Wake Forest dominates IU 100-67

WINSTON-SALEM, NC -- IU's 100-67 loss at No. 18 Wake Forest was more than just ugly, it exposed areas that need improvement before heading into the Big Ten season.\nThe loss leaves IU with a 2-2 record and the Demon Deacons remain undefeated at 4-0. The game also gave the ACC a win in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge.\nSophomore guard Bracey Wright said the atmosphere at Lawrence Joel Coliseum was just as the team expected it to be. It was a "tough crowd" Wright said; he added that to make things even more intense, the game was aired on national television.\nWright scored a game high 27 points and was perfect in all nine of his free-throw attempts.\nThe Hoosiers came into Winston-Salem off a 80-77 win against Xavier.\nIU coach Mike Davis said the loss is just one loss and that the team can't measure the defeat by the margin of points or it would lose its season.\n"As long as our guys understand that every game that we play in preseason is a learning experience, then we'll be ok when the Big Ten comes," Davis said.\nIt wasn't only the Wake Forest crowd that made IU's road loss so ugly. \nIU made only two of its 11 trey attempts in the first half and while it made nearly 79 percent of its free throws, the team made only 33 percent of its field goals in the 20 minutes.\nIU also managed to have 16 turnovers before halftime and was down 29-51 at the half.\nWhile IU hoped for a brighter future in the second half, things still didn't go its way. The team picked up another six turnovers and the IU defense was unsuccessful at stopping the Wake Forest offense. The Demon Deacons scored 38 of their points off of IU turnovers.\nPlay on the court was rough, and with just five minutes into the second half, junior forward Mike Roberts was issued a technical foul while grabbing for a ball with Wake Forest forward Jamaal Levy.\nWake Forest coach Skip Prosser said his team's ability to be unselfish on offense helped win the game.\n"(We) are great basketball players," Prosser said. "We have a bunch of guys who genuinely like one another and love to play basketball."\nProsser also said it was a good experience for his team to play against Wright, one of the best guards in the country.\nEven with his stats, Wright said he felt responsible for the loss because of his lack of leadership and getting the team to fight hard on the court.\n"We've got to shake this off," Wright said. "As the point guard of my team it's my responsibility to get everybody going and I didn't do that."\nBefore play even started, Wake Forest was given an extra boost of enthusiasm when it lowered their "ACC Regular Season Champion 2003" banner into the gymnasium, right next to its "NIT Champion 2000" banner.\nStudents and players wore black and yellow tye-dye shirts and held up a number of signs bashing IU. \nWake Forest students took stabs at every IU player on the court. From reminding IU about its loss at Vanderbilt to just plain insulting what the IU players look like, Wake Forest students didn't stop heckling even when their team had a 38 point lead late in the second half.\nWright said luckily the players are so caught up in the game that they don't hear the comments fans yell out.\nWake Forest brought in its players off the bench late in the second half and didn't stop scoring until the buzzer sounded to end the game.\nWith heads held high and giving high fives to cheering fans, the Wake Forest basketball team left the court and went to the locker room.\n"The students really came out and they had a good crowd," sophomore guard Marshall Strickland said. "We're just going to try and bounce back and keep playing hard and see what we can do on in the next game"