Wake up
Maryland caught sleeping, shocked by Deacons 85-72
Posted: Sunday January 31, 1999 05:09 PM
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O'Kelley took over, scoring a career-high 32 points and leading Wake Forest to its first victory in almost a month AP |
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) -- Maybe Wake Forest coach Dave Odom should have resorted to tough-love tactics a little sooner.
The Demon Deacons, responding to what Odom and his players all said was his most pointed tongue-lashing in years, snapped a five-game losing skid with an 85-72 victory over No. 4 Maryland on Sunday.
The victory came three days after Wake Forest blew a second-half lead and lost at North Carolina State. Odom gathered his players for a team meeting upon their return to campus, and he let them know just how displeased he was with their effort.
"I kicked them harder after the N.C. State game than they've been kicked all year long," Odom said. "And they responded."
The Demon Deacons (12-9, 3-6 Atlantic Coast Conference) scored the first 10 points against Maryland, built their lead to 22 in the second half and ended the Terrapins' six-game winning streak, all in league play. Maryland (19-3, 7-2) had compiled an average margin of victory of more than 16 points during the run.
"Coach Odom really got to us," sophomore guard Robert O'Kelley said of the outburst late Thursday night. "That was the hardest I've ever seen him get on us. But we realized as a team that we needed to make some decisions. Coach Odom had taken us about as far as he could."
O'Kelley had a career-high 32 points -- one better than his previous best -- to lead Wake Forest to its first victory in nearly a month. Broderick Hicks added 10 points for the Demon Deacons.
The Terrapins, bidding to become just the fifth team in ACC history to win 20 games by the end of January, responded by shooting a season-low 36 percent.
"We have to realize that every time you play, as long as you're ranked, teams are going to take their best shot at you," Terps coach Gary Williams said. "That's a fact of life and there are just no days off. We had gotten through until this point, but today we got caught."
The performance came three days before Maryland travels to Durham, N.C., for what was expected to be a showdown with second-ranked Duke for the ACC lead.
"That's not the reason we lost. That's not true," Williams said when asked about his players possibly looking ahead to the Blue Devils. "We lost because Wake played well and we didn't."
Freshman Juan Dixon had a season-high 18 points for Maryland but got little help from his teammates. Terence Morris and Steve Francis had 15 points apiece, but in both cases 13 of those came in the second half, after Wake Forest already had established the upper hand. Laron Profit had 12 of his 14 in the second half.
"We went away from what we usually do," Williams said. "We didn't get the ball inside, and when we did, we didn't score early, and I think we got discouraged."
Maryland had 15 turnovers and scored just 21 points in the first half, its lowest-scoring half of the season, and then added to its problems by getting just two field goals in the opening six minutes of the second half. The Terrapins' difficulties cleared the way for Wake Forest to stretch its lead to 52-30 on Josh Shoemaker's three-point play with 10:46 remaining.
The play capped a 24-8 run by Wake Forest to open the half, and the closest the Terrapins got the rest of the way was 77-65 on a 3-pointer by Profit with 1:42 left. The Demon Deacons sealed it at the line, making eight of 10 free throws in the final 1:35.
The Terrapins' first-half woes could be directly attributed to their starters, who shot 13 percent (2-of-15). Their frontcourt had a combined four points and seven turnovers.
The last time these teams met, Dec. 3 in College Park, Md., Maryland raced to a 32-10 lead by hitting its first 14 field-goal attempts and forcing 10 turnovers. Wake Forest turned the tables Sunday, building a 12-2 lead while holding Maryland to 0-for-7 shooting and harassing the Terrapins into six turnovers.
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