soon advance to the next game and will likely beat Team Maryland Terrapins by surprising everyone and reaching the final.
As for the Tar Heels team would face the equally strong team Wake Forest Demon and Jake hoped that his team would leave with the victory, but since the opposing team had Tim Duncan, Jake did not dare to despise the opponent.
So the next day they had the second game of this ACC tournament, of course, the favorite team to win this game was the Tar Heels team, so all the players on the team were relaxed in preparing the game.
After all, they were more rested and the team season was better, on the individual side the players of team Tar Heels also had the advantage, Jake had even more confidence because he knew that in his past life the team had won this game.
His friends were also watching this game in the stands and Jake was sure his mother was watching this game on television, so he had to give his best of it in this game.
After a couple of hours, both teams were ready to start this game, Team Tar Heels knew the strategy to beat Team Wake Forest Demon, it was just to let Tim Duncan freer and focus on defending the other players of the team.
It was the strategy they used in the last game and it had worked, after all the Tar Heels team was confident of their players' offensive capability but had no confidence to stop Duncan in that game.
Wake Forest Demon had no way of stopping Jake in this game, they couldn't leave Jake free to play because if they did Jake would make several three-point plays and still find a way to pass the ball to his teammates.
In the first half of this game everyone realized that this game would not be played as much as everyone expected, Jake was playing very well and so was Duncan, but the rest of the Wake Forest Demon players were not playing that well.
On the side of the Tar Heels team, the players were all having a good game and so naturally the Tar Heels team had an advantage in this first half of the game, Jake played for 18 minutes and scored 20 points, 5 assists, 4 rebounds, and 6 steals.
With such a performance the players near the three-point line had difficulty playing near Jake, and inside was Carter, Jamison, and Zwikker in defense, as well as Okulaja who despite defending against Duncan still hampered other players.
Duncan managed to score 12 points and 6 rebounds in the first half, yet he alone couldn't make much difference in this game.
In the second half Team Tar Heels continued to play well and dominated Team Wake Forest Demon, everyone was playing well and Team Coach Wake Forest Demon did not know what he could do to reverse the difference on the court.
In that second half Jake played for 19 minutes and scored 22 points, 6 assists, 3 rebounds, and 5 steals, with this triple-double and 42 points in this game Jake led the Tar Heels team to great advantage against Wake Forest Demon.
Duncan also had a great game and did a double-double again but couldn't change the situation on his own, besides Jake Jamison also had a great performance in both games so far, besides the two other players of the team also played very well.
Jake was happy with the triple-double, he hoped maybe to get another double with the rebounds, but playing against Duncan that was impossible for now, at least the team went to the ACC tournament final.
In this game the Tar Heels team scored 98 points against just 69 points from the Wake Forest Demon team, everyone who expected a difficult and exciting game was disappointed, but at least they saw a game with several good plays from the Tar Heels team.
Just as Jake expected the NC State Wolfpack team beat the Maryland Terrapins team and would face Jake's team in the final, so Jake can be more relaxed about it because in many ways against the NC State Wolfpack team they were more likely to win this ACC tournament.
After a night's rest the other day the Tar Heels team had another game again, it was the 1997 ACC tournament final, the Tar Heels team opponent in that game was their rival NC State Wolfpack.
This was an unexpected game for everyone but Jake who knew the future, yet while Team Tar Heels was tired of playing for two days in a row, Team NC State Wolfpack played for three days in a row.
In addition, the team's season Tar Heels and the players were much better than the opponents, Jake intended to play everything he could again to secure his first trophy at university, they would be the champions that day.
After a few hours, both teams were ready for this game, the Greensboro Coliseum was full of fans and most were Tar Heels team fans, Jake was more excited about this game.
The favorites were the Tar Heels team, but in the last three games the NC State Wolfpack team was not the favorite and they still won in the end, so no Tar Heels team player looked down on their opponents.
The initial formation of the Tar Heels team was Jake playing as PG, Shammond Williams playing as SG, Antawn Jamison playing as SF, Ademola Okulaja playing as PG and Serge Zwikker playing as Center.
In the last two games, Zwikker and Okulaja were playing very well and Williams was also joining the team as a reserve and playing better than Carter, so Coach Smith decided to make that change in that game.
The initial formation of the NC State Wolfpack team came with Jeremy Hyatt, Ishua Benjamin, Danny Strong, Justin Gainey, and Clint Harrison, with this team they didn't have much strength to fight for rebounds and seemed unwilling to.
The NC State Wolfpack team didn't make much three-point play even though their players didn't have the time to try hard for indoor play, so Coach Smith decided to try to attack more with the three-point play with Jake and Williams to try to win with more easily this game.
In the first minutes of play, the things were exactly as planned, the team's defense of the Tar Heels team was very strong in the painted area and gave more space outside the three-point line, so they made the NC State Wolfpack try more plays of three points.
On the other side was just the opposite, the NC State Wolfpack defense was stronger off the three-point line and weaker within the painted area, so in the early minutes Jake had a lot of time in the ball in several plays.
He worked well several moves with Zwikker and Jamison and the two also knew how to cooperate and so the team Tar Heels made many moves in the painted area, Jake also attacked well and when the opposing defense came with two players he passed to Williams to make the moves.
So in the first half, the NC State Wolfpack team missed many three-point attacks and could not make moves in the painted area, while the side team Tar Heels missed much less with Jake in charge of the attacks and organizing the moves.
In that first half, Jake had 22 points, 8 assists, 6 rebounds, and 5 steals, with this Jake performance Tar Heels team led by many points towards the end of the first half.
"The Tar Heels team has been dominating the game in the first half and has a great advantage for this second half, dominating the three-point balls, dominating the plays in the painted area and dominating in rebounds."
"It's true, the NC State Wolfpack team looks like they have given up on painted area rebounds and rebounds, but you can't give up one of the fundamentals of basketball without paying the price for it."
"We can see that the Wake Forest team, for example, had a great season because they dominated in rebound statistics, which means that the Wake Forest team could attack more in games."
"Another thing that has been going on a lot in this game is that the NC State Wolfpack team has been making a lot of mistakes, they missed more than 12 three-point shots, if they hit half of those attempts the game would be different in the first half."
"Not to mention the great game that Jake, Jamison, and Zwikker are playing, Zwikker scored 13 points in the last game and it looks like he will repeat the performance in that game and Jamison has been playing very well too, with Jake they have been catching almost every rebound of that game."
"A lot of this has to do with the fact that NC State Wolfpack is trying to stop Tar Heels's team three-point play, so Jamison and Zwikker have the freedom and ability to make more points with Jake's assists."
"And the NC State Wolfpack team couldn't quite defend the three-point play because Jake still scored more than 20 points in the first half, let's see if we'll see another triple-double from Jake in this game."
What the commentators were saying was right and it was obvious that the coach and players of the NC State Wolfpack team knew this too, but unfortunately, they could do nothing to change the situation in this game.
The scoring on Jake was already very strong and yet he still managed to score 22 points in the first half plus many assists, if they changed the defense to the painted area it was not guaranteed that they would achieve for the attacks of Jamison and Zwikker.
And if they did that Jake and Williams would be even easier to make the plays in the second half, and even if they wanted to fight for rebounds they had no ability to face the Tar Heels team players.