Road Ahead: Coach Gaudio believes future is bright for Wake Forest basketball

Coach Dino Gaudio of Wake Forest takes losses hard. Always has and probably always will.

The harder the loss, the harder it is to take, and few in Gaudio's career have been harder than the 84-69 loss to Cleveland State on March 20 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Gaudio described the locker room afterward as similar to that in Cleveland in 2005, after Wake Forest lost 111-105 to West Virginia in double overtime in what proved to be sophomore Chris Paul's last college game.

"That locker room was as disappointed -- and I mean this in a good way -- and as tear-filled a locker room as I remember from when we played West Virginia in the NCAA Tournament -- where kids were crying," Gaudio said. "And I'll never forget.

"Taron Downey was wailing (in 2005). Harvey Hale was crying his eyes out (March 20)."

Gaudio's days since have been filled with recruiting and evaluations as he puts together his third Wake Forest team for next year. He said he met with every player to assess what each felt about the season and what each needed to do to improve.

The process, he said, was rejuvenating.

Two players, C.J. Harris and Ari Stewart, have signed with the Deacons for next season, and Tomgrim Sommerfeldt has committed but not yet signed. Gaudio said he isn't sure whether anyone beside senior Harvey Hale will leave.

He did say he expects redshirt junior David Weaver to return for a fifth season. As for the three who have been prominently mentioned as future NBA players, he said he thinks that at least two -- sophomore Jeff Teague and freshman Al-Farouq Aminu -- will be back.

He declined to say the same about sophomore James Johnson.

"On whatever today is, March 26, I can't say for certainty," Gaudio said. "But I feel very comfortable, with the information that they have, that Jeff and Al-Farouq will be back here.

"And I told them after I had my meetings with them and I talked to their parents, ‘You think about it this week and get back to me. And whatever you want to do, I'll help you with.'

"I feel very comfortable that Al-Farouq might not even put his name in. I would not be surprised if Jeff looks at it for the experience, and then comes back. Now James, I'm not sure where he's at."

Widespread criticism

The criticism of Wake Forest, the highest seed to lose a first-round game, has been intense, both from media commentators and anguished fans writing e-mails and letters.

Gaudio said he felt good about the season overall, the 24-7 record, the second-place finish in the ACC regular-season race and the ascent from a No. 21 ranking in the preseason to No. 1 by mid-January.

"But when we became 16-0 and No. 1 in the country, there was a whole other level of expectations," Gaudio said. "Now, if you look at the body of work from the season and coming in you'd said, ‘You'll finish second in the ACC behind Carolina, with the returning national player of the year and probably five starters who are all NBA players, win 24 games, go to the NCAA Tournament,' I think we would have all been happy.

"The season didn't start when we were 16-0 and No. 1 in the country. It didn't start there. That's really important."

He did acknowledge that college basketball teams are generally judged by how they finish a season. He also acknowledged that his team did not handle well the pressure that came with its meteoric rise to the top spot in the polls.

"I don't know if we were feeling pressure to succeed, and we didn't handle that the right way," Gaudio said. "Talking to the kids in these meetings, I sensed that.

"I think they wanted to win so badly, it didn't manifest itself like it should have. It turned out to be making it a pressure situation instead of making it something they could build on and feel good about."

Gaudio said after Wake Forest's 75-64 loss to Maryland in the first round of the ACC Tournament that his team had been tight, which contributed to its 52 missed shots on 74 field-goal attempts. But against Cleveland State, he said he thought that the team came ready to play.

Turnovers too costly

"I'm a big reference-of-practice guy," Gaudio said. "I really felt, the staff really felt and the team really felt that we had our very best practices leading up to that game. I really believe that. And I think we had a very healthy respect for Cleveland State.

"I think when they jumped on us like they did, it just took us so long to claw our way back. It's 29-12 and we cut it to 55-49, and if we could have just gotten over that hump it would have put us back to where we needed to be mentally. But when we made it 55-49, they came right down and hit a 3, and hit a two.

"And like we talked about all year, whether we were playing Duke, Carolina or Clemson, we can't turn the ball over. And our turnovers were bad turnovers in the sense that they led directly to baskets for them."

Eighteen turnovers, he said, precluded the Deacons from playing the way they wanted to play. They also kept Teague from getting as involved in the offense as Gaudio wanted. Teague, the leading scorer, took only seven shots, scored just 10 points and committed seven turnovers.

"We went into that game telling those kids, ‘We are going to run and run and run and attack and push the ball.'" Gaudio said. "Because it's no secret that as the season went on and we faced halfcourt set defenses, we labored to score. That's a fact.

"Jeff, Ish (Smith), Farouq, L.D. (Williams) are slashers. They are better in the open court. Our problem on Friday night was our outlets were bad. Believe me, and you know me, I never blame the kids. Once or twice we dribbled off our foot.

"If it's slow and we're facing a halfcourt defense, we talk about how we want to run. We're better when we're running and slashing and attacking. But we turned the ball over too much. We were trying to (run). But it cut our opportunities down and it cut Jeff's opportunities down."

Just as the sun rose on March 21, Gaudio said he feels confident that the Deacons will be back in the national spotlight again next season.

"I think when you look -- and I know I talk about it a lot -- we were young," Gaudio said. "And this program is on (the rise), from 17 wins to 24 wins.

"We'll see how these other three kids (James Johnson, Jeff Teague and Al-Farouq Aminu) play out. I've sort of got a sense on where we are with those three kids right now.

"But the future is incredibly bright."

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