Chapter 428 - 1998 NCAA Tournament 10 (1/2)
”Okay, the Utah Utes team really played a great game and deserved a chance to be in the final of the NCAA tournament this season, but the Tar Heels team was better and goes to the final for the second year in a row with a chance of winning the NCAA tournament for the second time this season.”
”We were able to see from this strategy by the Tar Heels team chosen by Coach Guthridge the confidence that the coach and the other players on the Tar Heels team have in Jake, which was rewarded by this victory where Jake scored 43 points.”
”After two days we will have the championship game here at Alamodome, and the Tar Heels team is favorite to win again, we will follow up if the Tar Heels team closes this incredible season with yet another victory, increasing the sequence of victories and ending this season without losing no game.”
The Tar Heels team players were very happy to win, it was a very difficult game in which Shammond Williams who was one of the main players on the team was not playing very well and so most of the game was left in reserve.
Fortunately, N'Diaye played very well and helped the defense of the Tar Heels team to withstand the Utah Utes team attack, but everyone was happy that the Tar Heels team would go for the second season in a row to the NCAA tournament final, that would put the name of all of them in history.
Of course, the only thought on everyone's mind was to win the final game and win the NCAA tournament again, the players were more confident because they came from a winning streak that now had 63 wins in a row.
And also because they knew they could always count on Jake who was instrumental in the Tar Heels team winning the last two games and it was important in all Tar Heels games if the Tar Heels team managed to win everyone knew it was because Jake was on the team in those two seasons.
The fans of the Tar Heels team had completely forgotten that Jake had not participated in a game to run the marathon, especially since after that game against the Utah Utes team the media that participated in the interview on the day that the Tar Heels team broke the record and was organized by coach Guthridge decided to publish the report with the responses of the players.
The fans saw Jake's answer as to why he hadn't participated in a game to run the Tokyo marathon and with the Tar Heels team going to the final with Jake's excellent performance everyone understood what he said.
The fame of the Tar Heels team now in the United States was even greater than that of some NBA teams with this doubt that everyone had a possible NBA lockout, everyone wanted to see if the Tar Heels team could win again and win for the second year in a row. NCAA tournament and increase the sequence of games without losing for a few more months until the next season.
Coach Guthridge gave the day after the game against the Utah Utes team to rest for the Tar Heels team players, it was a very intense game and the game of the final would be even more intense, Coach Guthridge thought it was no use training one day before the final game.
Because of that game, Jake again asked for a short break from training with Yuen Woo-ping, naturally, Yuen Woo-ping understood how important the NCAA tournament game was to Jake and let Jake rest.
The one who had no rest was David Falk, who had to talk to many companies again, Jake's performance convinced all companies that Jake was a future NBA star and could even be the new NBA No. 1 player in the coming seasons.
The attention that Jake and the Tar Heels team was getting was very great and these companies wanted to sponsor Jake, but the problem was that Jake had asked David to increase the amount that the companies had to pay for sponsorship to 2 million dollars a year, so a 4-year contract would be $ 8 million.
Naturally, companies thought it was too much to pay for sponsorship for a player who was debuting in the NBA even though he was a future genius, even Kobe Bryant didn't have such big contracts in his debut year.
But Jake was different because he had some contracts secured and he had also secured a $ 52 million contract with Adidas, in addition, Jake was also a marathon runner who had won an Olympic gold medal and also won many marathons and had the record current world.
So no matter how much the companies wanted to negotiate, David wouldn't accept anything less than Jake had already set as a minimum, naturally, these companies knew what David was like as a sports agent and so they gave up on having Jake endorse their company.
Jake knew these companies would regret it when he appeared in The Matrix and when he won some NBA championsh.i.p.s with the Lakers' team in the coming years, Nike had also finally responded that it accepted the deal that Jake had asked for, but they had some conditions.