Entering this season, few people would have been surprised for a team to emerge from the North Carolina-Wake Forest game with an undefeated record. But no one would have expected that team to be Wake Forest.

The Demon Deacons won a statement game for the second week in a row, knocking off UNC 92-89 on Sunday en route to their first 14-0 start since 1980-81. Eight days after ending the nation’s longest home winning streak at 53 games with a 94-87 win at Brigham Young, they stopped UNC’s 15-game road winning streak in front of a Joel Coliseum-record crowd of 14,714.

The difference in the game — and Wake Forest’s season to this point — was how well the Demon Deacons defended. North Carolina shot 35 percent for the game, including 28 percent in the second half, and finished with twice as many turnovers (18) as assists (nine). One of the nation’s most extraordinary offensive teams looked, well, ordinary.

“Two years ago, they had trouble stopping people and had trouble on the defensive end,” UNC coach Roy Williams said. “Dino [Gaudio] and his staff have done a great job. They guard you. There’s a reason we shot 35 percent, and it was because of their defensive play.”

Gaudio, a former assistant at Wake Forest who took over as the team’s head coach after the death of Skip Prosser in July 2007, deserves much of the credit. He and Prosser talked after the 2006-07 season about changing Wake Forest’s defensive philosophy, and Gaudio moved forward with the plan after Prosser’s death.

The Demon Deacons — who previously tried to deny passing lanes and force opponents toward the baseline — adopted Dick Bennett’s “pack-line” defensive philosophy. The pack-line defense is a sagging man-to-man scheme that is designed to stop penetration and force opponents to shoot contested jump shots. The defense allows opponents to pass the ball along the perimeter, and one of its goals is to deny the baseline — making it far different from what the Demon Deacons were doing before.

“It was a radical change,” Gaudio said. “And if we were going to do it, you couldn’t go to the end of the pool and go, ‘Oh, the water is too cold. I’m not jumping in.’ We were either going to do it or not.”

Gaudio and his staff dived in head-first. They watched all the video they could find. They talked to Bennett, who had success with the defense in stops at Wisconsin-Green Bay, Wisconsin and Washington State. They talked to Bennett’s son, Tony, who now is the head coach at Washington State. They drove to Cincinnati to speak with Xavier’s coaches, who also use the defense.

Wake Forest’s coaches were quick learners, and the change has been a good fit for their players. The Demon Deacons field a lineup with plenty of length — 6-foot-9 James Johnson, 6-foot-9 Al-Farouq Aminu and 7-foot-0 Chas McFarland start up front, with 6-foot-2 Jeff Teague and 6-foot-4 L.D. Williams in the backcourt — so cutting down opponents’ penetration and forcing them to shoot over outstretched arms has been productive.

The Demon Deacons, who were 88th nationally in Ken Pomeroy’s adjusted defensive efficiency ratings in 2006-07, improved to 63rd last season. They sit at No. 5 in the country in that category right now.

Much of the progress can be traced to Wake Forest’s improvement in effective field-goal percentage defense, a statistic similar to field-goal percentage defense except that it gives 50 percent more weight to 3-pointers. With their new philosophy, the Demon Deacons have seen their effective field-goal percentage defense improve from 274th nationally in 2006-07 to 138th last season to third this season.

“It’s been a good change for us,” Gaudio said. “The kids believe it, and they’ve bought into it.”

It’s no wonder. Improvement on the defensive end allowed Wake Forest to beat the Tar Heels despite a 51-37 rebounding deficiency and quiet offensive games from Aminu and Johnson.

“It’s good to know that when we have two of our primary scorers not scoring the ball well, we can in fact rely on our defense,” Gaudio said. “You’re going to have those nights when you’re not scoring the ball and not shooting the ball well. But if your defense is solid, you’re going to be there at the end.”

Rising team: Clemson

Fast starts are nothing new for the Tigers, who have won at least their first 10 games in each of the past four seasons. With a 16-0 mark in 2008-09 after a 63-51 win over N.C. State on Saturday, they are one win away from tying the school record for the most consecutive victories to start a season.

The question is whether they can keep winning this time. Clemson has fizzled after its fast starts under Oliver Purnell, so plenty of doubters are waiting for the team to prove its legitimacy during ACC play. The Tigers, who went 4-4 in January each of the last two seasons, have not posted a winning record for the month since the 1996-97 season.

“In terms of them getting off to a good start and having skepticism, I think that’s not fair to Clemson,” said Miami coach Frank Haith, whose team lost to the Tigers earlier this season. “I think they deserve to be viewed as one of the better teams in the country right now.”

Falling team: Boston College

The Eagles might have celebrated their victory over North Carolina — and ensuing spot inside the Top 25 — a bit too much. Boston College dropped a pair of home games during the week, including one that no ACC team should lose.

The Eagles watched their 10-game winning streak come to an end with an 82-70 loss to Harvard. The Crimson, coached by former Duke star Tommy Amaker, picked up the first win in their history against a ranked foe. Three days after that defeat, Boston College lost to Miami 77-71.

“What a difference a week makes,” BC coach Al Skinner said. “Hopefully we’ll look to bounce back here a little bit and try to get ourselves ready to play.”

The Eagles will get a chance to do that tonight against Wake Forest, which is coming off its big victory over the Tar Heels. Skinner can only hope that the Demon Deacons have as much trouble focusing for their next game as his team did.

Player of the week: Jeff Teague, G, Wake Forest

Roy Williams called it “about as good a performance as I’ve seen in a long time against a team that I’ve coached.” That’s how tough Teague was against the Tar Heels, when he scored a career-high 34 points on 9-of-17 shooting from the field and 13-of-15 shooting from the free-throw line.

Teague also chipped in six rebounds, four assists and a steal in 39 minutes of action, but his scoring was most impressive. The sophomore had his way, beating UNC’s Ty Lawson and Wayne Ellington off the dribble, and connecting on jump shots when his defenders tried to go underneath ball screens.

Teague has three games of 30 or more points this season and is the only player in the ACC with multiple 30-point games in 2008-09. It’s early, but he’s the frontrunner for ACC Player of the Year.

“Whenever we need a bucket, we go to Teague,” Wake Forest guard Harvey Hale said. “Whenever we need him to come through, he comes through.”

Freshman of the week: Sylven Landesberg, G, Virginia

It’s not a banner year for ACC freshmen, but Landesberg has stood out. The 6-foot-6 wing player tallied 20 points, eight rebounds and five assists in Virginia’s loss at Virginia Tech, making 7 of 11 shots from the floor and all six of his free throws. Landesberg has scored in double figures in 11 of Virginia’s 13 games this season, pouring in at least 20 points on eight occasions.

“The guy’s going to get 20 whether it’s quiet or loud,” Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg said. “You can tell your guys to stay in front of him, but he got 20 without having to take a pullup jumper. We told our guys, ‘You have to stay in front of him and get lower than him,’ and he still drives to the basket. He’s a good player. You’re just not going to stop him.”

Stats and facts of the week

Wake Forest’s win over North Carolina could go a long way toward determining the ACC regular-season champion. The teams don’t meet again, so the Tar Heels must be three games better than the Demon Deacons from this point forward to pass Wake Forest in the standings.

North Carolina has totaled 24 assists and 33 turnovers (0.73 ratio) in its two ACC losses. In its other 14 games, all wins, the Tar Heels have posted 293 assists and 179 turnovers (1.64 ratio).

Duke’s Gerald Henderson scored a career-high 25 points in his team’s 66-58 victory over Florida State. Henderson scored the same number of points in the first half (14) as the Seminoles. The Blue Devils held Florida State to four points in the final 13:07 of the half, including a scoreless stretch of 7:58.

Led by Greivis Vasquez, Maryland leads the ACC and ranks third nationally in free-throw shooting (79.1 percent). Vasquez has made 35 consecutive free throws since missing against Michigan State on Dec. 3.

Virginia Tech survived an onslaught from rival Virginia to defeat the Cavaliers 78-75 on Saturday. The Cavaliers scored on each of their last 10 possessions, totaling 26 points and making all five of their 3-pointers during that span.

N.C. State made just one of its first 15 shots in its loss at Clemson on Saturday. The Tigers weren’t much better in the early going, leading just 6-2 nine minutes into the game.

They said it

“I believe our kids are trying. I don’t think that is part of the problem. But I do believe that it’s not just trying hard. A guy who tries hard on a math test and adds two plus two and gets five, he still made a mistake. We’ve got to add our brain to that part of it, and I think that is more of a problem than our effort. I don’t think anybody has watched our kids play the last two games and said, ‘Oh, they’re just dogging it.’ I really don’t believe that. But we haven’t played very hard with intelligence.” — North Carolina coach Roy Williams on his team’s recent struggles

“It’s going to be a problem in terms of people getting here — there’s no doubt about that. We’re going to do whatever we can to make it as smooth as possible. It is an 8 o’clock game. Hopefully the parades will be over and things like that. The various inaugural balls will be going on. It won’t be a problem for me because I didn’t get an invitation.” — Maryland coach Gary Williams, whose team is hosting Virginia on Jan. 20, the night of Barack Obama’s inauguration

Key upcoming games

Thursday, January 15
North Carolina at Virginia
The Tar Heels are 0-2 in ACC play for the first time since 1996-97, when they started 0-3 in Dean Smith’s final season before catching fire and reaching the Final Four. The Cavaliers hung tough at home with UNC last season, falling 75-74.

Saturday, January 17
Georgetown at Duke
The Blue Devils have suffocated almost all of their opponents with smothering defense this season, but the Hoyas run an offense similar to the one that Michigan used to beat Duke in early December.

Wake Forest at Clemson
If the Demon Deacons knock off Boston College tonight, both teams will enter this contest with undefeated records. It will be interesting to see how Wake Forest handles Clemson’s fullcourt pressure as the Tigers try to keep the ball out of Jeff Teague’s hands.

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