Monday, March 01, 2010

Fighting a Battle Long Since Lost

All season Coach Dino Gaudio has endeavored mightily to set the record straight about last year’s regular-season performance.

Time and again Gaudio has been asked about the Deacons’ collapse down the stretch last season and time and again Gaudio has patiently explained how Wake actually won six of its final seven regular season games—with the only loss of the stretch coming at Duke. And he has repeatedly made the point that he felt that in most aspects the Deacons played pretty well against Maryland in the first round of the ACC Tournament. He based that on the fact Wake committed only nine turnovers, held the Terps to 43.6 percent from the floor and battled Maryland fairly evenly on the boards, losing 44 to 40.

I would be hard-pressed to count the times he has said the reason the Deacons lost that game was they missed 52 shots from the floor. They took 74 field-goal attempts and made 22, which, eerily enough, was the exact same totals from Saturday’s home loss to North Carolina.

But when a team comes out in the ACC Tournament and shoots 26 percent in the first half and is never closer than eight points over the final 16 1/2 minutes, then that’s a bad game no matter how you slice it. And when a team then turns around and falls behind 29-12 in the first half of an NCAA Tournament game against a No. 13 seed from the Horizon League, and is never closer than 11 over the final nine minutes of an 84-69 season-ending setback, then that’s a terrible loss, one of the worst in school history.

To the fan who has suffered through such a loss, Gaudio’s insistence on pointing out the six wins over the final seven regular-season games can come off as a case of denial of just how bad the season really ended.

As recently as two hours ago, last season came up again. In the weekly ACC Coaches Teleconference, J.P. Giglio of the Raleigh News and Observer asked Gaudio if the team was trying to avoid finishing the season the way the Deacons’ last two teams finished theirs.

“Let’s look at last year,’’ Gaudio said. “Our team last year finished the regular season—if I’m understanding you correctly. . .

“But nobody cares about the regular season, you know that,’’ Giglio interjected.

“Well I do,’’ Gaudio maintained. “I think the other coaches do, or else we won’t get on the plane and fly to Tallahassee. Let’s just forget about it. We’ll forfeit it. I’ll call Oliver (Purnell of Clemson) and tell him `You don’t need to come up on Sunday.’

“Yeah, the regular season means a lot to us. And like I said we finished last year winning six of our last seven games in the regular season.’‘

My take is that the regular season does matter, but only until it’s over. A team such as Wake Forest hopes to win enough hands in the regular season to get a seat at the table for the game that ultimately will decide the success or failure of a season.

I’m conflicted by Gaudio’s season-long campaign. Part of me understands that a misconception left to stand can become the record. (I can remember times when the argument was advanced that other newspapers gave better coverage to Wake Forest than did the Winston-Salem Journal. I knew it to be hogwash, and could prove it in any way it needed to be proven. But the more that people said it, the more widespread the notion became and the more my relationship with the school and my readership was compromised.) But another part of me feels that Dino is just fighting a battle he’ll never win, or else is just not worth winning.