Chapter 353 Back for the Sophomore Year 7 (1/2)

With Jake playing so well in training the whole team was getting excited and was also recovering fast, the players were also more confident that the team could perform great this year with Coach Guthridge.

With Coach Smith leaving the team no one expected them to win the NCAA title again this year, which was good because the pressure on the players was so much less so, only Jake still hoped they could win this year.

That's because Jake remembered that in his past life the Tar Heels team performed better this season with Coach Guthridge than last season even though they had more games, they also won the ACC tournament and reached the final four of the NCAA tournament losing in semifinal.

Jake hoped that with him on the team they could play even better or at least perform like this, Jake was confident he could play much better now than in the final NCAA tournament game.

Because he has been able to greatly improve his physical stats since that game, he has gained 5 strength points, 4 agility points, and 4 resistance points, this has greatly improved his physical condition and the other players have realized this.

He had also improved his basketball skills at least a little because he trained every day in the space of his imagination training, in this space he always faced taller and more skilled opponents than himself.

Even though these players' skills were inferior to the best players at the university because they couldn't think well of the moves, playing more than 300 times in this space could only make Jake even better.

Jake was also confident that his teammates were also better this year and more confident after winning the NCAA tournament last year, so they had everything to win again this season.

In the coming days, Jake was still news on sports programs for breaking the world record and because college basketball season was about to start again, everyone was debating whether Jake and the Tar Heels team would play as well as last year after retirement from coach Dean Smith.

Meanwhile Jake was still training with the Tar Heels team and also with Zack for the nearest Chicago marathon, no one expected that this year after breaking the world record Jake still wanted to participate in another marathon.

Especially because it was so close to the start of the new college basketball season, but Jake had already made up his mind to participate in every Chicago marathon he could because he liked this marathon so much.

This year he had still promised to run this marathon with his friend Zack, even though the two of them had quite different performances in this marathon and could not even run side by side.

Maybe when he went to the NBA he could no longer participate in marathons like these and had to run only when he was on vacation outside of the NBA basketball season, if that happened he would have to choose another marathon to run forever.

If everything happened as he hoped, maybe next year he was on an NBA team and could no longer run the Chicago marathon, Jake really hoped he could get into the NBA so it was quite possible that it would happen.

Jake continued training in the coming weeks and so the day he went to Chicago with Zack arrived, he had talked to John before and two plane tickets were already prepared for them and hotel reservations too.

Just like last time Jake would rest a day earlier in Chicago and after the marathon, he would leave, but Jake had already talked to Zack and his friend would have to stay in Chicago for more than two days after the marathon.

This was for safety reasons as this was the first marathon Zack would run and a plane trip right after finishing the marathon was not recommended for anyone, Jake had a very strong body because of the system and feared none of it, but cared about his friend.

Zack understood Jake's cause for concern, and since Jake was practically his coach for this marathon he decided to wait these two days before returning to college, it was for his safety and that was never too much.

Of course, the two hoped that Zack could finish this marathon in a good time after all this training, Jake had no doubt about it and even Coach Davis believed that Zack could finish this marathon easily.

Zack's goal for this marathon wasn't too bold and he just wanted to finish before 4 pm, not a time for elite athletes, but for those who would run the first marathon was a great time.

The time limit for this race was 6 1/2 hours so Zack was quiet to finish this marathon without having to worry about the time, his main goal was to finish this marathon and then finish in less than four hours.

So anyway they were going to celebrate after the marathon that it was almost certain that Zack could complete those more than 42 km, they both went to Chicago and Jake arrived at the hotel discreetly as usual.