Wake Forest University
Elon
No. 17 Wake Forest Overpowers Elon
1/7/2003 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan 7, 2003
Final Stats?|? Quotes?|? Notes
By DAVID DROSCHAK
AP Sports Writer
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Wake Forest coach Skip Prosser kept the Demon Deacons' attention long enough to head to top-ranked Duke undefeated this weekend.
Josh Howard scored 18 points and Eric Williams added 15 as No. 17 Wake Forest warmed up for the showdown with the Blue Devils with a 98-56 victory over Elon on Tuesday night.
Wake Forest (10-0) has outshot and outrebounded all of its opponents, shooting a season-high 55 percent against the Phoenix in matching the sixth-best start in school history heading to Cameron Indoor Stadium on Sunday.
"To our credit, when our kids were supposed to win they've won handily," Prosser said. "Josh Howard did a terrific job in pregame and in the huddles telling the guys to get after it. He wouldn't let us relax."
The Demon Deacons began 12-0 two seasons ago before finishing a disappointing 19-11.
Wake Forest and Duke (9-0) are the only major college unbeatens remaining as No. 3 Connecticut (9-1) lost 73-63 at No. 9 Oklahoma on Tuesday night.
"We did not mention (Duke) except for the fact that (the media) would mention it and we asked our players how they were going to deal with that," Prosser said. "We told them the people in the dorm were going to mention it and people in town were going to mention it.
"It's like in those World War II flicks when the guy is waiting for his girlfriend to get off the train and he's all excited and he starts running to the blonde and he trips over the curb. We told them not to worry about the blonde, let's take care of the curb. Our guys practiced hard for this game."
Taron Downey added 14 points and a career-high eight assists as Wake Forest beat Elon for the 19th straight time.
"I thought we played hard and I felt we would," Prosser said. "I felt like we were unselfish - 23 assists on 34 baskets. We're pleased with the effort of our guys."
Elon (4-7) shot just 29 percent in the first half to fall behind 48-24 and lost its sixth straight - all on the road and all by double digits.
"Wake took us out of everything," Elon coach Mark Simons said. "There wasn't much we could run offensively."
Howard made three 3-pointers while Elon had trouble with the 280-pound Williams in the paint as he went 6-of-7 from in close.
Sean Newton led Elon with 11 points.
Downey, coming off his worst game of the season in a six-point win Saturday at Richmond and shooting 28 percent from 3-point range, made three straight shots behind the arc in the opening 4:48 to get the Demon Deacons out of the gate fast.
"I've been in the gym working on it hard," Downey said of his shooting stroke. "I just hope it's back now."
Howard was also key in a 25-5 opening run, nailing two 3-pointers and a shot in the lane.
While the Demon Deacons started hot, the Phoenix were not, missing 11 of their first 12 shots.
"We felt like if we could execute offensively and get some good looks we could get ourselves on the board because we're one of those teams that plays off of our offense," Simons said. "We're kind of an immature team where we don't dig in and defend yet if we're not scoring. We had some open looks but they were rare in the first 10 minutes of the basketball game."
Wake Forest went up by 30 points less than two minutes into the second half as Howard converted a three-point play and hit a 3-pointer. Williams then scored on two layups and a follow shot in a two-minute span to pad his stats. The freshman has scored in double figures in nine of 10 games.
"A lot of people were skipping over this game and asking us what we were going to do about Duke," Williams said. "Coach told us to take it one at a time and we'll get to Duke when we get to Duke."
That will be Sunday.
