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Teague, Wake Forest end road woes at Virginia

Mar 1, 2009 - 3:13 AM CHARLOTTESVILLE, Virginia (Ticker) -- Jeff Teague scored five of his 12 points in the closing 2:11 as No. 14 Wake Forest held off Virginia for a 70-60 victory on Saturday.

Freshman Al-Farouq Aminu and Chas McFarland also had 12 points for the Demon Deacons (22-5, 9-5 ACC), who snapped a four-game road losing streak.

Although it led nearly throughout, Wake Forest could not shake lowly Virginia (9-16, 3-11), which was within 56-53 after a jumper by Mike Scott with 2:37 remaining.

Although the Demon Deacons had been off the mark from deep, Teague stepped up with a clutch 3-pointer, giving his team a six-point edge with 2:11 to play.

Teague's big basket was just his second of the game on nine attempts. However, he was spurred on by Wake Forest coach Dino Gaudio to not shy away from his offense.

"When he was sitting on the bench before I put him back in, I said, 'Jeff, you're not a good player; you're a great player,'" Gaudio said. "'And you just got to worry about the next possession, the next four and half minutes of the game, that's all. And every time you're open I want you to shoot.' And he hit a big, big three for us. I think it was a big three for him too, but it was a big three for us."

It also was just the second basket from the arc for Wake Forest, which finished 2-of-9 from deep while having trouble dealing with Virginia's numerous zones.

That lead began to balloon after the Cavaliers' Mamadi Diane missed a layup and McFarland completed a three-point play after picking up a loose ball off a block by Tunji Soroye, making it 62-53 with 1:24 left.

Teague added two free throws with 47 seconds left to stretch the lead to 11 points.

"If we can pull those (close) games out, like we did today, I think it says a lot for us," Gaudio said. "It shows our character, which we know we have. It shows our resiliency. I think a couple weeks ago when we went into Miami, and we saw a lot of zone with them, when we didn't score the ball it affected us on the other end of the floor. That did not happen tonight."

Halting their road woes proved to be quite important for the Demon Deacons, who remained in contention for a first-round bye in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament. With Florida State beating Clemson on Saturday, Wake Forest remained tied with the Seminoles for third in the league at 9-5.

"All wins in this league are good," Gaudio said. "The wins on the road are great."

The Demon Deacons will remain on the road with a matchup at Maryland on Tuesday before closing out the regular season by hosting Clemson on March 8.

James Johnson added eight points and eight rebounds for Wake Forest, which finished with a 42-28 advantage on the boards, including 15-5 on the offensive end.

With it playing numerous zones, Virginia was probably expected to struggle on the boards against the more athletic Demon Deacons. Cavaliers coach Dave Leitao was not buying into that line of thinking.

"I don't think (playing zone defense makes rebounding more difficult)," he said. "I think rebounding is essentially an aggression statistic. What we do sometimes, man or zone, is play through the possession. The shot goes up, and we kind of wait for someone else to get it. As opposed to there could be five white shirts knocking each other over to get it. I think every man looks at the other man sometimes to grab a rebound, and obviously that is not the proper mindset."

Calvin Baker scored 13 points and Diane added 12 for Virginia, which dropped to 1-6 against ranked teams.