Wake Forest pounds Seahawks 120-88

Winston-Salem | About 90 minutes prior to tipoff against Wake Forest on Wednesday night, UNC-Wilmington entered Joel Coliseum through the back entrance.

As the players strolled in, they passed a wall filled with framed NBA uniforms of former Demon Deacon greats – Josh Howard, Tim Duncan, Chris Paul.

Once the Seahawks hit the court, they tried to guard a couple of current Deacs whose uniforms will hang there soon.

UNCW pushed tempo and kept it interesting for awhile, but were simply overmatched as Wake set a Coliseum scoring record in a 120-88 romp.

“They are a great team. They were highly recruited out of high school,” said UNCW forward Dominique Lacy, who had his second consecutive double-double. “That’s what we expect. We should have come out and played harder.”

It might not have mattered for the Seahawks, who were playing their third game in six days.

The Demon Deacons, three to four inches taller at every position – and quicker – reached the rim at will, outscoring the Seahawks 76-22 in the paint and outrebounding them by 22.

“The thing that bothered me the most was our transition defense,” UNCW coach Benny Moss said. “We were giving up layups and dunks in transition. That can’t happen. We’ve got to have everyone sprinting to the paint to build a wall as small as we are.”

Jeff Teague, filling in at the point for injured Ishmael Smith, poured in 31 points as Wake big men James Johnson (6-foot-9) and Chas McFarland (7-0) combined for 44 points and 17 rebounds.

Wake shot 57 percent from the field, compared to 48 percent for UNCW.

“I think the pace was a little slow for us,” Wake coach Dino Gaudio joked. “We like to play fast. Wow, there were a lot of possessions in that game. I think the players had fun but I don’t know if the coaches did. Good win for us over a good basketball team that plays hard.”

UNCW opened the second half with four 3-pointers in the first 4:24 to trim the lead to 69-60, but Gaudio called timeout and his team picked up the defensive intensity and pulled away, increasing the lead to 34 late in the half.

Chad Tomko, who scored 60 points in the Seahawks two opening wins, tried to shoot the Seahawks back into it, but managed only seven points on 3-for-13 shooting.

“Teague is a real good defender. Harvey Hale is a good defender,” Tomko said. “It was really tough for us to get into our offense.”

Johnny Wolf led UNCW with 24 points but also committed five of the team’s season-high 24 turnovers. Lacy added 20 points and 11 rebounds while Darryl Felder and Jerel Stephenson chipped in 11 apiece. Stephenson suffered a stinger in his left shoulder, but Moss thinks he will be fine.

However, 6-8 freshman Brad Bald had a setback in his recovery from a lung infection. He played just two minutes and is scheduled to see doctors again on Thursday. Montez Downey, who is battling a stress reaction in his left foot, started but played only 11 minutes – watching the final 15 minutes from the bench.

Brian Mull: 343-2034

Brian.mull@starnewsonline.com