Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Walker Says He’s Back

Everyone has heard the rumors about Ty Walker transferring from Wake Forest, including Ty Walker.

Today, after the Deacons’ pre-ACC Tournament practice in Greensboro Coliseum, Walker set the record straight.

“I’m 100 percent back,’’ Walker said. “I’ve heard all the rumors and everything, and I don’t say any of those things. I’ll be back next year.’‘

Walker, a sophomore who two years ago was one of the most highly-rated centers in high school basketball, has played in only six of the Deacons’ 28 games. His last appearance was a two-minute stint at UNC Wilmington in his hometown on Dec. 16. He said he did expect more after playing in 11 games as a freshman.

“I thought I was going to get some of an opportunity,’’ Walker said. “I wasn’t asking this year to be the first, second or even third option. But I thought I was going to be the fourth option. I didn’t know it wasn’t going to turn out like this, but I’m fine either way.’‘

With the graduation of seniors Chas McFarland and David Weaver, and highly possible (if not probable) departure of sophomore Al-Farouq Aminu to the NBA, the Deacons will be looking for inside players next season to play alongside sophomore Tony Woods. The only other potential post player on the roster is Nikita Mescheriakov, a 6-8 transfer from Georgetown who will become eligible second semester next season, though the incoming recruiting class does include 6-8 Melvin Tabb or Raleigh and 6-11 Carson Derosiers of Lawrence, Mass.

“I think most definitely I’ll get a chance, God willing,’’ Walker said. “Me and Coach (Gaudio) talk on a regular basis and he tells me that next year, I mean it won’t be my year, but he’s going to give me the opportunity. And what I do with the opportunity is up to me,’‘

Walker, according the the Wake coaches, needed to grow both physically and emotionally, and he admits to certain, unspecified behavior that didn’t set well with the staff. In midseason Gaudio had Walker begin to practice with the Scout team to prepare the Deacons for an upcoming opponent, and he also put Walker and Mescheriakov on a weight-training program that has them lifting four times a week.

“(It was) just not agreeing with the coaches about some things, and I guess sometimes worrying about myself a little too much,’’ Walker said. “But I’ve grown over the year, and now it’s more about being a team player and putting myself to the side.’‘

A Close Shave Gaudio Wouldn’t Mind

Just where does Coach Dino Gaudio of Wake Forest get off, showing up in public with a beard?

The assembled media ribbed Gaudio a bit today at the ACC Tournament for his heavy 5 o’clock shadow. For the record, the time was around 2:45.

Gaudio joked that it might have to do with his Italian blood. He even said he wants to look like the Wake Forest beat guy for the Winston-Salem Journal, but we all know his wife, Maureen, is having nothing to do with that.

“I actually shaved this morning,’’ Gaudio said, in jest. “But hopefully I’ll have to shave a couple of times in a couple of days here.’‘

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Deacons Braced For Miami Zone

Coach Dino Gaudio has a ready-made answer for anyone who tells him that Miami might play some zone in Thursday’s first-round game against the Deacons.

Do you reckon?

The Deacons saw an industrial-sized helping of zone in the two regular season games against the Hurricanes, the 67-66 loss in Coral Gables on Jan. 9 and the 62-53 victory in Winston-Salem on Feb. 2. Wake, in the two games, made 39 of 94 shots from the floor (41.5 percent) and nine of 28 from 3-point range (32.1 percent). Coach Frank Haith would have to be tired of coaching ACC basketball in South Florida and just want out if he didn’t play a lot of zone Thursday.

And knowing Frank Haith, I know that’s not who he is.

“We’re going to see 80 percent, 90 percent zone,’’ Gaudio said. “We did some good things against us in both games. We will have worked against it three days. We watched a lot of film yesterday, some of the things we did well and some of the things we need to do better. And we’ll work hard against it for two days now and hopefully we’ll play well against it.’‘

Monday, March 08, 2010

Deacon Offense Back Up and Running

Oliver Purnell is all right by me. He takes his job far more seriously than he takes himself, and he knows what he’s doing. In my limited dealings with him, I’ve found him to be straight forward and insightful. And he’s really good basketball coach.

But in one respect, he might be the most predictable coach in the ACC. His teams are going to come get you defensively and they’re going to the basket when they get the ball. That’s the way he does things. That’s how his teams play.

Tonight Purnell’s Tigers played a Wake Forest team going through all kinds of throes trying to scoring in a half-court game. Last time out the Deacons allowed FSU to score only four second-half field goals, out of 19 heaves, and still lost because they couldn’t score more than 22 points in the second half against the Seminoles’ set defenses. So I asked Purnell if he had any apprehensions about opening the court with pressure defense against a team that has been going though such rough sledding in the half court.

I knew his answer before he gave it.

He declined, in effect, to comment on any problems Wake might be having in the half-court offense, but did say that pressing a player as fast as Ish Smith could be problematic. He also said that, apprehension or no apprehension, Clemson is going to press on defense.

“There’s always apprehension,’’ Purnell said. “But that’s what you do.’‘

The press got to Wake enough to cause problems, and obviously contributed to the Deacons’ less-than-grand total of 18 turnovers. Ish was really shaky early with five first-half turnovers, before settling down to commit just one the rest of the way. And Al-Farouq Aminu, handling the ball at times like it was a wet bar of soap, also piled up six. So it’s not like the Tiger press was useless.

But what it did was open up the court and let the Deacons loose. Aminu dunked off the fast break about four minutes into the game and said later it was a basket he really needed. “It had been awhile since I scored,’’ he said. For pretty much every turnover, there was an easy basket—something that had been mighty hard to come these last couple of weeks. The Deacons scored 18 points off fast breaks and 19 on the offensive boards, at times because the first charge at the basket had opened up the rebounding lanes.

The Deacons look better when they run. Most teams do. And on this day they can thank Oliver Purnell for giving them a chance to.

Sunday, March 07, 2010

Just a Hunch

Take it for what it’s worth, but I have a strong feeling Wake beats Clemson today. First off, the Deacons need it more, and second I fully expect Coach Oliver Purnell of Clemson to force tempo. Unless I miss my bet, I believe an open-court, free-flowing game is just what the doctor ordered for the Deacons.

Let Ish Smith push the ball and let Al-Farouq Aminu dunk once or twice off the break and the crowd will really get into it and Wake will be back up and running.

I have a personal stake in the outcome. If the Deacons win, they play at 2 p.m. in Thursday’s first-round of the ACC Tournament. If they lose, they play in a game scheduled for 9 p.m. but in all likelihood won’t tip off until 9:30. And if the 7 p.m. game goes overtime, as it did three years ago in Atlanta, it won’t start until 10.

I’m a night owl, but I’d rather not cover another 10 o’clock game.

Doc Martin Gone But Never Forgotten

Doc Martin had long been a Wake Forest legend before I got to Winston in 1978, but I was immediately advised to give him a wide berth. He wasn’t adverse to crawling anybody’s behind, no matter who it belonged to. In that I took the advice, I never got to know him as well as I should have. But there are a lot of people around Wake who knew him well enough to be hurting right now. Doc Martin, who was the athletics trainer at Wake Forest for what was pretty close to forever, passed away yesterday in Fayetteville, leaving behind him about a billion stories—most of which can’t be told in a family newspaper or a blog that’s written for a daily newspaper.

Doc, for whom the Wake Forest practice complex is named, was one of the all-time characters, and he was from another time. His language and overall apparent lack of personal and cultural sensitivity probably wouldn’t be tolerated today, and maybe shouldn’t be. I’m more than content to let you make up your own mind about that. In that regard he was like Frank Howard, the salty football coach of Clemson who said and did things that simply couldn’t be said or done today. But Frank, like Doc, could be so rib-splitting funny that you had to laugh along whether you wanted to or not.

And the more you got to know both, the more you wanted to.

If you knew Doc and have stories, let’s hear them. There might be a couple that I can actually post.

UPDATE:
T. Gary Strickland, who was a student trainer under Doc a few years ago, just called to give me the news. He hadn’t seen my blog yet. Gary absolutely loved Doc, and was one of the many who could see that beneath the gruff exterior there was a heart of gold. Gary told me an amazing statistic, that Doc was the Godfather to 22 children of former Wake Forest athletes or student trainers. Gary also said that during basketball games, it was the job of the student trainers to keep Doc quiet. It was a task that often was simply too much ask.

Saturday, March 06, 2010

Where Alcohol and Country Music Meet

“You wrote your Cheating Heart about,
A gal like my first ex-wife,
You Moan the Blues for me and for you,
Hank Williams you wrote my life.’‘
    —by Moe Bandy

Getting ready to head off and do something I almost never do anymore, especially at this time of year. Going to see a movie, at a real-life theater. Usually I just wait until it comes out in DVD, but I’ve been dying to see Crazy Heart, the one in which Jeff Bridges plays the broken-down juicer country music singer. My bride bought me the book, by Thomas Cobb, when it came out about 20 years ago, and I read it. Some grim, grim stuff that’s hard to get through, but definitely worth it. The trailers of the movie look enticing (as they’re obviously supposed to) and Eddie Bumgardner, who I thought was as good a music reviewer as I’ve ever read during his long and legendary run with the Winston-Salem Journal, has insisted that I check it out. When Eddie B. gives me advice, I’ve learned to take it.

My great hope is that it’s 1/10th as good as that other movie about the broken-down country music singer, Tender Mercies, which stunned the movie world in 1983 by winning five Oscar nominations, including best actor for my cinematic hero, Robert Duvall. My daughter, who is home for spring break, just told me she’s never seen it. I assured her that it would be mandatory viewing during her week in Winston. If somebody put a howitzer to my head and insisted I name my favorite movie of all-time, it would probably be Tender Mercies.

I hate to miss the two early ACC games, but I’ll be back in time the see the Techs go at it at 4, and then await breathlessly along with the rest of the college basketball world for tonight’s titanic tilt between the Blues. Life is grand.

Friday, March 05, 2010

Deacons Talk It Out Among Themselves

Back during football season, some of my media brethern got all excited when they learned of a players’ only meeting called by Riley Skinner, John Russell and some of the other seniors. I wasn’t fazed.

“Have you ever had a season when you didn’t have a players’ only meeting?’’ I asked Jim Grobe later.

He said he had not.

So I would be among the last people to make too much out of a pow wow the Deacons had at Joel Coliseum after Thursday’s practice. Senior David Weaver said Ish Smith was so stung by the loss against North Carolina that he had been trying to gather the troops, but that there were too many conflicts of schedules.

“And (Thursday) it was like `We’re all here, so let’s just meet.’ ‘’ Weaver explained. “We just wanted to get everything out in the open and make sure that everybody’s on a straight path. We’re just trying to turn things around and any beefs or tits or tats that anybody has we wanted to get those out in the open and make sure we can concentrate and get this win and make us feel a lot better here at the end.’‘

L.D. Williams said no voices were raised and no challenges were issued.

“It wasn’t anything like us bashing each other or guys pointing fingers,’’ Williams said. “It was just like `Where is this team right now? Where are you individually? How are you feeling?’ And it was good. Ish, he sat us down and asked `Where is the confidence that I saw a few months ago? Where is the confidence that was here last month? Where is that? Do you lack confidence?’

“We lost at Florida State not because we didn’t play, we lost because we didn’t play with confidence. A lot of the turnovers we had were out of being scared to make a play. I told the guys (Thursday) that `We’ve been playing this game since we were little kids and we’ve all made plays. That’s why we’re here right now. For us not to be doing it right now is unacceptable.’ ‘’

Coach Dino Gaudio said before today’s practice that he hadn’t heard of the session. But he was far from disappointed.

“I think that’s good,’’ Gaudio said. “I think that’s showing leadership. I think it means more sometimes when those guys talk than when the coach talks.’‘.

Deacons’ Half-Court Blues

The first day Coach Dino Gaudio met with the media, back in mid-October, he talked at length of a need to establish a better half-court offense.

“I talked to those guys the other day and said `We must be a better half-court-executing offensive team,’ ‘’ Gaudio said. “We have to screen better, we have to read defenses better, we have to pass the ball a little better. We have to. We don’t have Jeff (Teague) and James (Johnson), who are just going to break guys down and go one-on-one. But I think those things are big.

“You’d better do them all year.’‘

The year, despite what I’m hearing from many people inside and out of the peanut gallery, is not over. The Deacons have hit a ditch, as they did at the end of last season. The difference this time around is there is still time to get back on the blacktop with Sunday’s final regular-season game against Clemson and next week’s ACC Tournament.

But to avoid another bitter end to what was, in mid-January, such a promising season, the Deacons are going to have score more points against set defenses. It won’t be easy because, as Gaudio said a week ago, there’s no secret to what opponents are doing. They’re clogging the lane to a) keep Ish Smith from getting all the way to the cup and, b) surround Al-Farouq Aminu, Chas McFarland and Tony Woods with bodies inside. They’re also doing a surprisingly good job of closing out on the Deacons’ best 3-point shooters, freshmen Ari Stewart and C.J. Harris and junior Gary Clark. So they’re basically double-dog daring players such as Smith, Aminu, L.D. Williams, Tony Woods, David Weaver and Chas McFarland to beat them with jump shots.

Aminu and Williams have attempted to compensate by slashing to the basket, but given that neither is a great ball-handler, the results have been painful to watch. Aminu, over the past three games, has committed 13 turnovers and made only eight field goals. Williams has committed only five turnovers in the three games, but he’s nine of 29 from the floor.

Anyone who has watched the Deacons over the course of the season knows how offensively challenged they can be. Smith and Harris are the only two threats to create their own shots, and Smith shoots 42 percent from the floor and 22 percent from 3-point range, and Harris, until his 12-point performance (that also included four turnovers) at FSU was going through a dreadful freshman slump.

So is the answer that the Deacons just don’t have enough scorers to be anything more than a middling ACC teams (have they, like water, found their own level?) or is it that Dino and his staff haven’t been able to solve a problem they knew they had way back in October?

The other, equally obvious, issue is that Wake isn’t getting enough baskets in transition. The Deacons scored four of their first six points at FSU on fast breaks, and had only one more fast-break basket the rest of the night. I’m headed off to practice in a minute and that’s one of the things I’ll be talking to Dino and the team about.

I’ll let you know what they said.

Thursday, March 04, 2010

I Feel Your Pain: Let’s Talk

Just got home about an hour ago, long enough to remind my bride what I looked like (with a spiffy new haircut, no less) and eat a half of a submarine sandwich. That’s why I was so late in validating all of your comments. I hate you had to wait. Sorry. I knew there would be a bunch, but was kinda taken aback at how many. So let’s do it this way, I’ll go back and eat the rest of my sub (Philly Cheese Steak with Pepperjack from Subway) and chill a bit and we’ll talk about what’s going on with the Deacons either later tonight or tomorrow. I’ve been thinking about little else since last night’s stay in my swanky LaQuinta suite of rooms on Appalachee Parkway in cosmopolitan Tallahassee.

One question I have for you is the same I had for Coach Gaudio last night. Do you play for one last possession with 23 seconds left, down two? I know Dino is catching just a bit of heat these days and I’m not trying to turn up the burner. And I will admit that ``It’s just that I always thought,’’ is probably one of the lamest ways there can be to start a sentence, in that it suggests that you haven’t done much thinking on the subject in some time. But it’s just that I always thought that the team behind should extend the game whenever possible.

There’s much to discuss.