ESPN Men's Basketball

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Late in the first half of its ACC tournament quarterfinal game, with his team trailing major underdog Miami by 10 points, Wake Forest guard L.D. Williams dug in defensively.

He dogged Hurricanes guard Durand Scott left, right, left again -- in his face until the officials blew the whistle and signaled a five-second call. Williams had forced a turnover.

He responded with two clenched fists and a yell in the direction of his Demon Deacons teammates.

Their damning, telling reaction?

They completely ignored Williams’ effort.

None of the other four Wake players on the court came to congratulate him. Not a single slap on the back, not a fist bump, nothing. The Deacons simply went about their half-hearted business.

“I feel like it was that way from Jump Street,” Williams said. “Coach (Dino Gaudio) was telling us all week we need to play with a tremendous amount of emotion, a tremendous amount of enthusiasm. I don’t know what happened.”

What happened is this: Wake Forest was humiliated 83-62 in its own backyard by a team that won just four ACC games and was playing without its injured leading scorer and rebounder, Dwayne Collins. The performance was so bad that it will once again calls into question Wake’s NCAA tournament credentials, and Gaudio’s viability as the coach of this program for the long term.

The Deacons must hope that their athletic director, Ron Wellman, shielded all the televisions in Indianapolis from his fellow NCAA selection committee members. Either that, or he’ll have to do some off-the-record lobbying for a team that has lost five of its last six games.

Wake has some quality wins on its record, over Gonzaga, Richmond, Xavier and Maryland. But they’re also playing the worst basketball of anyone in the at-large pool.

“We’ll see on Sunday,” Williams said of the NCAAs. “I have no clue.”

Under Gaudio, Wake hasn’t had a clue in the postseason. Or a victory. They’re now 0-4 in postseason games under Gaudio, who got the job full-time after gracefully handling the sudden death of his boss and close friend, Skip Prosser, in the summer of 2008.

In each of those four losses, Wake was the higher seeded team. And in each of those four losses, Wake was beaten by double digits.

Last time I saw the Deacons in person, they were being routed by No. 13 seed Cleveland State in the NCAA tournament. Now this.

A Miami team with nothing going for it scored on eight of its first nine possessions to start the game. Then, already up 14, it went on an 8-0 run to start the second half. Wake Forest had no response.

“Sometimes I feel like we just go through the motions,” Williams said.

Among those who appeared to be going through the motions Thursday was Wake’s most talented player, sophomore Al-Farouq Aminu. He somewhat surprisingly returned to school after a productive freshman season but has played very poorly during Wake’s very bad stretch.

Aminu came into this tourney averaging 15.9 points and 10.8 rebounds per game but had scored just 25 total points in his last three games, including being shut out at Florida State. Against a depleted Miami front line, Aminu produced a lethargic 11 points and seven rebounds while playing 25 minutes -- his lowest minute total since mid-December.

“He just wasn’t playing well, so I was just trying to put the guys out there who’d give us the best opportunity to win,” Gaudio said. “And therein lies why he sat.”

Gaudio has won 60 of his 90 games as Wake’s head coach -- a perfectly fine winning percentage. But he’s also been blessed with an abundance of talent -- and that talent isn’t coming close to performing in the postseason.

This is a sport where coaching reputations rise and fall in March. After this debacle, Dino Gaudio’s has hit rock bottom.

Five things to know from Monday’s action:

1. BYU guard Jimmer Fredette's 49 points broke a 48-year-old school record. Bob Skousen previously held the record with 47 points in game in 1961. Fredette’s total is the second most scored in D-I this season behind Rotnei Clarke's 51 points against Alcorn State in Arkansas’ season opener. Fredette added seven rebounds and nine assists. His 49 points plus seven rebounds and nine assists total of 65 are the most for a player this season.

2. Al-Farouq Aminu went off for 23 points, 17 rebounds and six blocks in Wake Forest’s win over NC-Greensboro. It was his first career 20-point, 15-rebound game, and the second by an ACC player this season (Miami’s Dwayne Collins). Four games ago against Elon, Aminu was benched to start the game after being late for a walk-through. In the three games since, he is averaging 19.3 PPG and 14.3 RPG.

3. Elliot Williams scored a career-high 27 points in Memphis’ win over IUPUI. The Tigers guard is shooting 56.5 percent from the field in Memphis’ nine wins, but just 30.0 percent in their two losses. Williams is the most improved scorer in the nation, having gone from 4.2 PPG last season at Duke to 20.7 so far in 2009-10. His +16.5 PPG increase is nearly three points greater than the next most improved scorer, Centenary’s David Perez. Tennessee-Martin’s Benzor Simmons is the nation’s third most improved scorer.

4. NJIT snapped a 38-game losing streak in true road games with a 65-56 win at Wagner. The Highlanders last true road win came on February 19, 2007 at Longwood. After going 1-59 over the last two seasons combined, NJIT is now 4-8, having defeated Wagner twice. Chris Flores led the way on Monday with a career-high 25 points.

5. All Dwain Williams wanted for Christmas was to get to the free throw line, and its worked. Williams scored 28 points in Hawaii’s 81-62 win over Northwestern State, following up his 36-point performance on Christmas. Williams has done most of his damage from the free-throw line, where he is 27-31 in his last two games. The transfer from Providence had only been to the line 35 times in his first 9 games combined.