Chapter 416 1998 ACC Tournament 4
The Duke Blue Devils team also had great players, they had a great starting team and good players on the reserve who were also important to the team, so the Duke Blue Devils team was always one of the best teams in college basketball and not just of the ACC conference.
They were behind only the Tar Heels team that had a perfect season, so if they won that game and won the ACC tournament they would have more confidence to play the NCAA tournament.
"Welcome to everyone who came to follow this incredible ACC tournament game, a historic final between two rivals, the Tar Heels team against the Duke Blue Devils team, and only one of these teams will win the ACC tournament after that game."
"On the one hand we have the Tar Heels team that comes with an incredible streak of victories and also that won the ACC tournament and the NCAA tournament last season."
"The Tar Heels team is a favorite because of that, but also because it has the best players from all over college basketball, there is Jake and Jamison who are the best players of the year, and great players like Carter who put on a show at every game, Williams who has been playing very well and is great at three-point shots and Okulaja who has been very important in recent games."
"On the other side we have the Duke Blue Devils team that has great players too, even though they are not as good as the Tar Heels team players individually, they are still great on this team."
"The Duke Blue Devils team comes second in the ACC tournament with a great season too and wants to win that game to win the ACC tournament and have the confidence to win the NCAA tournament."
Just as commentators said this had everything to be another exciting game, before the game Jake spent time looking at the crowd to find his mom and Kate, he found Eva and Anna easily and it took him a little longer to find Kate who looked have put on a discreet cover.
So Jake was more excited to play well in that game, he knew well that the Duke Blue Devils team would play well, but he was confident that the Tar Heels team players would perform well and he would also do the best he could to achieve victory.
In the first minutes of the game, the two teams were putting a lot of pressure in defense and also trying hard in attack, the defense of the Duke Blue Devils team was better than the defense of the Tar Heels team, but the attack of the Tar Heels team was better and therefore this beginning of the game was interesting.
Seeing the situation like this Jake would not let the Duke Blue Devils team do what he wanted and in the first minutes, Jake hit two shots from three points and soon made 6 points for the team Tar Heels putting the team at an advantage.
Jake intended to do as in the other games and help the team win without making all of the attacking moves alone, but at least at the beginning of the game, Jake soon showed that the Duke Blue Devils defense would not work against him.
After that the two teams started to press more in the attack and the defenses of the two teams started to have some flaws that were taken advantage of by the attacks, Jake controlled the attacks of the Tar Heels team so that they would miss as little as possible.
For what happened in the last game did not happen Jake was defending against Steve Wojciechowski and was paying attention to Trajan Langdon too, in another play by the Duke Blue Devils team after a good move the ball was left for Langdon who was away from Jake and tried the outside shot to make 3 more points for the Duke Blue Devils team.
The Tar Heels team did not care about these points and soon reacted by attacking, Jake advanced with the ball and passed to Carter on the left, Vince Carter was much more confident after the last game in which he had a good performance.
Carter advanced to the three-point line and passed the ball to Williams from the right, Williams held the ball waiting for Jake to approach and passed the ball to Okulaja later on, Okulaja played well in the last games and the defense of the Duke Blue Devils team pressed against him too.
Okulaja passed the ball to Jake further back in the middle, Jake quickly made a pass to Jamison on the left, Jamison went forward and got rid of the defensive player and made the layup to make 2 more points for the Tar Heels team.
After almost half of the 1st half passed, Jake can already see that the Tar Heels team players were performing well and that made him and the whole team more confident of victory.
Jake was also scoring more points than usual and so the lead on the scoreboard started to increase and the pressure on the Duke Blue Devils players also increased, they knew that if they continued like that, the Tar Heels team would surely win that game.
In another play, the Duke Blue Devils team was attacking and Jake was defending against Wojciechowski, so again the Duke Blue Devils team used this and the ball was passed within the three-point line to Roshown McLeod who advanced to make a layup and so 2 more points for the Duke Blue Devils team.
Jake was having a hard time defending in that game because the Duke Blue Devils team was playing very well and the players on the Duke Blue Devils team were very skilled and were performing well.
Even so, the Duke Blue Devils team made more mistakes in attacks than the Tar Heels team and so the advantage on the scoreboard continued to increase, the game continued like this and the Tar Heels team ended the 1st half by winning the game with a good advantage.
In that 1st half Jake played for 20 minutes and made 21 points, 6 assists, 4 rebounds, and 3 steals, Jake was making more points in that game because he wanted to help the Tar Heels team win and also because he had Eva and Kate rooting for him.
"The 1st half of the game ends, the Tar Heels team is doing very well in the game and the players are having a good performance and so that 1st half ended with the Tar Heels team winning with a good advantage."
"Jake is leading the attack for the Tar Heels team who are not making too many mistakes in this 1st half of the game, Jamison, Carter, and Williams are well on the attack as well and Okulaja looks like he will have another good offensive game."
"From what we have seen this season whenever the Tar Heels team finishes the 1st half by winning they end up winning the game more easily, but the Duke Blue Devils team can change that today."
"The players of the Duke Blue Devils team are playing very well and even though they have some mistakes in the attack they are still attacking very well and making Jake not be able to defend so well, if they press more in defense and make less mistake in the attack the Duke Blue team Devils can still try to win that game."
The commentators said so, but even they did not believe that the Tar Heels team would lose that game, Jake looked excited to have made 21 points and 6 assists in the 1st half and his teammates were also performing well.
Eva who was watching the game with Anna was happy because it looked like Jake's team would win again and Jake was doing very well in that game, she had realized that Jake had found her in the crowd.
Anna was also happy to see that Jake's team was winning, she had heard from Eva that Jake might not play at the university next season and so she convinced Eva to close the restaurant today and come to watch Jake's game.
If Jake made it to the NCAA tournament final they had already decided that they would also watch his game, and since Jake's team was playing well it was quite possible that they would go to the NCAA tournament final game as well.
Kate was also happy to see that Jake's team was winning and that Jake was playing very well in that game, she understood a little basketball and could understand what it meant for a player to score 21 points and 6 assists only in the 1st half of the game.
From what she watched from Jake's last games he always played well and scored a lot so that she could understand how talented Jake was, and Jake still ran in marathons and won many marathons in addition to having already participated in a film.
The two listened to Tar Heels fans calling Jake Captain America, it seemed that Jake's nickname when he was running was already starting to arrive at his basketball games, this showed how much the team liked Jake.
The 2nd half started with the Duke Blue Devils team trying to put pressure on the attack and defense, they had to try the best of them to try to win the game and win the ACC tournament.
Realizing this Jake held the game a little bit, the rush would only help the Duke Blue Devils team and also make it easier for the opponent to get the defense, in another move the Tar Heels team was attacking and Jake advanced with the ball and passed to Williams through right.
Williams was playing well in this game as well as a long time ago and he was important for the Tar Heels team to have made it this far, this was Shammond Williams' last season on the Tar Heels team and he wanted to win the ACC tournament and the NCAA tournament and still play well to get well into the NBA draft.
Williams advanced to the three-point line and passed the ball to Carter from the left, Carter tried to advance and the Duke Blue Devils team's defense pressed and Carter had to pass the ball to Jamison, Jamison held on and passed the ball to Jake more behind.
Jake soon passed the ball to Carter who came free from the right, Carter had made the back turn in the defense of the Duke Blue Devils team and received the ball from the right behind the three-point line and tried an outside shot to make 3 more points for the Tar Heels team.