Season Preview

Jeff Bzdelik

12. Wake Forest


2010-2011 record: 8-24 (1-15 ACC)


Games against NCAA Tournament teams: 8
Best non-conference game: 12/3 vs. Richmond





Projected Starting Five:


C - Ty Walker (Senior)
F - Travis McKie (Sophomore)
F - Nikita Mescheriakov (Senior)
G - C.J. Harris (Junior)
G - Tony Chennault (Sophomore)




What can you say about Wake Forest last year?  They were very difficult to watch, maybe the worst team ever fielded in the history of the ACC.  Jeff Bzdelik came in as coach, and inherited a team with very little talent.  What's worse is that the team never seemed to establish an identity on the court.  They played about as undisciplined as I've seen, chucking up shots that were way off most of the time, and never developing a game rhythm.  The lone bright spot on the team was freshman Travis McKie, who led the team in scoring and rebounding.


It's hard to imagine much changing this year.  The good news is McKie is back, along with solid guard C.J. Harris and promising point guard Tony Chennault, who got hurt midway through last year.  The bad news is that offseason turmoil continued, and led to the departure of Ari Stewart and J.T. Terrell (Terrell was the second-leading scorer last year).


The schedule sets up decently well for some wins.  Wake doesn't really have a whole lot of challenging non-conference games, and they only have to play North Carolina and Florida State once.  But I just can't believe that this team is going to be even marginally better than it was last year.  The talent just isn't there.  I haven't seen anything from Bzdelik to suggest that he's a good coach, and he is losing the grip on his program.  Lawrence Joel used to be one of the best home arenas in the ACC, and it was mostly empty last year.  I have a hard time seeing more than three conference wins for Wake, and that's with a down ACC.