Chapter 428 - 1998 NCAA Tournament 10

"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.

This further disappointed Jake and David who had good intentions and so David said that the Adidas team had already signed a contract with them a few weeks ago, which greatly surprised Nike representatives who thought that Adidas would not accept this agreement because they already had a contract with Kobe Bryant.

Even though Adidas wanted to lead the basketball market in the United States, they knew it would be difficult for them to beat Nike, which had several athletes and mainly Michael Jordan, so they didn't expect Adidas to bet that much on Jake.

This just showed how Nike representatives were not studying the market properly, Jake was very prominent in Europe for reasons that Adidas did not know well, and also had many fans in Asia, even more after winning the marathons in Europe and Asia.

Adidas also bet on the athletics market and with Jake, they would have the main athlete of the marathons in the world, in addition to Jake's full potential in basketball to be one of the biggest stars in the NBA.

Adidas representatives really thought that Jake would be as good as Kobe Bryant was when he went to the NBA, they had gained a lot of market after the contract with Kobe Bryant and hoped to win even more with Jake.

Only with the fame that Jake had in Europe and Asia did they know that they would gain a lot from this contract, maybe they could create a shoe representing Jake and so they could take advantage of his fame in the world.

Even if Jake didn't become a star for years to come, they knew that at least he would be one of the top players and that in a few years there would be other Olympic games, and for sure Jake could win another marathon and win another gold medal.

Thinking about all this, Adidas decided that it would be important for them to get this contract with Jake for the next few years, even with that decided David was still busy because many companies wanted to keep trying to get a contract paying less than Jake and David wanted.

On the day of the rest of the Tar Heels team players Jake talked to his mother and confirmed that Eva would come again to watch the final game, but this time Anna would not come with her because they did not want to have to close the restaurant again.

Jake was already thinking about it and asked for 3 tickets for Coach Guthridge, he imagined that the team that was in the final would be entitled to some tickets for the players' family, he didn't know if that was the case, but Coach Guthridge got some tickets for the game of the final and handed it to Jake.

So Jake told his mother that he already had a guaranteed ticket for her, Eva was happy with that because even though she was prepared to go to the final game she still had to buy the ticket for the final and because of the team record Tar Heels this season a lot of people wanted to watch the final game.

Jake also spoke to Kate because he suspected she would watch the game too, just as Jake hoped Kate would watch the game anyway, but she had to refuse the ticket that Jake separated for her because it was possible for the broadcaster to broadcast the game knew about the tickets Jake asked for and filmed to see where his family was in the stands.

Jake hadn't even thought about it, but he had to admit that it could happen because he had already seen several games where the broadcasting station filmed the family of the players on the teams that were playing.

But Kate, who was famous, had to think about it and had already secured a ticket for her before, in the future she wanted to be able to appear in the media watching Jake's games, but now they still didn't have a relationship and so it would be very complicated.

Even with Kate taking care, she knew that some gossip magazines said she had been dating Jake since they were photographed together, it was bad for Kate with her fans, but it could be good if she really started dating Jake in the future because the fans would not be so surprised by this.

When Jake thought he had to return tickets for Coach Guthridge to give to the other players he received several calls from friends saying they would come to watch his final game, Matthew and Oliver called first and so Jake gave the tickets to them.

But Tiffany and Clara also called saying they would watch the game, Eric would also watch the game, but he would see it in the press area, his university friends would also watch the game and Joseph called apologizing because he couldn't watch his game.

Jake was happy to know that many people important to him were going to watch his final game at the Alamodome, and they didn't even know it was an important game for Jake because it was his last game at the university.