100% COTTEN
3/15/2000 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
March 15, 2000
by Stan Cotten
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You could feel it before the game tipped off. Wake Forest and Vanderbilt, prior to their NIT tilt in Nashville, were two teams headed down different paths. After the game, that notion took form. The Demon Deacons had won four of their last five. The Commodores had lost seven of ten.
Wake Forest ventured into one of the most feared venues in the SEC and lived to tell about it. The Commodores had beaten Tennessee by thirteen and Florida by ten at Memorial Gym during the regular season. And the Commodores had won 32 consecutive games there against non-SEC foes dating back to the 1995 season until the Demon Deacons ended the streak. It was no surprise.
Vanderbilt sat poised on Sunday night to receive a bid to the NCAA Tournament. It had some top notch wins in the powerful SEC. It had been assured by many, including ESPN, that the Commodores would soon be dancing. Vandy officials had scheduled a Sunday night press conference to talk about their NCAA berth. Only it never came. The press conference was cancelled, and so pretty much was the rest of the season.
Vanderbilt would get an NIT bid. But some of the players asked Coach Kevin Stallings to tell the NIT no thanks. Vanderbilt would play, but the Commodores' heart was never totally in the game. They didn't bother to shoot around or walk through a gameplan like teams normally do the day of a ballgame. Wake had a headstart before the game began.
But that's not in any way meant to diminish what the Deacons' did. What they did was keep the ball bouncing, the momentum building. Wake's stellar play was as much the reason why the Deacs' won than was Vandy's state of mind. Once the ball is tipped, competitiveness tends to take over. And the Commodores have some great competitors, like SEC Player of the Year Dan Langhi who dropped in 20 points on the Deacs and yanked down seven rebounds. That's hardly throwing in the towel.
Sam Howard poured in 16 and Atiba Prater 11, nine in the second half as Vandy tried to hold off its ACC neighbor. But the Deacons simply wanted this one too much for Vanderbilt to do anything about it. It was without question one of the Deacs' top performances of the season.
Wake got 43 points off the bench. Everybody played except Tate Decker who aggravated a foot injury prior to the game. Robert O'Kelley scored only four but dished out an equal number of assists which had the Nashville media asking Dave Odom following the game if he believed the Deacs could beat Vanderbilt in Nashville with only two baskets from the slumping star.
"If you'd asked me that a month ago I would have said no," admitted Odom. "But of late we've had players off of our bench come through for us. Tonight might have been the best yet."
Odom then shared how he packaged to his team this particular game which tipped off less than 48 hours after it was announced.
"I'll tell you exactly what we said," Odom shared. "When you look at the NCAA brackets, if you look at the 8-9 (seeds and their matchups) and you go back to November of 1999 and you say North Carolina-Missouri, that's an 8-9 in the South . And you say Kansas-DePaul, that's an 8-9 game. And then you say Wake Forest-Vanderbilt, nobody blinks an eye. It's the same."
"Those two teams you saw tonight, if a ball had fallen here or there or a vote had been turned over yes instead of no and you had put those two teams in (the NCAA Tournament) nobody would have blinked an eye. That's how good the two teams are. I believe that."
Was Vanderbilt good enough to deserve an NCAA bid? Certainly. Had Arkansas not won the SEC Tournament, Vanderbilt would have occupied the Hogs' spot in the NCAA field. I don't think anybody would argue that point. When the Razorbacks won, the committee simply took Vandy's name off the board and replaced it with Arkansas.
But once Vandy was out, it was out. And with the Deacs' jumpstart, that I think started in the loss at Chapel Hill, and Wake's renewed excitement and vision, it was clear these teams were crossing in the night. Wake was headed for more basketball. The Commodores were headed for the showers.
The Vanderbilt game was fun. The plane ride home was fun. There's a sense of anticipation with this team that had been missing for a time. But it's back. And so are the Deacs.
See you in round two of the NIT...on the radio.
