My Take on Wake - In Case You Were Wondering (About Woods)

In Case You Were Wondering (About Woods)

Sophomore Tony Woods made his eighth start of the season, and his first since Dec, 13, against North Carolina yesterday, in place of senior Chas McFarland.

Woods scored four of the Deacons’ first six points, but was on the bench well before the first media timeout, the first Wake player to be substituted for. He played 10 minutes in the first half, hitting three of four shots from the floor for eight points to go with four rebounds.

McFarland started the second half, and Woods never returned to the game until the second media timeout at 11:38. John Henson of the Tar Heels dunked on an inbounds play and at the other end, Woods began a drive from the top of the key, took a dribble or two and threw the ball away. Moments later the horn blew and McFarland replaced Woods. So Woods, done for the day, played a total of one minute in the second half.

I asked Coach Dino Gaudio about the decision to start Woods.

“I just thought Tony was practicing better, nothing outside of that,’’ Gaudio said. “I just thought he was practicing better so we put him in there.’‘

And I asked Gaudio why Woods played only one minute in the second half.

“The only reason he didn’t play in the second half, I just didn’t think he was playing well,’’ Gaudio said. “I didn’t. I didn’t think he was playing well. I think early in the game their post guys were hurting us. They were hurting us with second shots.

“But those were just coaching decisions off players’ performances, nothing else.’‘

It’s not an original thought to say that coaches are much quicker to take into account defensive performance, while most fans (and sportswriters) put much more stock in what happens at the offensive end. The Tar Heels did score their first two field goals on follow shots, and when Deon Thompson scored over Woods, Woods was on his way to the bench.

But the performance did bring to mind last year’s NCAA Tournament, when Woods made a surprise start and played a total of five minutes in the 84-69 loss to Cleveland State. The difference is, last year the season was over and Woods had to wait seven months to make amends. This year he only has to wait four days before the Deacons’ game at Florida State on Wednesday.

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By Dan Collins on 02/28/2010 (2:35 pm)

Comments

I get tired of all the Dino bashing and player bashing. The players are kids and no matter how frustrating it is for fans they don’t deserve it. True Dino may not be the second coming of John Wooten but in preseason many rational people did not expect this team to be world beaters. We need to remember that preseaon we were picked to finish in the middle of the apck, maybe a little below.

Kuru on 03/01/2010 (12:39 pm)

In my opinion this is just one of the coaching blunders that they could use to make a Dino must go tape… No adjustment, cant beat a zone it goes on and on….I hope at least Wellman is reading the paper and watching the news.

Trey on 03/01/2010 (11:17 am)

Woods starts and plays a few mins. Chas comes in and replaces him and within 2 mins picks up 2 fouls. Does Dino pull Chas? Nope. Chas then picks up his third foul 30 secs later. That is on Dino and it was poor game management from the tip off.

Mike on 03/01/2010 (10:23 am)

the decision to not play Woods more because he wasn’t playing well is a contradiction to how he substituted Chas in Raleigh vs State. Chas was horrible (6 turnovers and 1 rebound), yet Dino continued to play him—20 minutes. I would have liked to see Woods play more Saturday..

david mcglaughon on 03/01/2010 (8:36 am)

Coach Gaudio’s decision-making makes sense to me here. Despite being the more consistent player, Chas McFarland has not demonstrated the ability to hold down the low post for us on either offense or defense. Tony Woods has shown glimpses of better play. Given the poor low post play all year and his apparent performance in practice, I completely agree with Coach Gaudio’s decision to give Woods the opportunity to rise to the occasion. Unfortunately, Woods didn’t deliver this time. But I would be more inclined to criticize Coach Gaudio for refusing to change things up. Just because his decision to start Woods didn’t work, doesn’t mean it was the wrong choice.

DC on 02/28/2010 (8:56 pm)

I don’t know about you, Disco, but these kind of semi-random substitution choices scare me and make me feel like Dino doesn’t have much of a vision for this team. At this point in the year, players should know and understand their roles. They should walk onto the court understanding what they have to do to help the team to be successful. It doesn’t feel like that’s the case here (and it didn’t feel that way last year). I’m still holding out hope for a surprise finish but I’m pretty sure I’ve read this Deacon story before and I really hate how it ends.

andy on 02/28/2010 (7:39 pm)