Chapter 425 1998 NCAA Tournament 7
Jake felt very irritated for being cheated, but in this situation, it was difficult for him to defend against the two alone, so the advantage of the Tar Heels team was only 7 points and had greatly diminished because of the attack errors of the other players in the team. Tar Heels team.
A few minutes had passed from the 2nd half of the game and the Tar Heels team could still win, but this play irritated Jake who used to be calm, in the same play he was tricked he received the ball from Carter and advanced for the attack.
This time Jake went forward for the attack alone and did not pass the ball as he always did, but sometimes he did it and no one found anything strange, still being a little far from the three-point line Jake didn't even think twice and tried a shot from outside by far.
So he got it right and made 3 more points for the Tar Heels team, the defensive players of the UConn Huskies team didn't expect Jake to attempt the shot from so far and didn't even think about defending and so the crowd that was rooting for the team Tar Heels at the Greensboro Coliseum started to cheer even more.
The game continued and Jake was defending more willingly and hindered the UConn Huskies team who missed the attack for Jamison to catch the rebound, so after a few minutes, the other players from the Tar Heels team and the UConn Huskies team began to notice that something strange was happening.
Jake tried 6 shots from three points in a row without passing to any player on the Tar Heels team once, he hit 4 shots from outside and had already scored 12 points in those few minutes, the advantage of the Tar Heels team greatly increased with that and the attacks were quick because Jake didn't use the ball possession time for the Tar Heels team.
So the coach of the UConn Huskies team had to ask for technical time to talk to the players, Coach Guthridge naturally realized that Jake was awkward in the last minutes, but as the Tar Heels team was increasing the lead on the scoreboard he said nothing.
But now that team coach UConn Huskies had asked for time, that move would no longer work and coach Guthridge had to call Jake to a more isolated place to talk to him about what was going on.
"What happened in the last few minutes, Jake, was it a strategy to further increase the lead? But if you were to do that, you could enjoy a little more possession time."
"I'm sorry, Coach Guthridge, I was a little irritated and didn't think about it properly."
"Riled up? Was it with the UConn Huskies team move that you were tricked? Don't worry about it, you can't always defend well against two players."
"It was not that, in several plays, in the 2nd half our team was often making mistakes in the attack and the advantage was decreasing, so for some plays, I didn't want to pass the ball to anyone."
So Coach Guthridge can understand why Jake was apologizing, it was good that he decided to talk to Jake separately from the rest of the team, Jake was very good at three-point shots and he almost never had a game where he didn't play very well.
In addition, Coach Guthridge had never seen Jake become very nervous or anxious in a game and he was always the player who helped others to control themselves, so Coach Guthridge didn't realize that Jake was acting strangely in those last few minutes.
"Look, Jake, I know you can often play alone because you have a high average three-point hit, but you do this only because opposing players are concerned with defending against their teammates who are great players too."
"So when you go forward, there are often not even two players defending against you, but if you still want to do all the moves yourself there will be two or three players defending against you in that game."
"If I see that you are getting in the way of the Tar Heels team from getting the win because of that I will have to replace you."
Coach Guthridge didn't want to be too hard to reproach Jake for this, but he couldn't allow it to affect the team in an important game like this, otherwise, the Tar Heels team would be eliminated.
Jake was smart and naturally understood that he was doing something wrong and in the other move he passed to Williams again and the opposing players returned to defend normally, the Tar Heels team had regained the advantage on the scoreboard, Jake was calm again.
But because of that, the Tar Heels team was lucky because when Jake received the ball the UConn Huskies defense had two players defending against him, with all his teammates playing well it meant more space for Jake to assist.
In another play Jake advanced the ball and passed it to Carter before passing through the middle of the court, Carter received the ball and continued to advance and passed the ball to Jamison further ahead before reaching the three-point line.
Jamison tried to move forward and the UConn Huskies defense was pressing against him, so Jamison passed the ball to Williams who was further back on the right, Williams received the ball and held it up a little before passing the ball to Jake again.
Jake received the ball and two players from the UConn Huskies team soon came to defend against him, so Jake passed the ball to Okulaja who was open from the right, Okulaja had come from behind the defense and was free, so Okulaja tried the shot from outside to make 3 more points for the Tar Heels team.
The game continued with the Tar Heels team pressing in the attack until the end, the coach of the UConn Huskies team tried to change the defense again, but the Tar Heels team managed to win the game making 89 points against 60 points of the UConn Huskies team.
In that 2nd half of the game Jake played for 20 minutes and made 21 points, 5 assists, 5 rebounds, 5 steals, and 3 blocks, after 10 minutes of the 2nd half when Jake talked to Coach Guthridge he started making more assists than points, so he got another quadruple-double at College basketball.
"So the game ends and the Tar Heels team got another victory and continues in the NCAA tournament to try to win the NCAA title again this season."
"This was a difficult game for the Tar Heels team and the UConn Huskies team that has a good defense gave the Tar Heels team a lot of difficulties, but at the end of the game the Tar Heels attack managed to find a way to break the defense of UConn Huskies team and the game ended with Tar Heels team winning with a good advantage."
"Okay, the players of the UConn Huskies team were playing very well in that game and so their team's defense made a very good 1st half, but the players of the Tar Heels team were also playing well and so the Tar Heels team managed the victory."
"Jake was the highlight of the game making in a few minutes of the 2nd half 6 shots from outside and hitting 4 of them making 12 points in a few minutes which increased the advantage for the Tar Heels team and also made the UConn Huskies defense have to defend better against him and thus give space to other players on the Tar Heels team."
"Jake got another quadruple-double in that game and also got 6 blocks, it was certainly one of his best games and he was very important for the victory of the Tar Heels team in that game, I'm sure Jake Smith deserves to be the best player in a year."
"So with this victory, the Tar Heels team increases the record of victories in a row and we will see if they win the next games and thus the Tar Heels team will be champion of the NCAA tournament for the second consecutive year."
The Tar Heels team players celebrated a lot of being able to play again in the final four of the NCAA tournament, of course, everyone hoped they could win the next game and make it to the final of the NCAA tournament.
Jake was happy about it, but he was ashamed of what he had done in that game, even though it worked well to break the UConn Huskies team's strong defense, he knew well that he hadn't done what he did think about it.
Jake decided that at the next team training he would apologize for what happened and explain exactly what he did, he had to be honest with his teammates so that everyone could believe him.
Coach Guthridge gave 2 days for all players to rest and then they would train for 4 days before the game, after that game everyone was really exhausted and needed those days off.
The sports media kept talking about the Tar Heels team because just as they expected everyone who came to watch the games, they were curious to see the Tar Heels team break the San Francisco team's winning streak followed by watching to see if the Tar Heels team would win the NCAA tournament for the second year in a row.
The Tar Heels team would have time to rest before the next game, so Jake would continue training with Yuen Woo-ping, after all, he would have 6 days before the next game and would take the opportunity to train with Yuen Woo-ping because he had a responsibility with the film crew.
The next day the players were resting and Jake went to train with Yuen Woo-ping, in fact, Jake found this martial arts training very relaxing and very good, even if the wire-fu was more for acting there were many things about the martial arts that Jake wished he could hurt someone.
Yuen Woo-ping continued to train Jake to do the best he could in this film and even taught things that Jake wouldn't even need to use in the film, after all, he thought Jake was already ready for the film, but they could use the time to train even more.