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  Monday, Dec. 18 7:30pm ET
Demon Deacons win 14th in row
 
  RECAP | BOX SCORE

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) -- Dave Odom doesn't believe No. 6 Wake Forest has to start dealing with the stress of success just yet.

"Let's not get carried away with nine wins. Nine wins is not what this season is all about," the coach of the Demon Deacons said following a 92-52 victory over Radford on Monday night. "Let's focus more on our opportunity to improve and how we improve.

Antwan Scott
Antwan Scott is a dunking Demon Deacon, and Radford's Nosa Obasul can do nothing but watch.

"I promise you I've never seen a tape yet where a team of mine played a perfect game. We can always teach as we go along."

Josh Howard had a career-high 22 points and Wake Forest kept its defensive streak alive in the 40-point victory.

The Demon Deacons (9-0) held their 16th straight opponent under 40 percent shooting to win their 14th straight dating to last season's NIT championship run -- the second-longest winning streak in the country. Michigan State has won 19 in a row.

Howard, who also had five steals, was 7-for-11 from the field and 6-for-7 from the foul line as Wake Forest scored 52 second-half points.

Darius Songaila added a season-high 18 points and Craig Dawson 16 for the Demon Deacons. Dawson, the team's leading scorer at 15 points a game, rebounded from a 1-for-7 shooting game Saturday night to go 6-for-7.

"Everybody is on the same page right now," Dawson said. "Nobody is trying to take on the game one-on-one. We're just finding the open man and knocking down the shots."

Howard's previous high was 21 two games ago in a 31-point victory over Kansas.

"This is a team that is working hard," Odom said. "With each game they get older and they get wiser and they come closer together and they become more confident."

The Highlanders (4-5), playing for the first time in 10 days, saw their three-game winning streak end, shooting 37 percent, going 3-for-25 from 3-point range and turning it over 26 times.

"Three-for-25, that's below cold," Radford coach Ron Bradley said. "They are so much more athletic and quicker than us around the perimeter."

Audrey Savtchenko led Radford with 12 points and eight rebounds.

Wake Forest's winning streak is also the best in Odom's 12 years with the program. The 1996-97 team, led by Tim Duncan, won its first 13 games of the season.

"I've had just absolutely enormous help," Odom said. "My name happens to sit there behind the head coach, but I can tell you it is a Wake Forest win streak, it's a player win streak, it's a staff win streak, it's not mine. I am not foolish to believe it's going on forever."

Wake Forest led by 10 early in the second half before going on a 19-5 run as six different players scored. Dawson's 3-pointer with 13:47 left pushed the score to 59-35 and Radford never got closer.

"In the second half they took everything away that we could do," Bradley said. "It was just everything that went wrong. I don't think we maintained our defensive intensity and they picked theirs up."

Radford missed its first 11 3-pointers, but trimmed a 17-point first-half deficit to eight and had the ball with less than a minute left in the half. Williams then lost it to Howard, who hit two free throws and made a fastbreak layup in the final 34 seconds as Wake Forest went up 12 at the break.

The Demon Deacons started slow against Radford's full-court press, turning it over on their first three possessions. But the Highlanders went cold from the field and Wake Forest used a 27-6 run to take control of the game.
 


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