Wake Forest goes for a rare ACC double on Sunday night when the Demon Deacons (16-8, 6-5) play at No. 3 North Carolina (25-2, 10-2), with the Tar Heels 15.5-point favorites on WagerWeb.com.
What's that double? Not many teams can beat Duke and North Carolina back-to-back; Wake Forest is coming off a win last Sunday against then-No. 2 Duke that bolstered its NCAA Tournament hopes.
That 86-73 victory was the third in a row for the Demon Deacons. Freshmen led the way, with James Johnson scoring 24 points and grabbing 16 rebounds and Jeff Teague scoring 26 points. The Deacons forced 22 Duke turnovers and earned a 45-38 rebounding advantage.
"We won three straight," Wake coach Dino Gaudio said, suggesting that a weeklong layoff might not have aided his team. "Everyone is patting them on the back."
Johnson and Teague are the top two scorers on the Deacons, averaging 14.8 and 12.8 points, respectively. Johnson ranks among the ACC's best in rebounding (3rd), field goal percentage (49.5 - 6th), blocks (33 - 7th) and scoring (13th). But the Deacons will need Teague to shake his road woes to have a chance to upset the Tar Heels. The 6-foot-2 guard is averaging just 9.8 points on 35.0 percent shooting, and Wake Forest is only 2-7 away from Joel-Lawrence Coliseum.
The Deacons are scoring nearly 10 points less per game on the road (66.7) than at home (76.5), while giving up over 10 points more (73.9 vs. 63.3). The biggest factor in the numbers discrepancy may be Wake's turnover margin - plus-5.5 in Winston-Salem against plus-0.3 on the road.
The Demon Deacons boast the league's youngest starting lineup, utilizing three sophomores and two freshmen to reenergize a program that had struggled in the two previous seasons.And those youngsters will have their hands full with National Player of the Year candidate Tyler Hansbrough tonight. Hansbrough has led his team in scoring in each of the last 10 games, and is averaging 23.1 ppg on 55.3 percent shooting from the floor for the season, and he is pulling down 10.7 rpg. In a 14-point win over NC State on Wednesday, UNC forced 18 turnovers and shot 53.1 percent from the field. Hansbrough finished with 32 points, 12 rebounds and five steals.
Meanwhile, UNC starting point guard Ty Lawson has missed the past seven games and is listed as a game-time decision tonight. Quentin Thomas has averaged 7.4 points and 6.6 assists in five games since coach Roy Williams inserted him into the starting lineup in place of Lawson.
The Tar Heels won both games between the teams last season by a combined 65 points, including a 104- 7 rout at Chapel Hill that snapped a three-game winning streak there for Wake Forest. North Carolina has won four of the last five meetings, but Wake Forest has won six of the last 10 in the series. North Carolina leads the all-time series against Wake Forest, 150-63.
The Tar Heels lead the series 69-18 in Chapel Hill and 16-4 at the Smith Center. UNC has won more games (150) against Wake Forest than any other opponent.
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