Deacons the Story of the Season—So Far
Through the first 10 weeks, Wake Forest has had the best season of any team in college basketball. That’s pretty heady stuff, considering how many colleges play basketball and how many play it really, really well. But by starting out No. 21 and winning their first 16 games the Deacons have risen like cream right to the top of this week’s AP poll.
It’s exhilarating to the Deacons and their fans, and something everyone will remember for the rest of their lives. But that No. 1 ranking on Jan. 19 along with about a buck and 75 cents will get Coach Dino Gaudio and his team a cup of coffee to put that cream in. That’s the message Gaudio had for the Deacons back on Saturday, even before they had gotten off the bus from their victory at previously undefeated Clemson.
That’s after telling them he couldn’t care less where the Deacons were ranked.
“I told them `If you’re happy being No. 1 on Jan. 19, then you’re not the team that I think you are,’ ‘’ Gaudio said.
Gaudio has coached a lot of games since becoming a high school basketball coach in 1981 and he has seen a lot of teams soar one minute and crash the next. He was on the bench as an assistant to Coach Skip Prosser the only other two weeks the Deacons have ever been ranked No. 1 in the AP poll, in November of 2004. And he remembers just how much good that ranking did the Deacons when they traveled to Illinois, where they got dismantled 91-73.
The ranking and all the accompanying publicity is good for the school and the program and it gives those who live and die with the Deacons something to be proud of. It’s certainly valuable ammunition in the recruiting wars. But this isn’t college football, where polls help decide champions. To reach Detroit and make Wake Forest’s first Final Four since 1962 they’ll have to succeed on the court, not necessarily with any voters.
Gaudio insisted that his team remember the lessons that allowed it to win its first 16 games. He said before the first practice that the keys to the seasons would be to limit distractions, get good leadership and forge a strong chemistry. And he preached the same sermon yesterday after his team reached the No. 1 spot.
“If we lose our chemistry—and I told them this on Saturday night—then we have nothing,’’ Gaudio said. “We have nothing.’‘
But what they will have, regardless, is a game against Virginia Tech Wednesday when for the first time ever they will play an ACC team as a team ranked No. 1 in the country.