Sports > March 20, 2008

By Martin Rickman | Staff writer

Florida State senior Jason Rich thwarted the Demon Deacons’ ACC Tournament hopes March 13, scoring 17 points in the second half and 21 points on the day. The Deacons (17-13), who stumbled out of the gate early on and found themselves quickly down 10-2, used spectacular efforts from a number of players at key times but never could find their rhythm.

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Freshman forward James Johnson comes down after making a shot in the first round ACC Tournament game against the Seminoles. (Kelly Makepeace/Old Gold & Black)

“Before the game I put three things up on the board: Who will be tougher, who will be more aggressive and who will this game mean more to,” Head Coach Dino Gaudio said.

“Their seniors knew it was their last game and maybe it meant more to them, but we weren’t as aggressive as we needed to be.”

“I don’t want to say that it’s youth, so I don’t know,” Gaudio said, “but being in this position we can grow from it and hopefully put it towards next year.”

Redshirt sophomore David Weaver, who had arguably his best game in a Wake uniform, provided an incredible spark off the bench with 12 points, including two three-point FGs.

Weaver, along with sophomore Ish Smith, who scored all of his eight points in the second half, were able to keep the Deacs in it in the first half, despite the team shooting 35 percent as a whole in the half and turning it over six times.

Behind a mini-run that included an alley-oop to Weaver and a put-back, as well as a three from freshman Gary Clark, the Deacs were able to cut the Florida State lead to five before the half.

Freshman James Johnson struggled to find his shot the whole game as Florida State played a very tough man-to-man defense. Johnson was 0-5 in the first half with two fouls and was a non-factor. His first points came off a missed Smith free throw over six minutes into the second half.

“We just wanted to come out and play hard,” Johnson said, “and we were playing catch-up right away.”

Johnson showed a lot of fight as he fought his way to the hoop in the second half and he finished with 10 points, shooting 5-7 in the second half.

Freshman Jeff Teague, along with Johnson provided a tough matchup for the Seminoles in the second half, with most of Teague’s 11 points coming from nifty dribble-drives that he was able to finish near the hoop.

The Deacs were able to creep back into the game using the gameplan that they had a lot of success with during the regular season: play tough defense and force turnovers leading to easy transition hoops.

The problem was, whenever the Deacs would make a run in the second half, Rich would hit a big shot.

Rich, who was three for his first 11 from the floor, hit five shots in a row in one stretch and scored 16 of the Seminoles’ 18 points during that time.

“We knew he was capable of it and the emphasis in the game was to try and not let No. 25 beat us,” sophomore LD Williams said.

Williams guarded Rich through most of the game before Johnson was switched over to cover him with about five minutes to play.

Williams always seemed to have a hand in Rich’s face, but Rich was weaving in and out of traffic and every shot seemed to fall. Rich proved just how valuable senior leadership is to a team in the postseason, whether it is a conference tournament, NCAA Tournament or otherwise.

When each game has the capability to be the last for a player, time and time again it is shown that a senior will leave it all on the floor.

“They wanted it more,” Johnson said. “Jason Rich put his team on his back.”

The Deacs have had an extremely emotional seven and a half months since the death of Skip Prosser and it could have been really easy for the Deacs to quit, but as Gaudio said, he thinks that Prosser really would have been proud of the team’s performance over the course of the season.

“I think Coach would be very proud of these guys. It isn’t defined by wins and losses — the way this team came together, they came to practice every day and played really hard,” Gaudio said.

In a season that saw big wins against BYU, Duke and Miami and heartbreaking losses against Vanderbilt, Maryland and Georgia Tech at home and in overtime in Atlanta, it was often hard to judge this Demon Deacons team.

The season officially ended after the Deacs were not extended an invitation to the NIT Tournament, leaving the Deacs to look to next year.