CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. – There was no question entering this season that Wake Forest has talent, a good deal of it in fact. A recruiting class as heralded as theirs, added to a nice young core that featured sophomores James Johnson and Jeff Teague, takes care of that. What wasn’t known was how quickly this group might bring the Demon Deacons back to being contenders in the ACC.
We’ve already got our answer: very quickly. As in, right now.
After Wednesday night’s 83-63 win at Boston College, one that was even more convincing than the final score would indicate, the case can even be made that the Demon Deacons are the best team in the country right now. They will enter the weekend as one of just three teams in the nation that are still undefeated.
It’s easy to look at key statistics or even to watch the team and be impressed. The Demon Deacons shoot over 51 percent from the field, hold opponents to just over 36 percent and force 18 turnovers a contest, and out-rebound opponents by an average of just under eight per game. Nine players average at least 11 minutes per game. Watch this team, and you see how athletic they are, as well as the size they have up front, and they can run or score in the halfcourt quite well.
All of that is nice, but numbers can be deceiving and a winning team isn’t made of pure athletes and big bodies. Such teams are almost a dime a dozen in college basketball, so it’s things aside from that which often make the difference. And as young as the Demon Deacons are, how fast they grow up would be the key. They start two juniors alongside sophomores Johnson and Teague and freshman Al-Farouq Aminu.
They got tests of their maturity early on. After rolling in their first three games, all at home, they went to the 76 Classic in Anaheim, a loaded event, and came away with three wins that have helped shape their season. They held off a second half rally from Cal State Fullerton in the opener, as the Titans trailed by 15 in the second half before getting within three. They did the same against UTEP as they led by a dozen midway through the second half only to see the Miners get within one late. They finished it off by knocking off a solid Baylor team.
“I like where we’re at,” said head coach Dino Gaudio. “They’re a confident group, but not overconfident. I think the tournament in Anaheim gave us some juice.”
You could see this more recently, when they snapped Brigham Young’s 53-game home winning streak in front of the second-largest crowd ever at the Marriott Center, then knocked off North Carolina on Sunday night. The latter was a game they won, not a game North Carolina lost. They led for the final 13:13 of the game, but never by more than eight, and were seriously challenged throughout that time.
Even Wednesday night’s win was significant. Boston College had Wake’s number in recent years, including a 112-73 thumping last year at The Heights that ranks as the tenth-largest margin of defeat in the program’s history.
“I told them, we’ve never beaten Boston College,” said Gaudio. “Since they’ve been in the ACC, we’ve been 0-4, and I guess there were three games before that. Pretty soon, you’ve got to say, enough is enough. I thought they were ready to play, I really do.”
Teague has probably been the hottest player in the country not named Jodie Meeks of late. He scored 30 at Brigham Young, then followed it up with 34 against North Carolina and drew tremendous praise from Tar Heels head coach Roy Williams. On Wednesday, he had 29 on 10-17 shooting, and both he and the coach didn’t feel he played well.
We all should not play well, in that case.
Johnson, for his part, was huge at the defensive end Wednesday night. He held Eagle guard Rakim Sanders to four points on just 1-8 shooting, and Sanders turned it over five times. Additionally, Johnson may have had just 11 points to go with eight rebounds and three blocks, but he had a couple of shots that were back-breakers in halting momentum that the Eagles were trying to gather with small comebacks.
“If I had to pick a player of the game, it would be James Johnson,” said Gaudio. “He did a terrific job on Rakim Sanders. We challenged him before the game, and we said that was going to be a big, big matchup. James was extraordinary defensively for us, and I think that really set the tone for the game.”
Teague feels he and Johnson both grew up a lot last year. Gaudio said he felt Teague was better in the latter part of the season, and was arguably the top rookie in the ACC in the last ten games. What has really helped is that they have a mature younger group.
“For the freshmen, they were really mature,” said Teague. “They came in like a humble group that was ready, and they knew what was going to be ahead of them. I think Al-Farouq’s brother (Alade, a senior at Georgia Tech) helped him a lot with this situation because he plays in the ACC. I think he really knows what it’s going to be like and has really helped us.”
Gaudio loves the enthusiasm and competitiveness he sees with this team. Practices are often highly competitive, and players get fiery quite often. Even so, this group seems to be quite together, with no apparent chemistry concerns. That bodes well heading into Saturday’s game, one that no one would have picked to be what it is – an early ACC showdown at Clemson, another undefeated team.
“It’s going to be a great challenge, and so far, we’ve met all of those challenges,” Gaudio reflected.
They’ve met the challenges not as a talented team, but as a talented team that is growing up right in front of us.
