Monday, January 05, 2009

Deacons Run the Non-Conference Table

Wake Forest will start a new season when it begins ACC play against North Carolina Sunday. If it’s anything like the one that concluded Saturday night at BYU, then the Deacons and their fans are in for a long and exciting ride.

The Deacons ran the table on their non-conference schedule, winning all 13 games. The Associated Press awarded them with a No. 4 ranking in this week’s poll. A cynic might say they should have won them all. The Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) ranks their schedule at No. 224. But considering the travel involved, the trip to Anaheim where they played Baylor, to East Carolina, to Richmond and to Provo for the BYU game, the clean sweep was a pretty impressive accomplishment for a team whose three most productive players are a freshman and two sophomores.

Coach Dino Gaudio noted that six of the wins have been away from Joel Coliseum.

“There’s not too many teams in our league who are going to go to East Carolina, to Richmond and to Brigham Young,‘’ Gaudio said. “I think it toughed us up a little bit. I think we’re a little bit more of a mature basketball team than we were last year.‘’

Gaudio said from the first day of practice the success of the season would come down to three factors, the ability to limit distractions both on the court and off, leadership and chemistry. The third was a particular concern, given the Deacons had five starters returning and two freshmen ready to crack the substitution rotation.

“I’ll tell you what, knock on wood, I don’t think there’s been a more together team, unselfish team than the one I’ve been associated with this year in the 28 years I’ve been coaching,‘’ Gaudio said. “We went down to East Carolina and we had 28 assists, which is two away from a Wake Forest school record and it’s the most assists ever at Wake Forest on the road. They share the ball. They pass the ball to one another. I think they like playing on the court with one another. That has really been a positive for us, when, no question, that was a question mark, making sure these guys all shared the ball and got along with one another.‘’

Gaudio said he would have preferred playing a mid-week game before the Tar Heels come to town. The Deacons made it back to North Carolina at 4:30 a.m. Sunday and had the rest of the day off.  They lifted weights and watched film today.

“We’ll go five days for our game Sunday evening,‘’ Gaudio said. “We have some bumps and bruises like everybody has, and that will give us a chance to lick our wounds a little bit there and be healthy going into the game Sunday night.‘’

The Deacons, before this season, were last ranked on Jan. 8, 2006. but they never were never higher than No. 16 that season. They were last ranked as high as they are now on March 11, 2005 when they were No. 3 coming off a victory at N.C. State in the regular-season finale best remembered for a reunion between Chris Paul and Julius Hodge.

Sunday, January 04, 2009

Making the Best of the Situation

Times have been better in my chosen profession. I won’t bore you with the whole sad story, most of which has been well-chronicled by those media outlets that have survived to tell it. Let’s just say we’re all hoping 2009 will be better than 2008.

But of all the tough decisions that have been made, few have been tougher, personally, than our call not to staff Wake Forest’s 94-87 victory at BYU. Pre-conference games don’t get much bigger. Wake was ranked No. 6 and undefeated. BYU had won 53 straight at home. The Marriott Center had its second-largest crowd ever (23,096) and they were stoked enough to throw bottles on the floor. Dino said you couldn’t hear the officials’ whistles. Listening to ISP broadcast was killing me, and not because of Stan and Dinger. They’re two pros who know what they’re doing. But—as much as I’m done with air travel—I’m a beat guy, and a beat guy is always going to feel he should be on hand for the madness and mayhem. If times were better I would have fought the decision makers tooth and nail to spring for the trip, but they’re not and I didn’t.

We’ve passed on nonconference road games before and will probably continue to do so regardless of circumstances. But we’ve made our share, and then some, of the big ones. We’ve covered (in no particular order) games at Wisconsin in Josh Howard’s senior season of 2002-03, Arkansas, Temple three times, Cincinnati twice, Utah twice, Mississippi State in Chicago, Illinois (now that was worth the $800). Florida, Iowa, Kansas, South Florida, Texas, Marquette and Vanderbilt three times (counting the NIT game). Dave Odom even had us all in Canisius (that’s in Buffalo for those who don’t know) in December of 1994.

I’m not bragging and I’m not complaining. I’m just saying that if times were better the Wake at BYU game was one we would have covered. But again, they’re not and we didn’t.

This is where the pity party stops and the passing around of kudos begins. Wake Forest is lucky to have Dino Gaudio as head coach, for reasons some of its fans might not even realize. Besides proving he’s up to the job in his first season and a half, Gaudio is also as understanding of the media and its job as any coach I’ve ever covered. I’ve known coaches who would take serious umbrage at the local paper passing on a big road game. But that’s not who Dino is. He readily agreed to call me after the game for a personal interview, and, as always, was great. The credit should also be extended to the Wake Forest media relations department, one of the most accommodating in college sports. Scott Wortman is the assistant to Steve Shutt, the director of media relations. Scott not only got Dino to the cell phone, but he also flagged down Ish Smith for a comment. I had kept up with the pregame banter and noticed how Jonathan Tavernari had disparaged Wake Forest for it suspect defense. The Deacons, at the time, were holding opponents to 36 percent from the floor, but apparently word hadn’t traveled that far west. So I was able to get Ish’s reaction when Wake completely shut down the Cougars over the final 10 minutes.

Check out our story in Sunday morning’s paper. It had neither byline nor dateline because I wasn’t there. But given the circumstances I was pleased. I’m convinced it was better than anything we could have gotten from the wire services. Hiring a stringer—a local writer—to cover the game might have been better, but that’s debatable.

None of this is to suggest that we’re just as well off not staffing games. We’re not. My story would—or at least should—have been better if I had been there. The season is a narrative and games are chapters. To miss a game is to skim ahead. Details are missed. And there’s always the possibility of a development—an injury or a meltdown of some kind—that you just can’t fully flesh out unless you’re there. Thankfully we plan to cover all 16 ACC games, home and away, and of course will be with the Deacons in postseason.

We’ll continue to do the best we can as well as we can do it. But we couldn’t do it without Dino, ISP and the Wake Forest media relations department.

Thanks guys.

Saturday, January 03, 2009

The BCS: Is This the Best We Can Do?

Jim Grobe is convinced that what he asks of his Wake Forest football team is above and beyond the call of duty. He has mentioned many times what an physical and mental and emotional ordeal every season is. Many, if not most, college coaches agree. If I coached from the practice field, meeting rooms and sidelines instead of the press box, I’d probably agree as well.

But as a sportswriter, and a fan of the sport in general, I can’t stand the way college football crowns its national champions. To me, it’s absurd.

Allowing computers and human voters to decide a champion flies in the face of everything we are as a culture and a society. Games are decided on the field. Championships should be as well. It’s not fair to tell a team such as Utah that no matter what it does, no matter how many games it wins or who it beats, it doesn’t even have a chance to be No. 1. On the other hand, it’s not fair for whichever team—be it Florida or Oklahoma—that wins the FedEx BCS championship game on Jan. 8 to have any question about the validity of its accomplishment. To me the whole system smacks of lose-lose.

No system is perfect, but my solution would be the eight-team playoff. I know, No. 9 would complain. But so would No. 17 in a 16-team playoff or No. 33 in a 32-team playoff. If the regular season could be scaled back to 11 games, I’d be in favor of a 16-team playoff. But that’s like putting the tooth paste back in the tube. It’s not going to happen. There’s no damming that revenue stream.

I’ve listened to Jim long enough to know that the demands on the players’ time should be a serious consideration. But the bowl season is already three weeks. Wake Forest played Navy on Dec. 20. Florida will play Oklahoma on Jan. 8. So teams can still take two to three weeks off for exams and recuperation between the regular season and the playoffs and still crown a champion as early as we do now. And only four teams would be extended past 13/14 games (depending on whether there’s a conference championship). And only two would be extended past 14/15 games.

The bowls, in general, have been good for college football. Most people recognize there’s a way to incorporate the bowl system with playoffs. The eight finalists could be named in early December, freeing all the other schools up to play in bowl games. And each game of the playoff could be a bowl game, for that matter. The systems are not mutually exclusive.

If college basketball decided its champions in such a convoluted fashion, N.C. State would have never been in the picture in 1983, much less the champion. The Wolfpack became one of the great stories in the history of sports because it did what nobody thought it could do. All sports have such Cinderella stories. The current bowl system precludes such magic. And that’s wrong.

One day they’ll figure it out and crown champions on the field. And our grandchildren will ask, `Now tell me again how championships in college football used to be decided?‘’

Thursday, January 01, 2009

How Will the Deacons React?

As good as Wake Forest has looked at times this season, it’s not invincible. I’m willing to go out on a limb here and predict the Deacons won’t go 38-0. So what happens when they lose, be it Saturday at BYU, on Jan. 11 against North Carolina or whenever?

Then we’ll know a lot more about the team than we do now.

One of life’s cliches (and as Skip used to always say, if there wasn’t truth in them they wouldn’t be cliches) is that what happens to you isn’t nearly as important as how you react. I can remember a conversation with Dave Odom after his last Wake team in 2000-01 won its first 12 games, one of which was a unmerciful 84-53 pounding of Roy Williams’ third-ranked Kansas Jayhawks, and then lost a heartbreaker at North Carolina when Brendan Haywood picked up a loose ball in the paint and laid it in for a 70-69 Tar Heel victory. The Deacons, who went into the game ranked No. 4 , were still 12-1. I mentioned to Odom that one loss, no matter how painful, didn’t have to hurt his team. He readily agreed.

Then Wake went off and lost 11 of its remaining 18 games, found itself trailing Butler 40-12 in the first half of the first round of the NCAA Tournament and by the next season had said goodbye to Odom and was welcoming Skip as the new coach.

None of this is to predict a similar trainwreck whenever this year’s team does lose. The Deacons have tons of talent. The ACC doesn’t look all that strong. Games at BC, Georgia Tech, Virginia and Maryland will be challenges, but at least at this point appear to be imminently winnable. Sitting here on the first day of 2009, I will be surprised if the Deacons don’t win at least nine or 10 ACC games. I wouldn’t argue with anyone predicting 11-5 or even 12-4. That should get Wake into the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2005 with a decent seed.

All that said, I’m not sure quite what to make of the Deacons’ apparent preoccupation with their ranking and standing as an elite program. They talk about it all the time. When they win big, they say they wanted to prove their ranking. When they stumble to another victory against an outmatched non-conference team they talk about how disappointed they are to not play up to their ranking.

There’s nothing wrong with setting high standards and endeavoring to achieve them. But it’s barely January and all teams change over the course of a long, grueling season. Some evolve. Others, like the 2000-01 team devolve. This team is exciting because there are so many possibilities for improvement. The Deacons have decreased their turnovers significantly in the past two games, partly because Ish Smith is taking on more and more of the point guard responsibilities and allowing Jeff Teague to rotate over to the wing. Farouq and Woods are freshmen, so both should improve as long as they avoid the emotional and physical fatigue all rookies face. Gary Clark looked good drilling threes against Radford. He could end up being a big factor, as could Harvey Hale.

Wake was last a player on the national scene before any of these players ever arrived. All this SportsCenter and AP Top 25 attention is new and exciting to them. But the key to the season will be how they react to the inevitable disappointments that lie ahead. If they worry about their own standards, and not those imposed from outside, they’ll be a better team.

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Pick a Number and Wake’s Pretty Impressive

It doesn’t take an Einstein to know that in college basketball, as with most things, everything’s relative.

Wake Forest’s statistics should be impressive. The sixth-ranked Deacons are clearly better than everybody they’ve played. Their strength of schedule as judged by the Ratings Percentage Index is in the 220s.

That said, their numbers going into tonight’s home game against Radford are pretty much off the charts. The Deacons rank second in the ACC in scoring margin (+22.4), first in rebounding margin (+11.9) and first in field-goal percentage (.521). The last time Wake Forest made more than half its field-goal attempts for the season was 1984. A year ago, it was down to .434. And though the Deacons are ranked eighth in free-throw percentage, they’re hitting 70 percent. That’s up from 66.5 last season.

The stats that jump out at me, however, are field-goal percentage defense and 3-point percentage defense. In the most dramatic evidence to date that Dino Gaudio has changed the mindset of the program, the Deacons actually lead the ACC with a field-goal percentage defense of .356 and are second with a 3-point percentage defense of .276. That’s quite an improvement over last season, when opponents shot .429 from the floor (sixth in the ACC) and .353 from 3-point range (ninth in the conference).

The schedule gets heavier in a hurry after tonight. The Deacons travel to BYU for Saturday’s game, and then play 16 straight ACC games starting with No. 1 North Carolina on Jan. 11. If the Deacons are still leading the conference in rebounding margin, field-goal percentage and field-goal percentage defense by the third week of January, then they’re on the way to one of the greatest seasons in school history.

Their bugaboo is still turnovers. They rank last in the league with 17.4 game. But Gaudio was heartened by the performance at East Carolina when the Deacons committed only eight turnovers for the game and none in the second half. It was noteworthy, Gaudio said, that Wake scored 54 points in the final 20 minutes.

“We had zero turnovers in the second half against East Carolina and that’s why we scored a lot of points,‘’ Gaudio said. “When we get shots at the rim, we’re making one out of two. When we turn it over, we’re in essence, 0 for 1. So when we take care of it, we can score the ball.‘’

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Good Times Getting Better for Wake Football

The first Wake Forest player to be named first-team All-American by the Associated Press was Bill George in 1949. The second was Brian Piccolo in 1964, and the third was Bill Armstrong in 1976. Three decades later Ryan Plackemeier became the fourth in 2005.

That’s four in the history of the school through 2005. which makes what Coach Jim Grobe and his staff have accomplished so remarkable. For two years in a row Wake Forest has had an AP first-team All-American, Steve Justice in 2007 and Alphonso Smith this season. So half the all-time total have come in the past four seasons, and a third in the past two.

Some people don’t like to dwell on the past difficulties Wake Forest had in football, which is understandable. The case can be made that Wake Forest had the worst 20th century of any program now in a BCS Conference. For a long-suffering fan base to be rewarded for its loyalty and steadfastness in such a dramatic and satisfying manner is one of the great stories of college football. Sure, the Deacons could, and perhaps, should have won a couple of more games this season. They probably would have if Sam Swank hadn’t missed six games with a pulled quadriceps. But that’s what Grobe kept going back to in the post-game media conference following the EagleBank Bowl victory over Navy, how hard it is to feel sorry about an 8-5 season—especially against a schedule that was ranked among the most challenging in the land.

More ground will be broken in the upcoming month. Wake Forest has had three players—Elmer Barbour in 1945, Norm Snead in 1961 and Calvin Pace in 2003—picked in the first round of the NFL draft. There’s a solid chance that it will have two, Smith and Aaron Curry, picked in the first round this year. And some are even projecting Curry to be the first player overall.

These are truly the glory days of Wake Forest football.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Dr. Duke: An American Original

Whenever anybody puts me down, I have a ready-made response. I’ve been insulted by those better at it than you.

Nobody ever was better at it than Hunter S. Thompson, who fire-bombed my profession (and at one time his own) with the following observation:

“. . . sportswriters are a kind of rude and brainless subculture of fascist drunks whose only real function is to publicize & sell whatever the sports editor sends them out to cover. . .Which is a nice way to make a living, because it keeps a man busy and requires no thought at all. The two keys to success as a sportswriter are: (1) a blind willingness to believe anything you’re told by the coaches, flacks, hustlers and other ‘official spokesmen’  for team owners who provide the free booze. . . and: (2) a Roget’s Thesaurus, in order to avoid using the same verbs and adjectives twice in the same paragraph.‘’

I loved his work, especially the two Fear and Loathing books. He hung out with Warren Zevon, a particular favorite troubadour of mine. He was an original.

A couple of buddies and I went to see him ``lecture’‘ at Duke about 35 years ago. We had no idea what to expect. What I didn’t want was a conventional presentation. I had nothing to worry about. He was led out on stage in the throes of who knows what. He was zonked. He had a generous tumbler filled with Wild Turkey in hand. He had asked the audience to pass up note cards with questions on them. Even that didn’t work. He ridiculed every question, mumbling insults about affluence and youth and not knowing enough to get in out of the rain. The performance climaxed when he tossed the Wild Turkey on the velvet curtains and the sheepish MC came out to lead him back off stage.

We were circling around the hall afterward and came across him on the back steps, asking everybody where the party was being held. I always regretted we didn’t take him home with us, but I got the sense he was more interested in the co-eds. I’ve had brushes with celebrities such as Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard and Mickey Mantle and not so long ago Dick Butkus, and have had the pleasure of covering the likes of David Thompson and Michael Jordan and Tim Duncan. But no one I’ve ever met has lived up (or down) so completely to the image I had of them.

The Batteries Are Recharged

As much as I missed writing the blog this past week, I missed my downtime more. So I took a little.

Downtime can be wonderful when you’re up, and I’ve had more than my share of holiday cheer. Tybee, my bride of 26 years, teaches school, so she’s been off as well. Nate, our first born, is home from Rochester, where he’s a senior at Eastman School of Music studying to become a concert percussionist. Rebecca, our baby girl, is actually down in Charlotte as we speak playing sax in the marching band for the school at the geographical center of North Carolina that will go nameless. She’s a freshman who wants to be a writer. She figures every family needs at least one.

Kim, Tybee’s sister, spent Christmas with us, which was a huge treat. We always have fun. We have more when Kim’s around. It can get really stupid around the house. She’s as close as you can get to a second mom for Nate and Rebecca, and she loves music and laughing and good times as much as I do.

Santa was mighty good to all of us, and we’re all healthy and well. Here’s hoping the same can be said for you, and that 2009 will be the best year yet.

Life Outside the Toy Department

You may have heard of the term toy department in relation to a sports section of a newspaper. It’s not uncommon to hear one sportswriter ask another ``When you going to go out and get a real job?‘’ Unfortunately, given the downturn in the economy in general and newspapers specifically, more and more of us are getting pushed out into the real world. From what I can tell it’s scary out there. I want none of it.

But occasionally I’ll run into recovering sportswriter who has actually made something of himself. It can happen. Drummer is living proof. Drummer is also Keith Drum, a fellow I’ve known since my early days in the business—back before ESPN, laptops, wireless and press availabilities. He also graduated from that state university at the geographical center of the state that will go nameless and went into sports writing, like me. His main gig was sports editor of the Durham Herald, before it merged with the afternoon Sun. Great guy. Sharp and funny. He’s good friends with John Feinstein, another sports writer coming along at that time who has gone on to big things. John will from time to time send Drummer his manuscripts to check out before they go to print.

Keith is the only recovering sports writer I know who actually got into NBA scouting. He has been with the Portland Trailblazers for quite a while now, and that’s why he showed up last week for Wake’s basketball game at East Carolina. He hadn’t seen the latest version of the Deacons, but he was obviously curious. I don’t believe I’m giving away any of his expertise to say he was impressed with Wake’s athleticism. He came down press row at halftime pretty jacked up about the Deacons’ forwards, James Johnson and Al-Farouq Aminu. It wasn’t anything like `Man I’d like to see them in a Trailblazer uniform’ or anything. Scouts don’t talk like that. But if he couldn’t see something in Johnson and Farouq, their quickness off their feet, their ability to get out on the floor and check a smaller player, he wouldn’t be a scout. Drummer said that the case could be made that Wake is more athletic than North Carolina, but was quick to add that the Tar Heels have their weapons too, who, for the most part, are more experienced. And they’ve also got this big guy in the middle named Hansbrough. So he wasn’t predicting a Wake victory in Joel Coliseum on Jan. 11, but he did repeat what a lot of people have told me over the first 11 games of the Deacons’ season.

It’s a team that’s fun to watch.

He’s right. I’m fired up about these next three months.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

At Least the Fetticini, and the Game, Were Good

The EagleBank Bowl was more fun for Wake Forest, which rallied to a 29-19 victory over Navy, than it was for the media who showed up to cover it.

RFK Stadium, site of the game, has long since seen its better days. The press box was not only cramped, but cold as a meat locker. Anyone who was anyone, and some who were not, apparently had a credential to the game, and I felt like I was working in a crowded subway terminal at rush hour. And not only did the Navy post-game session run on forever, but they brought the president of the EagleBank Bowl on to give his spiel before Coach Jim Grobe of the Deacons ever got to the microphones.

The Deacons, understandably, had already cleared out of their locker room long before we got through talking with Grobe, Riley Skinner and Kevin Harris. A couple of us went outside to have some players brought off the bus for interviews. But I was aghast to find that none of the seniors, guys like Alphonso Smith and Aaron Curry and Matt Robinson and Chip Vaughn, were aboard. It was a real mess. If they are going to continue having this bowl, as is their stated intentions, the organizers have a bit of work to do.

Fortunately, someone pointed to another area of the parking lot where the seniors were spending time with their families and friends. I tracked down Smith, who was more than happy to recount his 21st career interception that not only set the ACC record but turned the momentum of the game around.

“The play before I tried to cheat on the run,‘’ Smith explained. “So the very next play they tried to make me pay for that. Actually No. 89 (Tyree Barnes) saw I was over the top and he kind of gave up on the play, and I saw the ball in the air and I saw `Wooo.’ I was trying to stay inbounds.‘’

But the game was worth the trip, as was the dinner Lenox and I had Saturday night at Luigino’s on New York Ave. We walked in to see a huge table filled with Ben Wooster, Hunter and Riley Haynes and their families. I had met Wooster’s father, Ed, at a practice last season. I saw him again, and was introduced to Ben’s mother, Lisa, and Ben’s grandfather. We all laughed about how they were going to insist that Riley Skinner throw Ben some passes in the bowl game.

Sure enough Riley threw an 8-yard pass to Ben in the fourth quarter that put the Deacons ahead to stay.

“I was telling my folks I never end up catching that pass in practice,‘’ Wooster told me while we were standing outside the bus. “Andrew Parker, our other tight end, always seems to catch that pass. And I always get covered. So I’m glad I had the opportunity in the game.‘’