Published at 27th of July 2022 9:04 pm

Chapter 422 1998 NCAA Tournament 4

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Cleaves thought about making a move with Bell and tried the pass, Jake anticipated the pass and managed to intercept making the steal, so Jake wasted no time and advanced with speed to attack.

Cleaves who saw Jake doing the steal tried to run after Jake, but soon saw Jake entering the painted area and doing the dunk making 2 more points for the Tar Heels team, so Cleaves realized how difficult it was to play with Jake defending against him.

In another attacking move by Tar Heels Jake passed the ball to Carter from the left before the three-point line, Carter was playing very well in the last games and was regaining confidence with the victories.

Carter passed the ball to Jamison later on, Jamison was also playing well in the last games, but it was not as good as in the regular season, so in this game, he wanted to be one of the highlights and help the team to win.

Jamison tried to advance twice by deceiving the opponent who was defending against him, seeing that he couldn't Jamison passed the ball to Jake further back, Jake received the ball with freedom and then stepped back and tried the shot from outside.

This time Jake missed the three-point shot and Jamison managed to catch the rebound and went up again to make the dunk and 2 more points for the Tar Heels team, with this move the players of the Tar Heels team showed how well they were even when they missed an attack.

So the Tar Heels team continued to play like that and dominated the 1st half and ended up winning with a good advantage, the players of the Michigan State team defended well and tried to attack, but failed to stop the Tar Heels team.

In this 1st half of the game Jake played for 20 minutes and made 14 points, 4 assists, 3 rebounds, 3 steals, and 1 block, in this 1st half Jake played very well, but not as well as in the last games because his teammates had more prominence.

"And so the 1st half ends, the Tar Heels team is winning with an excellent performance from all players, Jake also stood out in defense and was the best player in that 1st half, so the Tar Heels team is closer to victory after getting that big advantage."

"Most of the people here at the Greensboro Coliseum are rooting for the Tar Heels team to win and break the San Francisco team record, it certainly helps the players to perform better."

"It's true, in addition to helping the players on the Tar Heels team, it also puts more pressure on the players on the Michigan State team, the players on the Michigan State team are playing well, but they are no better than the Tar Heels team in this game."

"We will continue to monitor whether the Tar Heels team continues to play well and will achieve victory against the Michigan State team and break the record."

Coach Guthridge spoke to Jake at the break asking how the players were in the game and how their opponent was doing, Coach Guthridge was thinking of putting the players in reserve and letting the starting players rest more if the game was easy.

Jake said the game was not easy and they were just winning with a big advantage because the Tar Heels team players were playing well, so it would be a mistake to place the reserve players and take out the players who were playing well because the opponent was difficult.

Coach Bill Guthridge trusted Jake a lot and so decided to give up on letting the players rest and just asked Jake to slow down the attack, Jake said he understood and so the Tar Heels team went back to the 2nd half.

Just as Jake had said the Michigan State team had not given up on winning the game and started the 2nd half by putting pressure on the attack, as Coach Guthridge asked Jake to slow down in the attack it looked like the Tar Heels team was being pressured.

In another attacking move by the Michigan State team, after a good move Cleaves who was being careful with Jake passed the ball to Bell more open on the left, Williams pressed the defense and Bell passed the ball to Jason Klein who was open on the right.

Klein received the ball with freedom and tried the shot from outside to make 3 more points for the Michigan State team and to diminish the advantage of the team Tar Heels, seeing this the coach Guthridge understood why Jake said that the game was difficult.

But that did not make the Tar Heels team players worried, in another play after a good play the ball went back to Jake further back, Jake was quick and made a high pass and Carter took the ball high to make the dunk and complete the alley-oop making 2 more points for the Tar Heels team.

Jake had to reorganize the attacks and made more attempts to shoot from three points and thus managed to maintain the advantage on the scoreboard even with the Michigan State team attacking well in the 2nd half, Jake also stopped defending only against Cleaves and got more steals.

So the game continued to be exciting until the end and the Tar Heels team won making 85 points against 62 points of the Michigan State team, even with the pressure of the Michigan State team the Tar Heels team still managed to win.

In that 2nd half of the game Jake played for 20 minutes and made 15 points, 6 assists, 5 rebounds, 5 steals, and 2 blocks, Jake had to organize the Tar Heels team attack in the 2nd half and helped in the attack, so he still got a double-double.

"End of the game, the Tar Heels team wins once again and breaks the San Francisco team's historic record, it was a record made in 1955 and that was broken only by the UCLA team that won 88 games in a row."

"Even if the Tar Heels team did not break the UCLA team record, to be able to break the San Francisco team record is already incredible, so the Tar Heels team advances to the next NCAA tournament game with more confidence."

"It's true, there are only 3 games left this season if the Tar Heels team reaches the final, having won the NCAA tournament last season, the Tar Heels team is the biggest favorite to win the NCAA tournament this season."

"Today all the players on the Tar Heels team played well and Jake couldn't even score as many points as in the last games, the Michigan State team played very well in that game too, especially in the 2nd half, but with the support of the crowd, the Tar Heels team won and starred in history once again with this incredible team."

"We will continue to follow the Tar Heels team on this incredible record that continues and also to see if they win the NCAA tournament again."

The Tar Heels team players celebrated as if they had won the NCAA tournament, even though the players did not show the pressure to stay so many games without losing trying to break the San Francisco team record put a lot of pressure on the players.

Even more with favoritism for being the current champions of the NCAA tournament, so after finally breaking that record the pressure on them would be much less, they would just continue to win the NCAA tournament again this season.

The players had no pressure to break the UCLA team record because many players knew that this was their last season on the team Tar Heels, Shammond Williams, Vince Carter, Antawn Jamison, and Jake Smith would leave the team this season and they didn't need to care more with the record.

Many reporters wanted to do an interview and ask questions of the Tar Heels team players after that victory and that record break, but Coach Guthridge already knew this would happen and denied all interviews claiming that the players were tired.

The players had only 1 day of rest and would have a difficult game in 2 more days, but Coach Guthridge knew that if he just refused he could irritate the NCAA and the sports media who wanted to know about it and use it as a promotion for College basketball.

So before that game, he had already made an agreement with some sports media and broadcasting stations to organize the players 'interviews the next day when the players were more rested and only some media could participate in the players' interviews.

It would be something like a press conference, but it would be just some sports media in the hotel room that the Tar Heels team players would stay in so that the players could celebrate quietly and then rested until the next day.

Jake even called his mom to talk to her about the game and talked to Kate too, after Kate showed up at the ACC tournament final game, Jake was talking to her on the phone and Kate's manager had already approved this possible dating in the future.

Kate's manager thought it was better for her to always talk to Jake on the phone than to set up meetings with him that it was riskier for the media to know about it, so after talking a few times they were getting even closer.

Jake always had to think about what he said to avoid telling him some secrets like the fact that he was going to the NBA this season, but Kate didn't seem to care and said several things that Jake felt was supposed to be a secret.

Kate had told Jake that she was recording a new music album that would be released in a few months and Jake can hear Kate's manager fighting with her because of that, the only thing they didn't talk about was when they were going to meet because the two were too busy in the coming months.

But Kate was making a surprise for Jake and would go to the NCAA tournament final game that she was sure Jake's team would be there for, so she had to plan her schedule since the end of the ACC tournament and was her manager who suffered from it.

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