Chapter 313 1997 NCAA Division I n“s Basketball Tournant 1
After a few more days of training the first ga day the NCAA tournant arrived, the ga would be at the Lawrence Joel Coliseum which was where Wake Forest team normally played, if Team Tar Heels won they would play the next ga there too.
After a few hours, both teams were ready for the ga, Team Tar Heels was the first seed in this NCAA tournant and would face Team Fairfield Stags who were not having a good season so far.
So it was only natural that everyone expected the Tar Heels team to win this ga very easily, everyone expected it and even Coach Smith was not worried about this ga, Jake who knew that the team would win with so ease was not worried either.
But he rembered sothing that could end up changing the outco of this ga if he wasn’t careful, Greg Francis who was one of the highlights of this team would be playing very well that day and would hit 8 shots from three points.
So Jake didn’t know what position he would play in this ga but made a point of asking Coach Smith to personally score Greg Francis, Coach Smith trusted Jake as a defender and accepted Jake’s request.
That made Jake very happy, so he would defend Greg Francis the entire ga and at least not allow the opposing player to score so many points in that ga, as Coach Smith was confident in the team he decided to change the initial lineup for that ga.
Jake, Carter, Zwikker, Williams, and Jamison were playing very well in the attack of team Tar Heels and Jake, Jamison and Zwikker also stood out in defense, so Coach Smith decided to let the five players in the initial lineup and leave Okulaja on the bench beginning of the ga.
Coach Smith believed that in this ga if they scored more points with this team the defense would not matter so much and they would still win, plus he was confident in defending his team for this ga.
"Today all our viewers will be watching ho the first round of this NCAA tournant, a first seed ga from East Regional North Carolina Tar Heels against team sixteenth seed team Fairfield Stags."
"Everyone looks forward to an easy win for the Tar Heels team in this ga for the great phase the team has had 28 wins and only 2 losses to that match and cos from a winning streak of 19."
"It’s normal to think that in addition to winning a lot of gas they have great players like Jake, Jamison, Carter, and others, and still managed to win the ACC tournant."
"But we all know how unpredictable basketball can be and nothing is decided before the end of the ga, the Fairfield Stags team can surprise us all in today’s ga."
In the early minutes of the ga, Fairfield Stags seed to be in for the win and soon a very strong and unexpected attack began in the early minutes, only Jake expected it and was like a shadow defending closely against Francis.
Just in the first two minutes of play, Jake gave so space on purpose and soon saw Francis receive the pass when Francis tried the three-point shot Jake was already prepared and approached quickly and went to the block.
Francis was 1.90 m and did not expect the block, so Jake can easily take the ball off his 1.98 m, a few minutes later Jake again got a block against Francis.
After these two plays, Jake was sure that Francis’s confidence was shaken and that he would hesitate to try the outside shot with Jake around, Coach Smith was very pleased with that on the bench and thought Jake was particularly good today.
In the first 5 minutes Jake also managed to score 5 points and 2 assists so Tar Heels team had the lead, Jamison and Zwikker were a little distracted at the start of the ga so it was still a difficult start.
"Good start to the ga for Jake in this ga, it looked like the Fairfield Stags team was planning to start pushing in those early minutes and maybe open up so advantage, but Jake broke their hopes."
"These two blocks at the beginning of the ga were unexpected for the Fairfield Stags team and maybe even for the Tar Heels team, after all, Jake had only 3 blocks in the whole season and made over half of it today going to 5 blocks this year."
"The most amazing thing is the detail of these plays, Jake defends closely against Francis and only for a few monts moves away from the defense, but is still watching closely Francis when Francis leaves the three-point line and receives the ball Jake still does not move."
"Only when Francis starts the move to try the three-point shot that Jake quickly advances and still jumps after Francis to get the block, that’s both."
And that went on, the whole first ti Jake realized that Zwikker and Jamison were not playing well so made more moves with Carter and Williams, the two matched by scoring a few points.
Jake also cald the team and valued each ti before completing the play, Jake still hit 4 shots from 3 points in 7 attempts and was therefore unable to support the team with several steals and rebounds as in other gas.
In compensation by the end of the first half, Jake had made 6 blocks, 5 of them in Francis and yet Francis managed to make three points in that first half, it did not look like he had lost confidence even after several blocks of Jake.
In the first half, Jake played for 19 minutes and managed to score 18 points, 6 assists, 3 rebounds, 2 steals, and 6 blocks, with this excellent first-half performance of Jake the Tar Heels team was winning easily.
"What an incredible first half Jake has been leading the Tar Heels team in this ga, a normal performance for him in offense considering the other gas, but in defense, he has been saving the Tar Heels team from perhaps finishing behind in that first half."
"You say normal, but he was directly 34 points out of the 42 points that the Tar Heels team scored in the first half, we can’t treat that as normal even if he does the sa every ga."
"He seems to be really paying attention to Francis in this ga, Jake made 5 blocks in Francis in the first half, we don’t know if any of these three-point shots would hit, but Francis certainly has the team’s confidence in this ga."
In the second half, the Fairfield Stags team played at the sa pace trying to win the ga, but the Tar Heels team improved a lot in the second half, Jamison and Zwikker who was not playing so well began to show a great performance.
Especially Zwikker who was taking several rebounds and doing more than double the points in the first half in that second half, Jake still controlled the ga calmly and always defended against Francis.
In the second half, Jake made another 5 blocks and 4 more of them in Francis, yet Francis still scored 6 more points in this second half of the ga, even though Jake could feel that Francis could have a better average hit than him in this ga if Jake allowed.
Before halfway through the second half everyone knew that the Tar Heels team would win this ga, Coach Smith was calm and even smiling when talking to the players, it was completely different from the difficult ga that Jake saw in his past life.
In that second half, Jake played for 18 minutes and managed to score 15 points, 5 assists, 2 rebounds, 2 steals, and 5 blocks with another triple-double. Jake secured an easy ga for the team and he disrupted the best player of the team Fairfield Stags in this ga.
Team Tar Heels won 94 points against 61 points for Fairfield Stags, it was a difficult ga that was made easier because Jake was on the court, yet Jake did not perform so well and even missed a lot of three-point shots.
Even though he was pleased with the triple-double and being able to make 11 blocks in this ga, it was shaful for him to have made only 3 blocks this season, so he took advantage of knowing that a player from the opposing team would have a great performance and even made several blocks.
"And so ends that first round of the NCAA tournant, a great ga and an easy win for the Tar Heels team, Jake Smith as always controlling the ga and Serge Zwikker having another great ga as well as Vince Carter."
"Defensively Jake did exactly what he set out to do and so the Fairfield Stags team failed to play so well and lost by so much difference, just by those 9 points that Francis did even with Jake in defense already showed how he was inspired by this ga. "
"Hahaha, that’s true, I’m sure Francis will have nightmares with Jake after this ga, a player who had only 3 blocks in the whole season decided to play very well in this ga and made 9 blocks in it, Francis must be very angry."
"This is another ga that perfectly illustrates Jake’s versatility as a player, I’m sure he will make history in the NBA as he is already making history in college basketball."
"That’s right, a few gas ago Jake made a quadruple-double and now he shows that one day maybe he can make a quintuple-double playing like that."
Comntators naturally praised Jake for the great ga and because the Tar Heels team seed to be doing well to win this year’s NCAA tournant, so reporters ca to interview the players.
The first interviewee was Greg Francis who had made an interesting dispute with Jake who was the best of the ga in this ga, reporters were curious about what Greg Francis was thinking.
"What did you think of this Francis ga?"
"I thought the Tar Heels team played very well and deservedly won, our team did what we had trained to do and yet we lost by a large margin of points."
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