Stone cold Cougars — Wake Forest freshmen race past sluggish BYU

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Seems every time BYU goes east into ACC or Big East territory, their gym shoes get flats and opponents sprint like greyhounds past waddling dachshunds.

That looked the case Tuesday night in the Joel Coliseum as Wake Forest's freshmen guards kept turning the corner and burning a cold-shooting Cougar team en route to a dominating 79-62 win over the visitors from the Mountain West.

Deacon guard Jeff Teague scored 26 points, mostly on 8 of 10 shooting, many on layups while he grabbed five steals and James Johnson added 19 points to lift the Deacons to a 11-3 mark. BYU dropped to 11-4 heading into Saturday's conference opener at home Saturday against Colorado State.

Teague's point guard, Ishmael Smith, consistently broke down BYU's first line of defense, dishing out easy setups for teammates. Offensively, BYU's end of the basket looked like manhole lids covered the rim.

"I thought that was a terrific, terrific win for us against a very, very good basketball team," said Wake Forest coach Dino Gaudio. "That's an NCAA tournament team and they'll be back in the Top 25. Last night about 9 o'clock I watched their Michigan State game and I'm like 'whooo. How are we going to beat these guys?'"

Well, how about with freshmen ACC speed?

BYU did not play like the same team here that Gaudio saw on film challenging Spartans and taking a lead over North Carolina by double digits in Las Vegas last month.

Still, BYU coach Dave Rose laid more of the credit to Wake Forest than blame on his own team's performance afterwards.

"I thought that Wake Forest did a terrific job of pushing the ball early and Ishmael Smith is a terrific player, and we had a hard time controlling him as he gave his teammates a lot of opportunities to get good shots."

Wake Forest jumped up on the Cougars early, led 28-19 with just under seven to play and stretched that to as much as 19 points into the second half at 51-32.

While BYU's Trent Plaisted got several quick dunks to start the game, Wake Forest came at him with seven-footer Chas McFarland, then took away his drive with another defender, then another, essentially shutting down BYU's inside game.

For the first time this season, Cougar junior center Trent Plaisted (8 points, 10 boards) failed to score in double figures.