The presence of around two dozen members of the media at Joel Coliseum for Wake Forest's practice yesterday wasn't, in itself, news.
But it was, to the players who play for Wake Forest, new.
"It's almost a distraction because we've never had this many people to see us," junior L.D. Williams said. "Every day we have so many different people we have to talk to and things like that. It's different.
"For a young team to be able to stay focused and come in here and have great practices with all these people watching, is signs that we're growing up a little bit."
Before this season, not even Harvey Hale and David Weaver, the two players in their fourth season, had been on a college team ranked higher than No. 16. None of their teammates who arrived since had been on a team ranked at all.
Now that the Deacons are No. 4 going into Sunday's showdown with No. 3 North Carolina, they're under the searing spotlight of national attention. They're on SportsCenter. They're in every Top 25 roundup. Media from across the country are taking note.
The Tar Heels, as a perennial national power, are used to the scrutiny. The Deacons aren't.
But if that's a serious concern for Wake Forest, you couldn't tell it from the players and coaches who remained after yesterday's two-hour practice to talk with the media crush.
"I don't feel any distractions," sophomore James Johnson said. "I think our team knows where we're at and where we need to be. We're not No. 1, so there shouldn't be any distractions. We're still the underdog, and we're still going to practice hard like we're not ranked and we're still going to go after everybody."
Johnson maintained that the exposure has not dramatically changed his life.
"TV shouldn't matter," Johnson said. "Seeing yourself on TV or on the Internet stats, that shouldn't matter. The only thing that should matter is winning games.
"I think that's what we've got. We've got guys who don't care about stats, who don't care about seeing themselves on TV. As long as we play hard and do what we've already been doing even better we're just going to keep on going up."
Coach Dino Gaudio admitted that he didn't sleep well Wednesday night, but instead kept waking up and returning to a book he keeps on his night table. But among the concerns any coach is going to have going up against a national power - particularly one with the special distinction of arch rival - the manner in which his team is dealing with the newfound attention is not one of them.
"You know what, I'm not concerned because they've shown me a lot so far," Gaudio said. "Going out to Anaheim and winning that tournament, they showed us a lot. And we went to BYU and it's the second-largest crowd in the 37-year history of the building and they have a 53-game home winning streak.
"We go down eight in the second half twice. We could have folded our tents. But it's a group that's pretty hard-nosed. They're really competitive."
Gaudio brought up last year's stunning victory against No. 2 Duke and the Deacons' inability to deal with the accomplishment. They proceeded to lose five of their remaining six games and ended up staying home during the postseason.
"You can tell a young team," Gaudio said. "Last year when things weren't going well our body language wasn't great. You'd see them coming to the bench and they'd be sitting there and half the time I felt like Dr. Phil last year. I'd be saying to them 'Hey what we're thinking right now is really important. Champions play with their hearts'.
"Now they're running to the bench and we're huddling up and you can hear them (saying) 'We need a stop, we need three stops in a row.' They're starting to take over the leadership of the team, which is great."
Besides, as one Deacon pointed out, as much media attention as they will ever get, there will always be other teams getting more. And one of those will arrive at Joel Coliseum on Sunday.
"I don't think it has really hit us that we're under the spotlight like that," sophomore Jeff Teague said. "We're in small Winston-Salem. Nobody is being like big-time with that. We're all just keeping it positive, no big heads or anything like that.
"We go home and play the video games and we really don't watch SportsCenter, because we know that Andy Katz and those guys are going to talk about how great North Carolina is and the things we have to do - like slow down the game to beat them.
"And that's things we don't do."
Dan Collins can be reached at 727-7323 or at dcollins@wsjournal.com.
Copyright 2009  Winston-Salem Journal
