Big Win: Wake Defeats Virgina Tech 77-75
With a beautiful fadeaway jumper with .6 seconds left, Ishmael Smith capped an incredible 10-0 run in the final 1:17 to beat Virginia Tech 77-75 and open conference play with a 1-0 record.
Tonight’s game provided plenty of emotions. For nearly the entire first half I was incredibly impressed and excited by the team. For most of the second half I was less than impressed with both the team and the officiating. With 5 minutes left I was frustrated, but the next three minutes only made things worse. It was difficult to stick with the guys at that point, but in the final 2 minutes I saw a Wake basketball team finish like I’ve never seen in my two years on campus.
An emotional and exciting win like this one could be just the thing this team needs to spark a run and instill some confidence. To this point I’ve felt like the team is often unsure of their ability to win close games but tonight they never gave up and came up with an impressive victory.
By no means is Virginia Tech an upper echelon ACC team, but they have some talent and played a reasonably good basketball game – particularly in the second half. They had some help from the referees who constantly put them on the line to shoot freethrows without calling anything the other way. Nonetheless, by forcing 22 turnovers while only committing 11 the Deacs managed to keep themselves in the game even when their shooting suddenly became icy cold in the second half. Wake missed there first 12 three pointers of the second half before making the final two (including the ugly-but-beautiful bank-shot by Gary Clark to tie the game at 75) and only shot 28% in the half after a respectable 48.5% in the first half.
Ish Smith led the team like I’ve never seen him lead before, scoring a team-high 18 points and making two three pointers along with three assists. With Harvey Hale struggling mightily with his shot (1-10 shooting on the day, including 1-8 for three) and minor injuries hampering several players (LD Williams, Jamie Skeen, Jeff Teauge), Ish controlled the Deacon offense and shot as well as I’ve seen him shoot, including the incredibly clutch shot to win the game.
Foul trouble plagued the Deacs all night. Chas McFarland earned his third foul with 11 minutes left in the first half and sat for the remainder, and then picked up his fourth several minutes into the second half and wasn’t able to return until the last few minutes of the game. It was an unfortunate loss for the Deacs as Chas scored 10 points on 5-7 shooting when he was on the floor. LD Williams fouled out but played another great game on the defensive end and hit a couple of good shots. He appeared to suffer a bad injury to his left ankle midway through the second half but returned several minutes later apparently without any significant damage. James Johnson fouled out with a couple minutes remaining but also played a strong game, scoring 13 points and blocking two shots. Surprisingly he only had two rebounds. Jeff Teauge continued to blossom, scoring 15 points of his own.
The Deacons’ foul trouble led to Virgina Tech taking 32 foul shots in the game and they capitalized by making 29 of them. Wake hurt themselves in the same category, only making 10 of their 18 freethrows. I continue to be baffled by these freethrow issues – the importance of taking advantage of easy opportunities cannot be overstated.
Of course the thing I was most impressed with was the way the team never game up. I know that with three or four minutes remaining many fans were thinking that this was another perfect example of the team not playing for a full 40 minutes. They may not have played for all 40, but they certainly played at the end. In fact, Wake found a way to put a bunch of points on the board to finish both halves. They were down by 1 with 2:45 remaining in the first half before going on a run to end the half with a nine point lead. It was the same kind of run in the second half that earned the Deacons a win.
In my mind the difference between being 1-0 in conference and 0-1 is almost immeasurable. We would be a bit delusional as fans to be expecting to finish in the top three of the conference this season and really maybe even the top 6. That’s not to say we shouldn’t be hoping for it but I think that a realistic optimism has us finishing in the 6-8 range. To do that we must continue to win games like this against teams we know we can beat. It doesn’t have to pretty all the time; it just needs to be a win.
It’s a long road ahead and even a long non-conference road before we really get into the swing of conference games. Nonetheless a win like this should build lots of confidence for a young team. You can’t win ‘em all if you don’t win the first one.
