As we prepare for our epic showdown or slowdown (hyuck hyuck) with fellow SBNation Blogger Martin Rickman of Blogger So Dear. If you haven't checked it out yet, I answered questions for the WF boys over on their site. You can find that here. Go Eagles!
Wake Forest had a terrible year last, and things seem to be getting better this year. Am I wrong? What have you seen getting better? What parts haven't?
Eh, I mean, better is relative. The team has more wins than last year. The team has as many ACC wins as it did all of last year. The team has a couple better wins. But they also have Travis McKie and C.J. Harris a year older, which has a lot to do with it. Those two are playing at an extremely high level, and are really underrated by not just the ACC and basketball at large, but by Wake fans. It's a tried and true lowly ole' Wake Forest mantra to bemoan our "lack of talent," but McKie and Harris would be top-flight players in any conference, on any team. So they've gotten better.
The team doesn't have enough depth. The ball handling as a whole is poor. Rebounding is bad. Defense is downright pitiful at times. But they play hard, I guess? I dunno. Addition by subtraction and whatnot from the mess that was the team last year, but I expected a more consistent effort from game to game, and I'm not seeing that (VT win or not - the Hokies are the topic of conversation for another day).
BC is bad, Wake Forest is bad and I'm trying to think of a clever matchup name for this game....Got any suggestions?
I think Brian suggested #ACCrippleFight, and that's pretty good. How about let's just go with #CellarDwellas or #ChokiesAreWorse or something.
Give me three reasons Wake Forest loses this game?
1.) Wake gets outrebounded by a lot.
2.) Wake continues to completely ignore the idea of rotating on the perimeter and lets BC go off from long range.
3.) Wake shoots under 40%.
Give me three reasons Wake Forest wins this game?
1.) The Deacs win the rebounding battle.
2.) Harris and McKie get at least 15 points each.
3.) Wake finds a way to speed the game up and gets buckets in transition.
Alright prediction time, who you got?
KenPom has this thing at a 50/50 split. Have you ever seen that before? The SkyNet computers give Wake the victory by a single point, so man, I dunno. I want to say Wake can pull this out, but BC has been playing better lately and Donahue has them thinking in that crazy hive mentality he's known for.
Wake is a mess, there are only two consistent scorers, and a whole lot of question marks, oh and Coach Bzdelik has only won one total conference road game (between Colorado and Wake - the road win being Nebraska in 2010) as the coach of a BCS school.
I think BC slows Wake down, the game is ugly as sin and almost unwatchable, and the Eagles win, 60-57.
Thanks Martin, and readers make sure to check out Blogger So Dear for all things Demon Deacs and follow Martin on Twitter.