Ish Smith Wouldn’t Let Deacons Lose
The last thing I said to Ish Smith Sunday when I went over to talk with the Deacons about being invited to the NCAA Tournament was ``Give me something good to write.’‘
And did he ever.
With deadline bearing down on me like a runaway train, I had already written how Wake Forest had walked right out of the tournament on the most untimely traveling call on L.D. Williams with 13.6 seconds left in regulation. The Deacons had just called time, so Williams wasn’t supposed to move.
“I thought I had let them down,’’ Williams said. “I thought I had let them down. The coaches kept telling me to `Keep your head up, keep your head up.’ But it’s hard whenever you make a big mistake like that.
“But once we started making the run to come back, and it was 15 seconds left when Ari (Stewart) hit that three, I said `OK, they’re going to let us come back into this thing.’ And I knew if Ishmael had the ball, and we were in reaching distance, he wasn’t going to let us lose.’‘
Stewart’s clutch 3-pointer pulled Wake to 80-79 and Gary Johnson of Texas missed two free throws to set up one of the most memorable plays of my career as a beat guy. Smith drove up court, pulled up right of the lane and swished his jumper with 1.3 seconds left to send the Deacons’ into Saturday’s matchup with No. 1 seed Kentucky.
I had to tear up most of what I had written, but I can’t blame Ish. He only did what I told him to do.
“It’s always great to get a huge win in the tournament, especially when, obviously, we have kind underachieved a little bit,’’ Smith said. “I think this though. It’s a huge win, but you’ve got to kind of celebrate tonight and turn the page for a heck of a game against Kentucky.
“We’ve still got a lot of things to clean up. Despite this win—and I thank God for it, I feel really blessed—but I do think we have to clean up on the turnovers and then we’ve got to make free throws. If we do those two things, we really, really, really make ourselves a really tough team to beat.’‘