Season Preview: #11 Wake Forest

Games against 2012 ACC Tournament teams: 10

Games against ACC top 4: 6

Games against ACC bottom 4: 6

Best non-conference game: 11/16 vs. Connecticut (at St. Thomas)


Projected Starting Five:

F - Devin Thomas (Freshman)

F - Travis McKie (Junior)

G - Chase Fischer (Sophomore)

G - C.J. Harris (Senior)

G - Codi Miller-McIntyre (Freshman)


Oh, Wake Forest.  These last two years have not been very kind.  Last season, I compiled a list of the worst 10 teams in the ACC in the last 10 years.  Wake's team from two years ago was #1 on the list.  Last year's team would have come in #10.  So let's look at what happened last year.  Wake got off to an okay start in the non-conference, with a couple wins over BCS conference teams.  They started conference play with a home win over Virginia Tech, which at the time was playing well.  After that, Wake lost 9 of their next 10 games.  Eight of those losses were by double digits, four by at least 20 points.  They rounded out the season playing a little better, and ended up 4-12 in conference.

Then came the end of the season, and the transfers started.  People were jumping ship left and right.  So where does that leave Wake Forest going into this critical third season of the Jeff Bzdelik era?  They have three players returning who scored more than two points per game last year.  Fortunately for them, two of those players are pretty good.  C.J. Harris was close to being a star last year, and Travis McKie, despite not quite living up to his freshman season, was solid.  Those two players will really have to carry the load for a team that is lacking in experience.  There are seven freshmen on the roster this year.  Some of them are pretty solid recruits, including the two that I penciled in to the starting lineup this year.

Wake's non-conference schedule isn't horrible.  They will have an early season tournament game against UConn that should be a good barometer of where this team is early on.  A road game at Richmond and home game against Seton Hall are the other highlights.  Wake starts conference play at Duke, but then the next four games are all winnable.  It's imperative that this team gets off to a good start.  Because we've seen that once they start to spiral out of control, they can't get out of it.

I have been a critic of Coach Bzdelik from the start.  It doesn't seem like his teams play with any energy, and I have a hard time finding what the team's identity is.  They have solid players in Harris and McKie, which should keep them above Boston College in the standings.  But it's hard to find many wins between the lack of past success and lack of experience in the lineup.  I think Wake has to show continued improvement, with at least a 6-12 conference record, for Coach Bzdelik to keep his job.  And that will be tough.