Wake's Danny Manning: Tip Your Hat to Tre Jones
Wake Forest coach Danny Manning was happy with the way his team started the game against Duke on Tuesday, although the end of the first half was a letdown as Duke erased a 12-point margin to tie the game on a Tre Jones three at the buzzer.
“We did some fairly good things in the first half to be where we were at,” he said. “Selfishly, I wish we would have had the lead at halftime playing the way we played, but they made some plays down the stretch. I thought at the end though, the shot that Tre made over Ody (Oguama) to tie it, that was a terrific shot. I thought Ody played really good defense. That was just better offense, and you tip your hat to Tre. I thought Tre was outstanding all night.”
Duke built a second-half lead before Wake rallied.
“In the second half, we did some good things,” Manning said. “I thought we had a couple opportunities where guys kind of bowed their necks and tried to find a way when we were down some. That's always great to see. Just looking out there, both teams played hard, and you could tell that everyone was gassed, especially in that second overtime. For us, we were able to make a few more shots and extend the lead."
Brandon Childress hit the big shot at the end of regulation, after he’d missed his first 10 shots up to that point. "I didn't take him out,” Manning said of his faith in Childress. “You have games like that. For him ithis is his last go-around so to speak and I was going to take him out to give him a breath, but he was going to be back in and have the ball in his hands. There were some opportunities for us late. We set a ball screen and they would switch. We just went flat let him go make plays He made some plays for us and to have the gump ts to continue to do that after not playing that well oofffly in the first half speaks volumes to the type of young man he is, the character he has, and the trust and the work that he's put in. That came to fruition in the second half with him making plays and hitting shots.
