Wake Forest Demon Deacons

The Hoos go on the road for the second time in a four day span as they drive down to Winston Salem to face Wake Forest. The Deacs are having a letdown season by any measure, but will have an upset on the mind to help salvage their year. Will Virginia be ready to take their best punch?

Game Details:

Date/Time: Sunday, Jan 21st, 6:00 PM Eastern  
Location: Lawrence Joel Coliseum, Winston-Salem, NC
TV: ESPNU

What ‘They’ Say

Depth Chart:

Starters

Key Reserves

The ABC’s of WF:

A) They’re crashing hard after being a surprise tournament team last year. Heck, even Hoos Place had Wake picked as a potential bubble team, bringing back a lot of pieces from last year’s 10-seed squad. But they stumbled out of the gate, losing games to Georgia Southern, Liberty, and Drake. They seemed to be playing better, getting six straight wins in December before going to Chapel Hill and playing a surprisingly close game against Carolina (lost 73-69), then bouncing back to beat Cuse at home. But they’ve been unable to get another ACC win, losing toss-up games to BC, VT, and NC State. At this point the post-season is quickly fading from sight, so they’re only playing for pride.

B) They’ve got an excellent guard rotation. Wake brought back a quartet of really good guards from last year’s tournament team in Wilbekin (younger brother of UF’s Scottie), Crawford, Childress (Randolph’s son), and Woods, who are all averaging at least 8.8 points a game this year. Childress and Crawford are more natural point guards, whereas Woods and Wilbekin excel more off guard. They’re dangerous because any one of them can be the guy who does you in on any given night, so it’s a pick-your-poison in trying to focus your defense on any one of them. Each of them is a capable three point shooter, and they all can play facilitator as well. The depth at guard is WF’s clear strength, and it’s kept them in games against good teams already this year, such as when they had a late lead over UNC behind 46 combined points and 15 assists between the group.

C) They’re a one and done defense. For all the ways their defense is struggling (and there are quite a few), they’ve committed to defensive rebounding and are the best in the ACC so far at closing out possessions after the first shot, over 80% of the time. I would be surprised to see us generate much second chance offense in this game, so it’s imperative we get good looks the first time around.

Their season to date:

Wake Forest is 8-10 on the year, 1-5 in the ACC. Their lone good win is a 6 point home win over Syracuse. They’re on a four game losing streak, which includes @BC, VT, @Duke, and most recently blowing a 6 point second half lead @ NCSU on Thursday to lose by 9.

Keys to getting the win:

1) Shut down their three point shooting. Frankly shooting the 3 is about the only thing Wake is doing consistently well this year. They’re over 39% on the year (36th nationally), and almost 40% through their first 6 ACC games (2nd in ACC play). Center Doral Moore is about the only rotation player who isn’t a threat. For their backcourt, Crawford is shooting 35%, Woods is 43%, Childress is 36%, Brown is 35%, and Wilbekin is 43%. They also have stretch-bigs to space the floor, with PF Thompson 6-12 on the year, backup C Sarr is 5-15, and backup forward Mitchell is 8-15. They’re going to work hard to beat us with the three on their home rims, and we have to make sure our ACC-best 3-point defense (holding teams to 28.6% through 6 games) is locked in.

2) Go at them and get to the FT line. Wake is far too foul prone for their own good, and are putting opponents on the FT line at the worst rate in the ACC. NC State got 20 attempts at the line, Duke 34, BC 35. I don’t expect us to approach 30, of course, but good aggressive play at the rim, especially off of crisp ball movement that gets their undisciplined defense out of position, should generate some bonus points for our offense.

3) Make Doral Moore defend in space. Wake’s 2P% defense is actually pretty decent, holding ACC opponents to under 46% inside the arc, 6th in the conference, and a large part of that is thanks to Doral Moore, a 7-foot shot blocking specialist, 2.3 a game. His block percentage in ACC play is 13.7%, best in the ACC. We learned a very important lesson against GT, and that’s that we’re not a team that’s going to score effectively at the rim over a true effective rim protector, watching Ben Lammers get 6 quick blocks on us (even if a couple were uncalled fouls). But we were able to adjust by getting him onto Hunter or Wilkins who could pull him away from the basket with the threat of an effective mid-range jumper, and that opened up the lane for the dribble penetration game. We need to find ways in this game to do the same with Moore; stretch him to make his rim protection less effective.

Predictions:

Wake is losing a lot this year, but they are hanging around some games late, holding second half leads against NC State and UNC, plus defending their home court against Syracuse. This isn’t a gimme, not as well as those guards can play. They’re going to come out fired up and I could see the first half being uncomfortable for Hoo faithful. But I think our offense finds a rhythm sometime late in the 1st half, and continues to play well in the second half, as their offense begins to wear down late. They won’t quit, it’ll be 40 minutes of fight, unfortunately not giving us a chance to rest before the short 48 hour turnaround for Clemson, but I do believe we’ll get the W after we play the intentional foul game over the final minute.

Hoos Win – 72-64