Chapter 391 The Last Major Marathon 5
"Another game that ends and another victory for the Tar Heels team, now the Tar Heels team reaches an incredible 49 straight victories, more than a year without losing a game and now guarantees the 1 place in the ACC conference."
"This game ended with an unexpected result I would say, the victory of the Tar Heels team is not a surprise because it was naturally the favorite team, but winning with such a big difference in points nobody expected it."
"It's true, in the first 10 minutes of the game, the Duke Blue Devils team was still winning the game, the Tar Heels team's attack failed to score and only Jake's three-point shots that kept the Tar Heels team alive in the game."
"After that, the attitude of the Tar Heels team changed completely, the team increased the pace of play and was more willing to attack and Jamison who had not made any points in the first 10 minutes ended the 1st half with 19 points."
"Jamison showed in this game because together with Jake he is the best player in college basketball, he ended this game with a double-double and making 41 points, it is the first game of the season in which someone finishes a game with more points than Jake in the team Tar Heels."
"That's right, Jamison played very well, Carter and Williams also played well, but for me, Jake was still the best player in that game with a triple-double and breaking his record with 25 assists, a game to go down in history in many ways."
"It's really incredible, with 25 assists and 32 points, it shows that Jake was responsible for at least 82 points for the Tar Heels team out of the 115 points of the team, not to mention that several points were from Free Throw plays."
"We will wait for the next game and keep track of when the Tar Heels team continues without losing a game."
Just as commentators said Jake had played one of his best games of the season, Jamison also had a lot of prominences and Jake took advantage of Jamison's great performance to break his record for assists in just one game.
In fact, it was almost certain that Jake would break the record for assists made in one season, Jamison was very happy and all the other players on the Tar Heels team too, the other day Coach Guthridge would say that Jake would not participate in the next game.
Jake would also train the other day and talk to the players to support the team in playing the next game that Jake knew would be difficult for the Tar Heels team to win because on the 6th he would have to travel to Tokyo to run the marathon.
If the trip wasn't so long and tiring, Jake would try to get back in time to play the next game, but no doctor would advise Jake to run a marathon and play a game of basketball on the same day.
Even Jake, who had excellent resistance, did not know if he would be fully recovered before the game even if he ate a stamina bar, after all, besides the marathon, he still had a long plane trip and the game would still be as a visitor.
Of course, probably not even Coach Guthridge would allow Jake to participate in the next game after running a marathon, but until the next game, Jake and the Tar Heels team's fame was greater than ever.
Other companies were approaching David to talk about endorsement contracts, but David was not counting on that because in a few days everyone would know that Jake would not participate in the next game and those contracts could not be closed until that day.
But the good news continued, after this game by Jake showing more of his ability as PG Jerry West got approval to negotiate with the Los Angeles Clippers team to be able to switch to their first draft choice.
And Jerry West had already told the Lakers executives that Jake wanted a contract to missing some games to run in marathons, so even if Jake lost the next game, the Lakers team would not change their minds and continue the negotiation.
The company Nike and Adidas had also received another proposal from David and were studying to see if it would be worth accepting, even if they would not accept if the previous offer was already guaranteed would be very good.
So Jake and David had done everything they could and now Jake had to run this marathon and after that marathon, he would have one more game and Jake would have a week off to go home, so he wouldn't recover the fans so soon and media attention.
It was now less than 2 months before the end of the season and Jake wanted to finish winning the NCAA title, the other day the Tar Heels team players were still excited when in training Coach Guthridge said that Jake would not participate in the next game.
The other players were slow to understand why Jake would lose this game just to run a marathon, only Jake knew how important that marathon was for him to win two points of statistics.
Even so, they did not show that they were disappointed with Jake, the team needed to continue winning and without Jake, it would be much more difficult, during training Jake told Jamison, Williams and Ed Cota that he trusted them to achieve this victory for the team.
Jake knew that Williams and Jamison would mainly play very well in that game and Ed Cota would have to make assists just like Jake did, only if that happened, the Tar Heels team could achieve victory.
After training with his teammates Jake returned to his dorm, the same day he traveled to Tokyo to participate in the marathon, it was over 16 hours of travel and Jake understood why it was impossible for him to play after running the marathon and returned by plane the same day.
Even though he slept on the plane he still arrived very tired and would only have a few hours to rest before the marathon, if it weren't for him it would be impossible to achieve this, luckily John had already organized everything and the hotel was prepared for him.
John had also come to Tokyo a few days earlier to follow Jake's marathon, Jake felt sorry to think that this was perhaps the last marathon that John would organize for him because the contract with John's company would end after that season.
Jake could finally use the Japanese he had studied so much to learn, he naturally talked a lot to master this language that he used so little, people were impressed to hear Jake speaking Japanese.
Much more impressed than when Jake used German in Berlin, the sports media would naturally never expect Jake to participate in this Tokyo marathon that was the same day as the Tar Heels team game that was at such an important time.
Jake can still walk around the city the day before the marathon and then went to sleep at the hotel to get ready for the marathon, the next day Jake woke up very early and soon went to the place where the marathon would take place.
When Jake arrived at the place where the marathon would soon take place many people already recognized him, after all, who was an elite athlete or was very fond of marathon knew Jake who was the best marathon runner in the world.
As everyone recognized him, the athletes had no doubt that Jake had actually come to run this marathon in Tokyo, but they wondered what Jake was doing running that marathon in the middle of the basketball season.
The Tokyo marathon at that time was not yet one of the most famous marathons in the world, it was certainly one of the best known in the world for being one of the most important marathons in Asia, but that was no reason for Jake to come to Japan to run this marathon.
Naturally, nobody could know Jake's motives and they didn't care much either, the most important thing was that Jake would run that year's marathon and that marathon would become better known as an important marathon after that.
It was normal after all if Jake who was the most important athlete in the world of marathons decided to lose a game in the middle of the season to run the Tokyo marathon was because he had something special.
After a while, the athletes did the stretching exercises and prepared themselves and the 1998 Tokyo Marathon officially started, Jake was one of the ones who were most concentrated because he had risked a lot to run in that marathon and was determined to win the marathon.
"Hello to everyone who came to accompany us with this Tokyo marathon in 1998, this is the first major marathon on the world circuit this year."
"Great athletes participate in this marathon every year, and this year a big surprise happened and Jake Smith the best athlete in the marathons today came to participate in the Tokyo marathon that year."
"Jake Smith has won 10 marathons in his short career of fewer than 4 years and between those marathons, one was at the Olympics where he won a gold medal and another was at the athletics world where he also won a gold medal."
"A few months ago he won the Chicago marathon for the third time with a time just slightly above his current world record, it's a surprise we have Jake here because he's in the middle of college basketball season and I think he's going to have a play today too."
"But for us who are lovers of marathons, it is a very good time Jake running in that marathon and we hope that he will perform well."
This was a marathon that Jake had never run before and the climate in Japan was quite different too, even so, Jake would still run at the same pace he trained for the first km, even his current training was easy so running those over 42 km would be easy for Jake.
The other athletes knew that Jake was the best marathoner in the world and so they decided to do what the other athletes did in the Chicago marathon and would run in a group with Jake for the first km.