Deacons' Rally Is a Crusher for the Hokies

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C., Dec. 23 -- Down the hall from the Virginia Tech locker room, the Wake Forest players bounced off the court, leaping on each other's backs. The Hokies skulked into their locker room, hands on hips and heads down, the only noise an anguished yell by Coach Seth Greenberg.

Neither team could believe what had just happened at the end of the Demon Deacons' 77-75 victory over Virginia Tech, each team's ACC opener, a galvanizing victory and a crushing defeat. The Hokies squandered an eight-point lead with 1 minute 22 seconds remaining, falling on a last-second fadeaway 15-foot jump shot by sophomore Ishmael Smith.

Virginia Tech (6-5) had watched an opportunity to steal its first ACC road game vanish, a victory players had already counted suddenly slipping away.

"I felt like we had it locked down," freshman Dorenzo Hudson said. "The last two minutes, we didn't come together as a team in the huddle. We weren't really paying attention in the huddle. We felt like we had it locked down."

Playing three or four freshmen for nearly the entire game, Virginia Tech weathered Wake Forest's initial onslaught, a season high in turnovers and a first half-ending meltdown to build a 75-67 lead with 82 seconds remaining. After Deron Washington made a free throw, Smith raced down the floor, with center Chas McFarland acting as a lead blocker, and canned a three-pointer.

Still, the Hokies led by five and they also possessed the ball. They could have sealed the game, either by maintaining control or nailing a back-breaking shot.

But Virginia Tech did neither. With 28 seconds on the shot clock, A.D. Vassallo received the ball on the left wing. He had scored a game-high 19 points when he caught the pass, and three more would virtually finalize the contest.

"I just wanted to close the game out," Vassallo said. "Make it, that's it. Finish it all up."

Vassallo launched the three-pointer, and Greenberg grimaced on the sideline. It bounded off the back iron to Wake freshman guard Jeff Teague, who bolted down the floor and laid the ball in, taking only eight seconds. Virginia Tech led by three, the lead evaporating as Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum exploded.

"If it's for the team, I wouldn't" shoot the three-pointer again, Vassallo said. "To finish it out in a different way, it would have been a better decision."

Said Greenberg: "I thought we made bad decisions offensively. It's that simple. We didn't use the clock. We've got to be better at understanding time and score and understand how you've got to finish a game."

The Hokies inbounded to Washington, who dribbled into the corner in front of his bench. He picked up his dribble as his teammates were still joining him, and two Wake players surrounded him. As he pivoted, he never saw Gary Clark sneak in from behind.