Chapter 376 Business and Basketball 10
The game went on like this and Team Tar Heels managed to further increase their lead with errors in the Georgia Tech team attack, so Georgia Tech failed to recover and eventually lost the game.
Team Tar Heels won the game by scoring 112 points against 71 points for Team Georgia Tech, the fans were very happy with this victory from Team Tar Heels in their first home game of the year and they were looking forward to the next game in a few days.
In this 2nd half Jake had played for 20 minutes and scored 19 points, 5 assists, 4 rebounds, and 6 steals, as well as a good start and a triple-double, to help Tar Heels win more.
After the end of the game, Jake can see several posters in the crowd wishing him a happy birthday that was the day before, which made Jake very happy and thrilled, which made Jake want to play even better to bring joy to the fans.
"One more game ends with the Tar Heels team win, after that game, there are 16 straight wins, with last season's games 41 straight wins, the Tar Heels team haven't lost a game since January 4, 1997."
"It's very rare to see a team go so long without losing, and with Jake and Jamison playing that way it's hard to find a team that can beat Tar Heels before the NCAA tournament."
"This data shows how after Jake joined this team they got even stronger, after this game of January 4, 1997, Jake started playing more minutes in the games and the Tar Heels team didn't lose anymore, now Jake plays 40 minutes in all the games."
"Sure, Jake is very important to the Tar Heels team and we'll see how long this team can continue without losing."
What commentators said became news in many sports media over the next few days, unnoticed by the change in coaches, the Tar Heels team reached 41 games without losing.
This was a great achievement for college basketball teams in recent decades where basketball has become more popular and because it is more lucrative for teams and players to attract far more talent than other sports.
This season there were 23 more games to play, and if the Tar Heels team lost no games and were NCAA tournament champions again, they would have a 64-record winning streak, which would be the second-highest record in a men's basketball team history was from the San Francisco Dons team with 60 games without losing.
And the biggest sequel was the UCLA Bruins team with 88 unbeaten games that ended in 1974, in modern basketball nobody expected anything like that to happen again so getting 41 games unbeaten was incredible for the Tar Heels team.
In the expert analysis, Jake Smith's presence was certainly the most important reason for the Tar Heels team to achieve this, a high-level player who was a team player and not alone doing many assists.
In addition, Jake had an incredible average of over 30 points per game making many three-point plays, in defense Jake also had a great performance with an average of 7 rebounds per game and 8 steals, Jake broke several records in the debut season his and kept playing even better this season.
Of course, besides Jake other players of the team were also very important, Serge Zwikker last season and Antawn Jamison, Vince Carter, Ademola Okulaja, Shammond Williams and Ed Cota also kept this team performing well.
With such a good team even the change of coaches between seasons did not hinder the team's performance because even though Dean Smith was an excellent coach and a legend, Coach Bill Guthridge was also very good.
With this news, the Tar Heels team soon had another game two days later still playing at home at the Dean Smith Center, this sequence of many losing matches gave a lot of pressure to the Tar Heels players.
But it also gave a lot of pressure to the opposing team to play against this strong Tar Heels team, and besides, as players who would be future NBA stars, Jake and his teammates were not so affected by that pressure.
The opponent for this match was the Virginia Cavaliers team that would not have performed well this season, but it was still a difficult team to face due to having two great players who were Norman Nolan who would have averaged over 21 points this season and Curtis Staples who also had a good average scoring over 18 points per game and was one of the best players in the three-point shots.
"Welcome to everyone who will be watching this game with us, we will see another game from the Tar Heels team that has come to the fore in recent days as the team that has not lost for over a year at College basketball."
"And the opponent is the good team Virginia Cavaliers who has Curtis Staples who is a player who is also good at three-point shots and will give Tar Heels trouble in defense."
"I don't think it's going to be like this, Curtis Staples is good at three-point shots, but with Jake on defense he won't have many opportunities to make the points, and Jake is much better than Curtis Staples in many ways."
"Who I think can cause problems for the Tar Heels team is Norman Nolan who has a great average point in games and can play in a space in defense of the Tar Heels team that has no one to defend against."
"This is not going to be a problem, it seems that for this match Makhtar N'Diaye will play and Shammond Williams will be in reserve for today's game so Jamison can help Makhtar N'Diaye defend against Nolan in that game."
Just as the commentators had said N'Diaye would play in the starting team and Williams would be in reserve, Coach Guthridge trusted Jake to defend against Staples and he would focus on Virginia Cavaliers' Nolan defense.
The other players were not a threat to the defense of Team Tar Heels, and Coach Guthridge knew that if he could stop both of them, the Virginia Cavaliers attack would be much weakened.
In the early minutes of the game the two teams pressed into the attack, Jake organized the plays calmly and had the ability to move to Jamison and Carter at the right time to assist or try the shots outside.
In a move by the Virginia Cavaliers attack they tried to move quickly to get the Tar Heels defender unprepared, but the Tar Heels players were quick and Jake was a great deal of trouble as he returned to defend.
In this play after a careless attack by Virginia Cavaliers the ball was left for Curtis Staples who tried the shot outside with Jake close to him, Jake reacted quickly and got the block and even caught the ball to start the counterattack.
Tar Heels had a couple of points ahead in the first half of the game, so Jake was calm in organizing another attack, so it was important not to keep up with a fast pace when you didn't need to, as it would make Tar Heels players more tired.
After passing through the middle of the court Jake passed the ball to Carter on the left, Carter advanced until the defense of Virginia Cavaliers arrived and thus passed the ball to Jamison on the right, Jamison advanced and passed to Okulaja who was ahead.
Okulaja got a feint and got rid of the Virginia Cavaliers defender and advanced to the painted area, other Virginia Cavaliers defenders came to mark Okulaja who passed Carter on the left which was free.
Carter stepped forward and attempted the layup to score 2 more points for Team Tar Heels, Staples was very hasty trying to shoot from outside when Jake was so close defending, on Team Tar Heels the most skilled player on the block was Jake.
Jake just didn't make many blocks because he needed the right opportunity to try and the opponents are clever to avoid attacking when Jake was in defense, and Jake would rather try to steal than a block.
The game continued in the 1st half with Tar Heels always having a good lead on the scoreboard, Jake was defending well against Staples and Norman Nolan had difficulty attacking Jamison and N'Diaye's defense.
So by the time the 1st half ended Tar Heels had a good lead on the scoreboard, Jake, Jamison, and Carter were well on the offense and Tar Heels was also well on defense and was not giving Virginia Cavaliers opportunities to play.
In this 1st half Jake played for 20 minutes and scored 14 points, 4 assists, 4 rebounds, 5 steals, and 3 blocks, Staples still wouldn't give up trying a few three-point shots when Jake was in defense and so Jake can make some blocks in that game.
"What a great game from the Tar Heels team so far, the attack is working very well with Jake, Jamison, and Carter playing well and taking most of their opportunity on the offense."
"And the defense of team Tar Heels is also doing very well, Nolan and Staples who are the main players of team Virginia Cavaliers are not able to play well and have managed to score few points in this 1st half."
"True, Coach Guthridge was not afraid to change the initial team that was playing very well to put N'Diaye to defend against Nolan and that has been working because he with Jamison has been blocking many moves from Nolan to the Virginia Cavaliers team."