By Dave Johnson
W&M Athletics
Dane Fischer paraphrased Charles Dickens by describing his team's opener as "a tale of two halves." He was spot on: William & Mary was as sharp and poised in the second half as it was stagnant and mistake-prone in the first.
The result was a 77-59 loss at Wake Forest Wednesday night that ended up looking much better than it did at halftime. The Tribe outscored the Demon Deacons 41-31 in the final 20 minutes, which made for more-encouraging bus ride home.
"It reflected what our practice looked like just yesterday," Fischer said. "That was a big message to the team — that we have to practice consistently. We focus on playing hard all the time, and we played I thought fairly hard tonight. But we also (say) it's not OK just to play hard, you have to play well.
"The first half, we missed some good looks we had and some guys tried to make plays we don't need them to make. Certainly in the second half, we settled in and did some good things. I'm pleased with the fact that we bounced back in the second half like we did, but we have a long way to go to get ourselves playing a complete game."
The Tribe scored 18 points in the first half. It took less than eight minutes to match that in the second half. W&M had 14 turnovers before the break, which Wake converted into 21 points. It turned the ball over seven times the rest of the way.
The Tribe shot 24% from the field in the first half, 54% in the second half. After making 1-of-12 attempts from the 3-point arc in the first 20 minutes, W&M shot 5-of-7 after halftime.
Ben Wight, a 6-foot-9 sophomore, scored 12 of his career-high 18 points in the second half. Against 7-footer Dallas Walton and 6-10 Khadim Sy, both graduate students, he was 5-of-8 from the field, including a 3-pointer, and 7-of-8 from the free throw line.
"Ben has been one of our better players since the summer," Fischer said. "He plays with such a high motor. He gives you everything he's got on both ends of the floor. … For him to produce like this tonight battling those guys was great to see."
Point guard
Tyler Rice finished with eight points and nine assists, a school record for a freshman in his debut. In the second half, he had seven assists and no turnovers in 17 minutes.
"Probably more than anything, he just had a great look about him out there," Fischer said. "He had a confidence and a swagger that I love seeing from him."
William & Mary trailed 46-18 at halftime, and it was 70-41 with eight minutes remaining. From there, the Tribe went on a 10-0 run and made it a 19-point game — as close as it had been 7:34 remained in the first half — on Conner Kochera's layup with 5:28 left.
After a timeout, Wake pushed the margin back to 25 points. But the Tribe got a 3-pointers from
Julian Lewis (five points, five rebounds) and Rice and a layup by
Langdon Hatton (six and five), and the lead was down to 17.
"The result of the game is a small part of this for us right now," Fischer said. "To me, it goes back to that we've got to practice well all the time. If we do that, we have a chance to play well all the time.
"Settling in and playing the way we did in the second half was certainly a real positive for us. But it's obviously not nearly good enough to come down here and play like we did in the first half. We have to do better than that."
Starting Friday night in W&M's home opener against American. The Eagles are 1-0 after defeating Marist in overtime Tuesday night.
"We already talked in the locker room about (how) we've got to start our preparation for American right now," Fischer said. "Our guys need to understand we'll have to play every bit as hard and every bit as well as we did in the second half to beat a team like American."
