"Fredette was really tough," said Wake coach Dino Gaudio. "Jeff didn't do a very good job on him and I let him hear about it at half."

The game had a big-time atmosphere to it; the crowd of 23,096 came 11 bodies shy of busting the Marriott Center attendance record set March 7, 1981, against Utah, the senior year of All-American Ainge.

"It's just a great environment," said Teague. "I enjoyed playing out here. You've got to get your wind right when you come out; it was an exciting game. It definitely had an ACC atmosphere to it and we knew that coming in that it would be that way. We read on the Internet there would be a white-out in the stands and that BYU team was everywhere, jumping in the stands for loose balls. Man, it was crazy."

Wake Forest forward James Johnson called BYU one of the fastest teams they'd played.

"They are a great transition team," said Teague. "They can really shoot the ball. Cummard is good as advertised; they posted him up and he could shoot the three."

The key, said Teague, was getting key rebounds in crunch time. A kind way of saying the other guys missed. He called a late-game, rim-out of a put-back by Cougar forward Tavernari the "kind of miss you never see."

Fredette's jump shot with 5:19 left gave BYU an 80-79 lead, but at that stage, the Cougar sharpshooters, usually fairly deadly at home, couldn't buy a basket. Fredette took two shots the rest of the game and missed.

Tavernari, Cummard and Emery then went 2 for 17 from the floor for the remainder of the game. The two makes were by Cummard.

Teague said he knew his team would get a lead and BYU would take it back. "Once they started hitting 3s, they started coming in."

Teague left the Marriott Center with the NBA scouts and his No. 6 Deacons undefeated at 13-0.

"I've never been in a place like this," he said.

Meanwhile the 11-2 Cougars get Western Oregon on Tuesday before opening Mountain West Conference play at Colorado State next Saturday.

The Wake Forest game was their toughest test of the season. They finished the test with cold pistols and both centers Chris Miles and Gavin MacGregor fouled out with freshman Charles Abouo.

Who knows when the Cougars will get another team ranked this high in Provo.

This one was worth the ticket.

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E-mail: dharmon@desnews.com