Chapter 320 1997 NCAA Division I Men“s Basketball Tournament 8
The first half continued and as time went on, everyone would realize that the Tar Heels team was doing very well in today’s match, so by the end of the first half, the Tar Heels team had a very comfortable lead for that game.
In that first half, Jake played for 19 minutes and managed to score 24 points, 8 assists, 6 rebounds, and 3 steals, with this excellent performance especially in the three-point shoots Tar Heels team was quiet in the game at the end of the first half.
On the other hand, the more time passed the more anxious the Louisville Cardinals players became if the Tar Heels team attack was fast with Jake the other side the Louisville Cardinals attack was slow.
The biggest reason besides the excellent defense of Team Tar Heels was that the coach of Louisville Cardinals asked the players to avoid passing the ball near Jake, the coach was concerned about the many steals and interceptions that Jake made in the games.
So the Louisville Cardinals team took longer to attack, but they didn’t miss too many passes and didn’t miss as much attack unless they missed mid-range and three-point shots.
Even so, when the Louisville Cardinals team did not try to dodge Jake he got 3 steals in the first half, after which the Louisville Cardinals players became more cautious and tried to avoid Jake.
So in the second half, the Louisville Cardinals players tried even harder to make moves away from Jake, but the moves only slowed down and the Louisville Cardinals players still scored.
"This was already happening in the first half of the game, but it seems that players of the Louisville Cardinals team are avoiding attacking and passing the ball where Jake was defending, I’ve seen it happen with big Centers, but rarely with a PG."
"I think it’s a good decision for the Louisville Cardinals team to do that, taking off the rebounding and blocking abilities Jake is the best defender of the Tar Heels team, and we all know that he can take several rebounds and block if he wants to. in another game."
"So I think it’s valid for the Louisville Cardinals players to try to avoid making plays near Jake in this game."
"I don’t agree, that way they lose space to attack her and a player in the attack being defended by Jake, if he always made multiple blocks in games I could accept it too, but just for some steals it’s not worth it."
"You may not have looked at the statistics on Jake’s box score this season, but he made 191 steals before this game, with the three of them today he reaches 194 steals this season and may still have two more games after today, he has already broken the previous record."
The other commentator did not know this information and was surprised, he saw Jake always making multiple assists and over 30 points in most games, but did not know that Jake had already become the player with the most steals in a season, and this is the season of him as a freshman.
"And even though some might imply that he did it because he played more than 32 games this season, we can’t forget that for at least 4 games Jake didn’t play for 20 minutes and in some, he didn’t play for 15 minutes."
"Knowing Jake’s statistics on steals is normal for team coach Louisville Cardinals to avoid Jake in offensive plays."
Jake didn’t know they were talking about him and kept playing normally, in fact, he didn’t even know he had broken this record that the commentator was talking about, after all in many games he couldn’t even make 5 steals.
In addition, the NBA steal statistic was not much appreciated by players and even fans, many players hardly ever average 1 steal per game in their career and the highest average players only have 2 steals per game.
Jake could not know the reason for that for sure, but it could be related that against more skillful opponents steal attempts can end up being fouls, so a player cannot often try the steal so as not to end many fouls.
Jake didn’t have this problem because his reflexes and speed of thinking were so fast, so he could act much faster and even give up trying to steal if he could be missed in a few moves.
Also, most of the steals that Jake got in games were intercepting passes and not really steal the ball in the opposing players, this he could continue to do without risking a foul even in the NBA.
The game continued in the second half with the Tar Heels team maintaining the lead and the players became more confident and seemed to get more right while the Louisville Cardinals players seemed to get more anxious as time went on.
In one of the plays, Jake was passing inside the painted area after losing the fight for the defensive rebound and managed to intercept a pass that would go to the Center of Louisville Cardinals.
The player who missed the pass was annoyed to see this, it was hard for the Louisville Cardinals team to get an offensive rebound in today’s game and they ended up losing the attack with Jake whom they were avoiding by stealing.
Jake took advantage of this move and used his speed to attack, but no player on the Louisville Cardinals team could keep up with Jake’s speed so he could finish the move with a dunk to score 2 points for Tar Heels team.
In another play after Louisville Cardinals scored 2 points Jake received the ball to start the attack for Team Tar Heels, he advanced quickly and passed the ball to Jamison after passing the middle of the court.
Jamison received the ball and advanced until after the three-point line and with a feint and a crossover managed to get rid of the opponent, Jamison advanced and passed the ball to Carter when another player arrived for defense.
Carter went free into the painted area and when he went up to layup he suffered a foul, but still managed to score 2 points and still got a try for Free Throw, everyone was excited about this move could be a three-point play if Carter hit the Free Throw.
In games, Jake was rarely missed because his body was too strong and Jake was too fast, only rarely did this happen in games and it happened more when the Tar Heels team were few points in front of the scoreboard and the opposing players wanted to stop the clock.
That’s why Jake had a 100% hit rate on Free Throw, as he didn’t have many Free Throw to try and commentators didn’t talk about it, yet the whole Tar Heels team had high hit rate being the season average of 70% average.
Carter converted Free Throw and scored 1 more by making it a three-point play, with the fast pace of the Tar Heels team being more common in this game seeing plays like this were only 3 players touched the ball before the team scored the points.
Jake was making more quick plays because all the players on the Tar Heels team were performing very well in today’s game, so Jake also had more opportunities to make three-point shots.
In that second half, Jake played for 20 minutes, Coach Smith let Jake played for the entire time of the second half as the team would play again just after almost a week of rest.
In these 20 minutes of the second half, Jake managed to make 29 points, 10 assists, 5 rebounds, and 2 steals, with this incredible performance of Jake doing a triple-double Tar Heels team won the game much more easily than anyone thought.
The Tar Heels team managed to win the match by making 133 points against just 68 points from Louisville Cardinals team, Jake alone made a triple-double with 53 points, 18 assists, and 11 rebounds.
"What an amazing game that Team Tar Heels played today, almost double points than Team Louisville Cardinals, exactly 65 points more than their opponents in a game at the NCAA Elite Eight tournament is something no one expected."
"Jake also had another game to go back to history, another triple-double and his second game scoring over 50 points this season, scoring 53 points is really amazing."
"And it can’t even be said that this was Jake’s best performance this season, after all, he had a game in which he made a quadruple-double."
"True, the important thing was that not only did Jake have a good game and the whole team played well, so they are sure to be very confident in the next game."
"That’s right, the Tar Heels team had a great season this year and especially in the last few games and now the team is in the NCAA Tournament Final Four, and even though this is a great achievement for the Tar Heels team I’m sure with Jake on the team they will try to win the NCAA tournament."
Just as commentators said the Tar Heels team players returned to university very excited after this victory, so Jake was very happy because he had a great performance and the whole team played very well.
Jake celebrated a lot with his mom on the phone and his roommates, in the next few days everyone could rest well before the next game and Jake wanted to train well this week because after the end of this season with the basketball team he would still have to run some marathons.
Thanks to the system and his year-round training, Jake felt he was still better than last year’s race, yet he couldn’t relax because he knew he was competing with the best runners in the world.
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