The Deacs moved to 2-0 on the season after taking down Morehead State by a score of 81-65. This was one where the final score was not representative of the game, because I really don’t think the Deacs played
very well in this one.
The story of the first half was free throw shooting. The refs were blowing the whistle on nearly every play, and as a result, the Deacs were in the bonus by the 14-minute mark. That ended up not being that great of advantage, because no one on the team could make a free throw—at the end of the half, Wake was a woeful 14-24 from the free throw line. To be honest, the Deacs really weren’t shooting well from anywhere on the floor in the first half, hitting just 38% of their shots from the floor and 28% from beyond the arc. That 38% included making just 7 out of their 14 layups, which is certainly concerning against a team like Morehead that doesn’t have a ton of height. If not for Juke Harris’s 15 first half points, Wake might have been in trouble after the first 20 minutes.
The 2nd half didn’t really get any better. Nate Calmese, who played just 10 minutes in the first half due to foul trouble, picked up 2 quick fouls in the first 2 minutes of the half. He went to the bench and never came back in the game, finishing with just 2 points. Without Calmese on the court, the Deacs just looked sloppy—Wake finished the game with 19 total turnovers, which resulted in 24 points for the Eagles. It is still early in the season, but 19 turnovers in a buy game against a team that nearly lost to NAIA Midway is definitely not a good sign of things to come. Thankfully, Juke Harris put the team on his back and refused to let the Eagles get the lead to under double digits. Harris finished with 29 points on 10-15 shooting and made 3 of his 5 3-pointers. Tre’Von Spillers, who finished with 16 points, and Sebastian Akins, who had 15 points and 5 assists, were the only 2 Deacs to join Harris in double figures in this one. While Wake led the entire half, they were once again unable to pull away and blow the game out, mostly due to Morehead State guard George Marshall. Marshall scored 20 of his 26 points in the 2nd half and refused to let the Eagles go away. The Deacs still wound up winning comfortably by a score of 81-65.
I know it’s early and the team is still figuring out how to play together, but Wake just did not look sharp in this game at all. The Deacs finished the game shooting just 40% from the floor, 29% from 3 and 60% from the free throw line, made just 9 of their 25 layups, turned the ball over 19 times, and gave up 28 points in the paint and 11 offensive rebounds to a Morehead State that is currently rated as one of the worst in the nation by KenPom. The trio of Nate Calmese, Myles Colvin, and Omaha Biliew, 3 of Wake’s main contributors, scored a combined 6 points on 0-16 shooting—that is not what you want to see before the team heads to Detroit to take on a stacked Michigan team that is currently ranked 7th in the nation and put up 121 points on Oakland in their first game. Winning is the most important thing, but every March it seems like we are lamenting Wake not being able to blowout the bad teams at the beginning of the season, and here we are yet again. Hopefully the Deacs will win enough of their big games this season so that it won’t matter, but if Wake plays like they did tonight on Tuesday, they will probably get run out of the gym.
A win is a win.
Go Deacs!
