Chapter 322 1997 NCAA Division I Men“s Basketball Tournament 10
"Soon we will see another exciting game this season, the Tar Heels team playing against the Arizona Wildcats team in an NCAA Final Four game."
"The Tar Heels team has been having a great season with just two losses and Jake playing very well and being a revelation like we haven't seen in college basketball for a long time."
"Arizona Wildcats has been having a very good season as well, but they haven't won as much as Tar Heels, however, one of Tar Heels's only two defeats this season was in the first game of that season for Arizona Wildcats."
"Will Team Tar Heels' third defeat this season be another for Team Arizona Wildcats? Or will team Tar Heels advance to the final and get a rematch against team Arizona Wildcats?"
"We'll see all this in the game that will start next."
Soon the game began and the Tar Heels team started to take the lead, Jamison and Carter were fine and Jake was also, in the first 5 minutes the Arizona Wildcats team scored just 2 points and the Tar Heels team had 21 points.
It was the same as Jake remembered in his past life, it was as if the Arizona Wildcats team had not really entered the game in those first 5 minutes, but the Tar Heels team missed more and then lost control of the game by what Jake remembered in your past life.
However in this game, Jake knew well how to use these minutes to open a great advantage, now he would have to be careful to maintain and increase that advantage that would be enough to win the game.
In one move Jake received the ball after Zwikker got a rebound, Jake advanced calmly with the ball, the Arizona Wildcats coach had asked for a time after Tar Heels had 19 points lead in 5 minutes.
So Jake wanted to save more time for the Arizona Wildcats players to start getting anxious after going through the middle of the court. Jake passed the ball to Carter.
Carter was excited about this early start and had already scored 6 points, Carter advanced to pass the ball to Okulaja on the right, Okulaja advanced and held the ball a little before moving to Zwikker, Zwikker felt the pressure from Arizona Wildcats defender and passed it back to Jake.
Jake made a feint and took Bibby out of play and made a pass for Jamison that crossed the defense, Jamison received the ball with freedom and advanced to layup and get 2 more points for the team Tar Heels.
In another play shortly thereafter, the Arizona Wildcats team worked the play well and the ball went through several players until it reached Simon, Simon attempted a three-point shot and Carter lost time and could not defend.
So Simon scored his first three points in the game and was happy, but he did not know that his points alerted all players of Team Tar Heels and Coach Smith of the warning that Jake had made.
Another similar move came soon after and this time Carter was more attentive and managed to hinder the attempt to shoot from outside of Simon and Jake caught the rebound calmly, Jake advanced with the ball calmly and can already perceive the players of the team Arizona Wildcats beginning to get agitated.
After passing through the middle of the court Jake passed the ball to Jamison, Jamison, who was also playing well having scored 6 points early in the game, advanced with ease, after advancing further he passed the ball to Okulaja on the right.
Okulaja tried the trick and when he failed to hold the ball and passed back to Jake, Jake made a crossover and tricked Bibby who was in defense, but instead of stepping forward Jake stepped back and tried an outside shot to make three more points for the Tar Heels team.
After a few more minutes the game was halfway through the first half and was much quieter, but the Tar Heels team led by 24 points and the Arizona Wildcats team became increasingly agitated by this difference.
The game was similar to what Jake remembered in his past life, but the Tar Heels team gave a lot of space after the first 5 minutes and so after the 10 minutes the Arizona Wildcats were just 2 points behind on the scoreboard.
"A very good start for the Tar Heels team, the game started at a very fast pace and after 5 minutes we saw the Tar Heels team with a 19 points lead, then unexpectedly Jake slowed down and the Tar team Heels started to enjoy almost all the time of possession."
"This seems to have worked very well because with that the Tar Heels team did not make many mistakes and the advantage only increased now after we got in the middle of the first half."
"I thought Jake took control of the game at the right time, with 19 points already enough to ensure victory at the end of the game, so Jake decided it was time to just manage the advantage even if it was just at the beginning of the game."
"Now over time the Arizona Wildcats team will have to push harder to try to recover in the game and reduce that lead on the scoreboard, but I don't think Jake will allow it."
"Another thing we have to talk about at the beginning of the game is that the defense of the Tar Heels team is very good, which is why Coach Smith decided to put Okulaja in place of Williams in the initial lineup."
Just as the commentators said Jake just decided to keep up the pace and manage the result, in other games he would not try to do that and would just try to make even more points to win more easily, but he was very concerned and unsure about this game.
Coach Smith realized what Jake was trying to do and I supported his idea, after all the important thing was for the Tar Heels team to win, and with Jake's three-point shots it was more assured that Jake could control the outcome of the game.
At the end of the first half due to nervousness the Arizona Wildcats team made a lot of mistakes and Jake used most of those mistakes to make more points, he always wanted to arm every move so that his team didn't make mistakes.
So the game continued and at the end of the first half Tar Heels ended up winning the game with a big advantage of 28 points, Jake played for every 20 minutes of the first half and made 21 points, 7 assists, 6 rebounds, 6 steals and, 2 blocks.
"What a great first half for the Tar Heels team, at the beginning of the game both teams attacked quickly and in the first 5 minutes the Tar Heels team already had 19 points ahead, then Jake held the pace and made sure that almost all thrown at his hands."
"This turned out very well because with that great advantage and with a slower pace of play the team Tar Heels were just having more advantage, Jake played very well in defense and took advantage of the Arizona Wildcats nervousness in the second half of the first half to make 2 blocks and most of him 6 steals."
"The Tar Heels team played very well, Carter and Jamison played very well, but surely Jake was primarily responsible for this great advantage of the Tar Heels team in the first half."
"We could see that both teams were very anxious in the early minutes and it was amazing to see Jake deciding to just calm down without coach Smith asking for a time, clearly Jake had control over that first half."
At half-time Coach Smith asked all players to listen to Jake in the game and pass the ball over to him to pitch, everyone understood that Jake had a great decision early in the game and knew they could rely on this freshman.
One thing Coach Smith meant was for Jake to stop trying to defend against Bibby, because Bibby only tried two three-point shots in the first half and Jake made the block in one of them, but it was Simon who was playing better in that game.
Even with Coach Smith's warning to the players Simon still managed to score some points in the first half and was the Arizona Wildcats team's main player in that game offensively.
But in the end, Coach Smith decided to rely on Jake's judgment, after all the team was winning with a lot of advantage and with Jake in the game he could say the game was practically won by the Tar Heels team.
In the first 10 minutes of the first half of that second half the Tar Heels players were playing poorly, even Carter and Jamison were not playing well and even in the defense that was the highlight of the team was going badly.
Jake realized that too and saw that it could be a turning point for this game even with the advantage of 28 points, so in those first 10 minutes of the second half, Jake was fighting for all the balls in defense.
He always tried to catch the rebounds and not allow the opposing team to score as many points while still defending against Bibby, so at the beginning of the second half he scored 15 points hitting 5 three-point shots in 7 attempts.
In addition, he made 4 blocks, 3 of them in Bibby and one of them in Simon, plus some steals, yet he couldn't stop the lead from falling to 24 points, but Jake was happy because he knew the hard part of the game had finished.
"What a bad start to the second half for the Tar Heels team, with such an advantage they shouldn't play that bad at any point in the game, if it wasn't for Jake in that early game the advantage they accumulated in the first half could have diminished or to vanish."