Wake struggles to solve puzzle of success
Feb 15, 2009
There is still time to solve the puzzle, and coaches around the ACC are working feverishly to do just that. Here in Winston-Salem, judging by Saturday evening’s 86-63 rout of Florida State, at least a few of the pieces are falling into place for Wake Forest.
Certainly the conclusions reached by Dino Gaudio’s coaching staff, and transmitted to their eagerly attentive players, sufficed to fuel a cathartic victory over 25th-ranked FSU. Wake led for all but one possession. Despite 51 fouls and a spate of ragged play, the Demon Deacons’ second win in five outings was secured by halftime. Wake is now one shy of its first 20-win season since 1995, when Chris Paul wore the gold and black.
“I guess we kind of ran into a buzzsaw,” said Florida State coach Leonard Hamilton. “They got emotionally ready. They came out and played a complete game. Hopefully we can learn from how they responded when they hit some adversity.”
Searching for a middle ground between confounding extremes, the seventh-ranked Deacons set out to regain their hunger and focus against FSU. “Either we play really great, or we don’t play well at all,” said junior guard L.D. Williams. “Even when we don’t score the ball well, we’ve got to be able to stop people and that’s where we’re getting hurt right now.”
Wake was an early sensation this season, going longer without a loss than any other team in the country. The Deacs defeated North Carolina, Clemson, and Duke when all were ranked in the top 10, and for one heady week ascended to the top spot in the national polls, the second time that’s happened in school history. Sophomore guard Jeff Teague was discussed as a leading candidate for ACC player of the year. Prognosticators congratulated themselves on tabbing Al-Farouq Aminu in preseason as the league’s likely rookie of the year.
But prosperity soon gave way to defeat, and doubt. Sandwiched between wins over the Tigers and Blue Devils was a home loss to Virginia Tech. Then came a trio of road defeats against ostensibly weaker opponents. “Winning at BYU on the road and winning at Clemson, we thought we could win anywhere,” Teague admitted. “Then we came in like, aw, they’re not that good, we can do what we want to do.”
The result was a quick humbling in a league where, even against a weak opponent, a road game can prove hazardous to a team’s record and mental health.
“To be honest with you, we had a little sit-down, we watched film the other day,” Gaudio said of his players. “I’m not sure if they’re overconfident, if they’re doubting themselves a little bit. I let them talk; I think it’s the former. I think sometimes we’re a little bit overconfident, we think we’re just going to roll in somewhere. When you put it like a challenge in front of them, they meet it. They meet it.”
Sorting through Duke's internal dynamics was surely on coach Mike Krzyzewski’s mind after losing to North Carolina. “We’re still finding out about our team,” said the master of motivational psychology. Similarly, by trying to fit together different puzzle pieces N.C. State coach Sidney Lowe came to invest the point guard chores in all-but-discarded Javi Gonzalez, resulting in near-victory at Virginia Tech and consecutive wins over Wake and Georgia Tech.
For Wake, an explanation like overconfidence would be a welcome alternative. There was something disturbingly familiar about its recent struggles: After beating Duke, the Deacons dropped five of six to end last season. This year they subdued the Devils, then dropped three of their next four.
First, Wake traveled to Atlanta and yielded Georgia Tech’s sole victory in a 10-game span. “After the Duke game, we went in there a little big-headed and Georgia Tech popped our balloon,” said Wake guard Ishmael Smith. “You need a loss to wake up. Obviously that loss didn’t wake us up. The Miami loss really, really woke us up.”
The defeat at Miami was by 27 points; none of the previous 39 ACC squads that advanced to a Final Four ever dropped a game during the regular season by so large a margin. Then, after easily handling Boston College back at Joel Coliseum, the Deacs traveled to Raleigh and lost again, this time to N.C. State. The Deacs rallied furiously and futilely after falling behind by 20 points.
Later Shawn Teague, a former standout at Boston University, gave his son tips on how to counteract the box-and-one defensive alignment successfully thrown at him by the Wolfpack, turning Wake’s scoring leader into a well-connected spectator. Three days later Teague and teammates handled the tactic easily when it was tried by Florida State.
“They’re learning,” Gaudio said of his squad. “They’re growing. It’s the youngest team, starting lineup, in the ACC. The youngest. And that’s not an excuse. That’s because we’re going to have some growing pains. We all want them to be 16-0, No. 1 in the country, perfect. But that’s not reality. Everybody’s having their ups and downs.”
A few moments later Hamilton came into the press room and mentioned he has six freshmen among his top 10 players. Now that’s young.
In fact, despite Gaudio’s contention, FSU, on the verge of its first NCAA bid since 1998, is as young as Wake. Hamilton starts three freshmen and two seniors compared to the Deacs’ two juniors, two sophomores, and a freshman. That gives each starting lineup 11 years of experience.
At the bottom of the ACC standings Georgia Tech is similarly callow, with two freshmen and four sophomores among its top nine. Five of feckless Virginia’s top eight are underclassmen.
The youth dodge doesn't work with Wake players, who insisted for weeks they are a veteran unit, their seasoning more extensive than might be expected from a squad with five upperclassmen among its top 10. “Obviously we’re young in age,” said Williams. “But as long as you can play the game smart, play it well, then age really doesn’t matter.”
Next come two quick tests of that maturity: Georgia Tech visits the Joel on Wednesday, then the Deacons travel to Duke. If a clear picture is to emerge from the jumble of a season hurtling toward its conclusion, we’ll know soon enough.
