Chapter 298 Using a Coach as an Assistant 4 (1/2)
Meanwhile, the Duke Blue Devils team also had a normal game attacking efficiently and trying not to be far behind on the scoreboard.
In the second half while finding the game strange the team Tar Heels was always ahead in the scoring, the advantage was always only 2 or 4 points and never passed that, yet the team Tar Heels was confident that could win the victory.
After halfway through the second half Team Tar Heels still won and the two teams looked like they didn't care if the score went on, Team Tar Heels just wanted to know about the win and Team Duke Blue Devils seemed to have accepted defeat and not I wanted to lose so badly.
”It's not really the game I expected to see considering the rivalry of the teams, I expected a tougher and tougher game, but it looks like Duke Blue Devils have given up on the win completely since the start of the second half.”
”The two teams don't have such a different season, team Tar Heels has 15 wins and only 2 losses and team Duke Blue Devils have 15 wins and 5 losses, they lost more because they played more games.”
”We can understand that the Tar Heels team is stronger considering the player's ability, Jake seems to be being forgotten by the opponents and is not getting many passes.”
”It seems like a Duke Blue Devils team strategy where they are isolating Jake from the rest of the team, they let him do more points, but they can keep him from doing what he normally does as PG is to arm the moves well.”
”It could be a good strategy, but the Tar Heels team is winning this game.”
The game continued like this until 16 minutes into the second half when Jake came out of the game, the Duke Blue Devils team who seemed to have given up the game started to react and the Tar Heels mood had cooled.
Without Jake on the court, Duke Blue Devils team played with a strategy in which they focused fully on the defense inside and placed two players when Jamison or Carter caught the ball.
After another two minutes they had turned the score around as when Jake left they were just 2 points behind on the scoreboard, so with only 2 minutes left the Tar Heels team was losing 2 points.
Jake thought Coach Smith would put him on the court again and soon got ready, but contrary to what he expected Coach Smith didn't do that, he saw that Ed Cota was better helping the team than Jake.
So Jake just had to watch and hope his teammates did something for them to win, so in the next minute, each team made a move and scored 2 points each, so the last-minute difference was still only 2 minutes.
In another play, Ed Cota was with the ball and even with Wojciechowski firm in defense he tried to advance and went to Okulaja which was open on the right, Okulaja tried the individual play and could not move and can only pass to Jamison.
Jamison made a feint and went to the back of the court with the ball in his hands, yet a two-point move would not change anything, so he saw Carter free across the block, Carter thought the same as Jamison and stepped back and tried the three-point shot.
Unfortunately, Carter's shot went wrong and Duke Blue Devils got the ball missing 42 seconds and with 2 points in front of the score, yet being anxious about the result Tar Heels returned to defend.
The Duke Blue Devils team was smart and held the ball as long as they could, they had 30 seconds to spend and end the game, after 26 seconds Langdon went to make the mid-range shot and Carter missed it.
It seemed that this was planned because Trajan Langdon was the one who had the best average free throws hit, in the first attempt Trajan Langdon made the shot calmly and made another point increasing the lead to three points.
On the second attempt he calmed down and then fired again, but this time the ball didn't come in and Zwikker was quick to catch the rebound, so Coach Smith soon called for time, even though Trajan Langdon didn't seem to believe he missed the second attempt.
Asking for time for the Tar Heels team to begin the midfield attack, the referees reviewed the video and saw that the game was stopped with 14 seconds left to the end of the game, so the Tar Heels team had plenty of time to make the move.
Jake was prepared to come in and didn't know why Coach Smith hadn't put him up so far, after all, he could have made two three-point plays in those last minutes and secured the advantage.
But this time it was obvious that he should join the team after all the best players on the three-point line was him for sure and he showed that the coach could trust him for those important moments.
”What a thrilling game this one is at Cameron Indoor Stadium, a whole game that was very warm and seemed won for the Tar Heels team, but in the end, we had a turnaround and Duke Blue Devils almost won that game.”
”Now we only have a few seconds left and Duke Blue Devils is 3 points ahead, we can still see Duke Blue Devils win this game or Tar Heels can try the three-point play and take the game for the extension.”