Smith at his best again with game on the line

By: Lenox Rawlings | Winston-Salem Journal
Published: January 13, 2010

Wake Forest calls Ish Smith the point guard, but that hardly describes the job -- or the job he did on Maryland late last night.

With the overtime clock approaching 20 seconds, Smith drove the left side of the lane against 6-4 Eric Hayes, who had him by at least four inches and two long arms.

Hayes played everything perfectly, but Smith adjusted, leaning back and cradling the ball in his right hand and creating just enough space to flip a marshmallow toward the basket. The ball bounced softly off the rim and plopped into the net.

The basket counted, and it lasted. Nobody scored another point, enabling Wake Forest to escape with an 85-83 victory.

Greivis Vasquez, Maryland's tufted Venezuelan star, had his crack at glory, a 3-point attempt from the left wing. It didn't go down, nor did Sean Mosley's subsequent shot. Vasquez scored a season-high 30 points. Smith managed 16, making 8 of 23 field-goal attempts.

"I thought I shot it a lot," Smith said, grinning, "but he shot it 27 times."

They are friends from camps and summer teams, familiar beyond their ACC association. Smith knew Vasquez would launch another one on the Terps' final possession. Maryland (10-5, 1-1 ACC) presumably knew which Deacon would wind up with the ball, game on the line.

Jeff Teague, James Johnson and Al-Farouq Aminu -- two pros and one to go -- have dribbled into the program since Smith arrived from Concord, but Coach Dino Gaudio tends to call the same midnight number.

"Excuse the redundancy," Gaudio said, clicking off the times Smith has delivered, beginning with game-winners his sophomore year against Virginia Tech and Miami. He dazed Richmond once and Xavier three times down the stretch in Joel Coliseum games earlier this season.

"He makes big shots," Gaudio said. "I don't care what the stats say. I have all the confidence in the world. At the end of the game, I want the ball in his hands."

Smith's good hands couldn't carry Wake Forest past Miami last Saturday, when he missed a shot in the lane that would have turned defeat into victory, but this performance eased the agony.

Even in the second week of January, the game mattered a lot because the middle matters. The conference's midsection seems especially crowded this season, and the NCAA selection committee will take only so many borderline candidates.

Miami deprived the Deacons of a rare and valuable road victory against another at-large tournament contender. Florida State swiped one like that three days before Christmas, winning at Georgia Tech, and gave back that edge by losing at home to N.C. State last night.

From Wake Forest's perspective, the Maryland game took on additional importance because of its spot in the schedule. The Deacons (12-3, 2-1 ACC) will travel to Duke on Sunday night and to North Carolina next Wednesday night.

"It's a close line between 3-0, 2-1 and 1-2," Smith said. "We walked it, and now we're 2-1. It's a close line. That's how competitive our league is this year. Everybody said the ACC is down. Well, then they'd better take a second look. It's probably more competitive than ever, and the teams are probably much more even than in the past."

That sounds like a setup for more last-possession games, and a stage for Ish Smith.

lrawlings@wsjournal.com.