Deacons romp 81-52; Williams solid

For a player who can fly so high, junior L.D. Williams has remained under the radar during most of his career at Wake Forest.

If he continues to play as well as he's playing, that will change.

Jeff Teague poured in 26 points and four assists and seven Deacons had between five and seven rebounds, but it was the solid, all-around performance of Williams that was also responsible for Wake Forest's 81-52 pasting of Bucknell last night at Joel Coliseum.

Williams' soaring windmill dunk with seven minutes left in the first half will be his best remembered play from the game, but Coach Dave Paulsen of the Bison will have trouble forgetting a stretch early in the second half after his team sliced a 14-point halftime lead in half.

Williams answered with an 18-footer from the right wing, then a possession later drove hard into the lane, made the shot while drawing a foul, and drained the free throw for a five-point swing and a 41-29 lead.

He finished with 13 points, to go with five rebounds and three steals in his third straight productive offensive game.

"We were like, ‘Hey we're going to make it a game,'" Paulsen said. "Then those five points said ‘Enough of that from you guys from Bucknell.'"

Wake Forest, which held the Bison to 32 percent field-goal accuracy and won the battle of the boards 50-39, improved to 8-0 going into an exam break. The Deacons will return to practice Wednesday to prepare for Sunday's home game against Wright State.

"L.D. really worked hard on his game this summer," senior Harvey Hale said. "He knew he was probably going to play (wing guard). He worked on his jumper. He worked on his all-around game.

"But L.D. really takes pride in his defense, and L.D., just being so active and crazy as he is, it's helping him on both ends of the floor."

After averaging only 4.6 points over the first five games, Williams has emerged to score 15, 16 and 13 points over the last three. He's shooting 50 percent from the floor, a considerable improvement over his 43 percent a year ago.

One difference has been his improved ability to finish a play while drawing contact.

"That's what my coaches have really been getting on me about, finishing in traffic," Williams. "Big as I am, strong as I am and as athletic as I am, I should be able to finish over the top of guys and through guys. There should be little that can stop me in the lane.

"I've just really been trying to focus on that, trying to score everything -- whether I get fouled or whatever happens."

His shortcoming remains his outside shot, as was evident when he missed all three 3-point attempts last night. Coach Dino Gaudio said he told one player last night that there was a reason he was being left open outside the 3-point arc, but declined to identify the player.

Gaudio didn't have to. Williams volunteered that it was him.

Gaudio did agree that Williams has improved offensively.

"It's because he's taking the ball to the basket a little bit more," Gaudio said. "If you take those 3s out of L.D.'s field-goal percentage, he might be in the high 50s.

"As long as he keeps recognizing that, he'll be fine."

Teague bounced back from two subpar performances marred by 12 turnovers to make nine of 14 shots from the floor and finish with four turnovers against only two turnovers. The improvement came on a night that Ish Smith, the starting point guard the last two seasons, played 19 minutes on the long road back from a broken foot.

Bucknell (1-6) was still hanging around, trailing 53-39 with 11½ minutes remaining before Smith, on successive possessions, found Teague on the perimeter. Teague drained both 3-pointers to extend the lead to 59-39.

Smith didn't score, but did have five assists and no turnovers. Teague admits that the load of being a primary scorer while running the offense might have caught up with him.

"I looked at some of my turnovers, and I was jumping in the air and trying to make passes and trying to get the alley-oop dunk," Teague said. "Tonight I did pretty good taking care of the ball."

■ Dan Collins can be reached at 727-7323 or at dcollins@wsjournal.com.

BUCKNELL -- Behan 4-6 0-0 9, Linthicum 2-3 0-0 4, Castleberry 2-13 0-0 6, Shazier 4-12 0-0 12, Cohen 4-14 0-0 8, Leo 0-1 0-0 0, Boon 2-8 2-4 7, Ebner 0-0 0-0 0, Andoh 0-1 0-0 0, Evans 2-5 2-5 6. Totals 20-63 4-9 52.

WAKE FOREST -- Aminu 1-6 3-4 5, Johnson 2-4 2-2 7, McFarland 2-5 3-4 7, Teague 9-14 4-5 26, Williams 5-10 3-5 13, Clark 2-5 0-0 4, Hale 3-8 0-0 7, Smith 0-4 0-1 0, Lepore 1-1 0-0 3, McQuilkin 0-0 0-0 0, Walker 0-1 0-0 0, Weaver 2-4 0-2 4, Hoekstra 0-0 0-0 0, Woods 2-4 1-4 5. Totals 29-66 16-27 81.

Halftime--WFU 36-22. 3-Point Goals--Bucknell 8-26 (Shazier 4-8, Castleberry 2-7, Behan 1-1, Boon 1-5, Evans 0-1, Cohen 0-4), WFU 7-21 (Teague 4-6, Lepore 1-1, Johnson 1-3, Hale 1-4, Aminu 0-1, Clark 0-1, Smith 0-2, Williams 0-3). Rebounds--Bucknell 39 (Evans 9), WFU 50 (McFarland 7). Assists--Bucknell 10 (Cohen 4), WFU 13 (Smith 5). Total Fouls--Bucknell 21, WFU 10. A--10,305.