This is why they play the games. Down to six scholarship players, missing their top two inside players, with their
on-court leader suffering from a gimpy ankle, the sad-sack Hokies trudged down the highway to Winston-Salem ... and came
away with an improbable win. How Virginia Tech beat Wake Forest is a story of matchups, scoring that came from an
unanticipated source, leadership from a player with the heart of a lion, and simple perseverance.
With Coleman Collins in Georgia to be with his ailing father, Deron Washington serving a one-game suspension, and
Jamon Gordon still suffering the lingering effects of an ankle injury he sustained against Maryland a week earlier,
things looked grim for Virginia Tech against Wake Forest Saturday. It was a shame, really. Despite the presence of burly
6-9, 280-pound center Eric Williams and 20-point-a-game scorer Justin Gray, Wake Forest looked like one of the beatable
teams on Tech's schedule. At 1-5 in the ACC, the Demon Deacons were a whole that was decidedly less than the sum of its
parts, and they represented a chance for the Hokies to notch their first ACC win of the year.