Chapter 326 1997 NCAA Division I Men“s Basketball Tournament 14
Jake was not playing really worse than in the other games, but just as the commentators said the Kentucky Wildcats defender was fine and in the first few minutes Jake was testing his teammates.
In that first half, Jake played every 20 minutes and scored 16 points, 11 assists, 6 rebounds, 4 steals, and 2 blocks, in an excellent game that showed all of Jake's versatility in basketball.
In the first half, he made more assists because he realized that all of his teammates were playing well so that he could pass the ball more instead of fighting head-to-head with Kentucky Wildcats' strong defense.
Earlier in the second half, Jake decided to try to increase the gap further, as it was a decision he made because of the confidence that Coach Smith had in him and so he could decide what plays would make in the game no one else knew about.
So in the first 7 minutes, Jake scored 12 points hitting 4 shots from 3 points out of 6 attempts, plus Jake made those moves while passing the ball quietly and making the points as if it were just a momentary decision to end the play.
When the Kentucky Wildcats players realized something was different, Jake got the team back to play as it was in the first half, but at that point, the lead increased to 17 points.
Team Kentucky Wildcats was behind the scorecard and yet made many mistakes while attacking, so it was only natural that the advantage would only increase even if the players of Team He He also made mistakes.
In another play Jake advanced quickly and passed the ball to Carter, Carter who was having a good game today made a feint and advanced to the inner area, when another player arrived in defense Carter moved to Williams behind.
Williams held the ball a little before moving to Jamison ahead, Jamison tried to spin and score 2 more points but missed and he himself rebounded by passing the ball back to Jake.
Jake held the ball and calmed the team down, after passing a few seconds of possession he made a feint and an alley-oop for Carter who jumped and caught the ball in the air to make the dunk and get 2 more points for the Tar Heels team.
"What a great start to the second half for the Tar Heels team, they enjoyed a great start from Jake who made a completely different start from the first half and scored 12 points in a few minutes."
"Team Tar Heels also knew how to take advantage of the Kentucky Wildcats second-half bad start and so increased the lead on the scoreboard to 17 points, with half of the second half last time Kentucky Wildcats will have to play very well and hope that Tar Heels team makes a lot of mistakes trying to turn this around."
"That's right, I think it's very difficult for the Kentucky Wildcats team to win this game and it looks like the Tar Heels team is already well underway to become the champions of this NCAA tournament."
"Also, with Jake on the team, I find it hard to imagine that Team Tar Heels will allow Team Kentucky Wildcats to turn around and win this game, this big advantage is something Jake is very good at managing."
Just as the commentators thought the Tar Heels team supporters thought so and were already celebrating the victory in advance, Tiffany and Clara were also happy to see that Jake would win this year's NCAA tournament.
John and Alan were also excited and could imagine sales of their companies increasing with Jake's victory at the NCAA tournament, Eva and Anna were also celebrating as well as Jake's and the Tar Heels team's victory.
Even if there were still 10 minutes left Eva wasn't afraid to celebrate her son's victory, because she had been thinking for many months that Jake would win this NCAA tournament as well as all the other games he won, everyone could say she was very optimistic, but It ended up happening as she imagined.
For the rest of the game Jake slowed the game even more and tried to spend all the ball possession and score on all attacks, Jake was wanting the Kentucky Wildcats to try to make more fouls because some players from the opposing team already had 3 or 4 fouls and would be expelled from the game.
Coach Kentucky Wildcats also realized this and could not begin to foul all Tar Heels team ball possessions with 10 minutes left to finish the game on the other hand Coach Smith was very pleased with Jake's performance at that game.
Earlier in the season, he thought Ed Cota would be the best for this position and with Williams also playing in that position a few times, but over the course of the season, Jake showed that he deserved a prominent place in this team and after that started leading the team to several victories.
At the end of the season with the most decisive games, all players had some bad games and only Jake kept the great performance in all games becoming the main player of the team.
Coach Dean Smith was thinking of leaving the Tar Heels team this season if the team won or even lost, but he was very grateful and happy to see that he could leave the team as an NCAA tournament champion.
As time went on and nearing the end, the Kentucky Wildcats team began to make many fouls to speed up Tar Heels's team plays, most players had 70% hit in free throws and so the score has not yet decreased much.
Especially since Jake and Williams sometimes hit a three-point play and so the advantage only increased with the errors of the Kentucky Wildcats attack, by the end of the game some Kentucky Wildcats players had already been sent off for making the limit of fouls
"Now there are only a few minutes left to finish this game, a final that was not as exciting as everyone expected and had no show from the players of both teams."
"But those who support the Tar Heels team will leave here very happy after this game because they will be the champions of this year's NCAA tournament."
"Everyone will also be delighted to see Jake perform an excellent game and will be a future NBA star, this is the fourth NCCA tournament won by the Tar Heels team that last won in 1993."
"An excellent Tar Heels team game where all the players were doing very well both in attack and defense, Kentucky Wildcats played very well and had only a few problems in attack so they lost today."
So after a few more minutes the game was over and the Tar Heels team won the NCAA tournament, the players began to celebrate a lot on the court and everyone looked very happy, while the Kentucky Wildcats players looked sad even if they accepted defeat.
Team Tar Heels scored 92 points against just 69 points for Kentucky Wildcats, it was a huge lead that Jake had controlled since the end of the first half and increased in the final minutes of play.
Since mid-season, many have said that the Tar Heels team was a favorite and had the best players and today they were the winners. Jake was very happy and celebrated with his teammates because he knew he couldn't go to celebrate with his mother.
All of Jake's friends who came to see the game were very pleased, especially John and Alan who knew how the companies that sponsored Jake could make a lot out of it, it was really lucky that they sponsored Jake.
After a while, the Tar Heels team could lift the NCAA tournament trophy and everyone celebrated a lot again, even though many thought the game had been easier than they expected it was because Jake controlled the game from start to finish.
In that second half, Jake played again every 20 minutes and scored 21 points, 9 assists, 6 rebounds, 5 steals, and 2 blocks with a triple-double. Jake was certainly one of the best first seasons of any professional basketball player.
By the end of the season, it would be announced that Jake won almost every single award except for the best defensive player who went to Tim Duncan, in fact, Tim Duncan would have won several of those awards that Jake won, but after all Jake did was an injustice don't give the prizes to him.
The list of awards he received was
MVP ACC tournament 1997
John R. Wooden Award
NCAA Basketball Tournament Most Outstanding Player
Oscar Robertson Trophy
Naismith College Player of the Year
Adolph Rupp Trophy
Associated Press College Basketball Player of the Year
NABC Player of the Year
Sporting News Men's College Basketball Player of the Year
NCAA Men's Basketball All-Americans
ACC Rookie of the Year
USBWA National Freshman of the Year
After everyone went back to university and Jake called Eva and Anna to go to university too, Jake wanted to talk to his mother, but he also wanted to celebrate with his teammates.
Eva naturally agreed and on championship day Jake can celebrate with the whole team this amazing achievement for the team, Jake was happy to win and was even happier that this long season was over, now he would have more time to run the marathons and do more things.
The other day Jake stayed almost all day with his mother and Anna and showed them various places in North Carolina, at the end of the day they had to go back to open the restaurant again and soon Jake could come home to see Eva and Anna.
He had not seen Lola and felt that something had changed after this semester between them, Jake would be glad to know if Lola could forget about him and maybe even fall in love with someone else.