Whatever happened between Sunday’s game against Queens and tonight’s game against Longwood, Wake Forest should make sure they never do it again. Tonight’s game was basically a completely 180 from the blowout win over Queens, and the Deacs were honestly lucky that they were able to come out of that game unscathed.
On Sunday, the Deacs shot 52% from beyond the arc and made 17 3-pointers to beat the Royals by 38 points. Tonight, we saw the other side of the coin and what happens when a team that is so reliant on 3-point shooting only makes 5 in the entire game on 21% shooting. The result was about as bad as we could expect—71 points against a defense that ranks 310th in KenPom and a narrow win at home over a Q4 opponent that Wake was favored to beat by 20+ points. To be honest, this one was pretty reminiscent of how games were under the previous 2 coaching regimes.
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I’m not really that bothered by the regression towards the mean on 3-point shooting—the Deacs obviously weren’t going to shoot 50+% from beyond the arc in every game. That being said, I am a little confused at the gameplan of chucking a bunch of 3’s against a team that has one of the worst defenses in the nation and not a single contributor over 6-8 instead of finding a way to get the ball into the paint to generate some easy baskets. In the first half, the Deacs shot the ball 30 total times—18 of those shots came from beyond the arc. With Wake only making 4 of those 18 attempts, they finished the half with just 30 points (2nd lowest in the first half this season) and shot 33% from the floor for the half. The Deacs trailed at the half 30-34. At home. To Longwood.
The gameplan was adjusted at halftime, and the Deacs shot just 6 3-pointers in the remainder of the game, making just 1. The newfound emphasis on attacking the paint worked out well for the offense—Wake scored 41 points in the second half on 50% shooting from the field, took 24 free throws, and scored 18 points in the paint. Juke Harris scored 11 of his team high 19 points in the 2nd half, with 7 of those coming from the charity stripe. The 1 3-pointer Wake made in the second half ended up being the difference in the game, with Myles Colvin hitting a huge shot with just 49 seconds remaining to give Wake a 3-point lead. Unfortunately, the game was indeed that close.
Shot selection wasn’t the only issue for the Deacs in this one. Maybe it was a function of playing their 7th Q4 game at home this season, but the overall energy and focus from the team just was not there at all tonight. The defense seemed pretty lackluster and there was very little hustle to be found anywhere. In several crucial points of the game, the Lancers were able to get 2nd and 3rd shot attempts at the basket simply by trying harder to rebound the ball. Longwood finished the game with 11 offensive rebounds, but 10 of those came in the 2nd half. Wake also did a terrible job defending Longwood’s 1 shooter, Redd Thompson Jr., who was seemingly wide open the entire 2nd half. Thompson finished with a game high 22 points and hit 6 of his 12 3-point attempts, including back-to-back triples with 2 minutes left to tie the game. After making 4 3-pointers in the second half, Wake still somehow allowed him to get off a great look as time expired to tie the game. The Deacs were fortunate that it did not go in and force overtime.
Yes, this was an awful performance for the Deacs, but they still managed to pull out the win. Games like this is one of the reasons I am so against playing so many Q4 buy games at the beginning of the season—eventually the team is going to start coasting after a bunch of blowouts, and someone is going to sneak up on them and either beat them or push them to the brink. Thankfully, that was the last buy game of the season and hopefully the last Q4 game of the season. Wake’s resume won’t take too big of a hit since they pulled out the win, but all of the progress that they had made in the metrics-based rankings were effectively erased by this game. It might be foolish to be too concerned about the NET and KenPom before January, but after a million years of not making the tournament, the Deacs need to be worried about pretty much everything that goes into the selection process.
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Maybe a scare from a Big South opponent is exactly what the Deacs needed to re-energize and refocus them before the real games start this Sunday. I assure you if they play like they did tonight against Vanderbilt, things are going to get ugly fast.
Go Deacs!
