The 2025-26 season has officially come to an end for Wake Forest at the hands of the Illinois State Redbirds.
It was a season to forget for Wake Forest, so perhaps it is only fitting that it ends dropping a home game to an Illinois State team that went just 12-8 in the MVC. When you look at the stats, its pretty hard to come up with a reason for how the Deacs managed to lose this game. Wake shot 50% from the floor, scored 40 points in the paint, outrebounded Illinois State,
and shot a better percentage from beyond the arc—based on those numbers and the fact that Wake was at home against a triple digit KenPom team from the Missouri Valley Conference, there is no way I would have thought the Deacs lost this game. And yet, somehow, they found a way.
With about 9 minutes left in the game, Wake took a 9-point lead on a Myles Colvin alley-oop, and it looked like the Deacs were well on their way to playing Dayton for a chance to head to Indianapolis. That would, unfortunately, not be the case, as over the next 4 minutes, the Redbirds went on a 13-1 run to take a 63-60 lead. Wake let off the gas and just got sloppy, and I think they were probably expecting to just coast to the win after building a sizeable lead. In that 4 minute stretch, the Deacs threw the ball away a few times, gave up a bunch of open 3’s and allowed Illinois State to grab several offensive rebounds. Johnny Kinziger, who had 2 points in the first half, lit Wake up in the 2nd with 17 points on 5-7 shooting from beyond the arc, including what would become the game winner with just a couple of seconds left.
This is now the 3rd time Wake Forest has played in the NIT under Steve Forbes, and the 3rd time they have failed to make the final four despite being a 1 seed in two of those three tournaments. Playing in the NIT, which has turned into a mid-major tournament due to power 5 teams declining bids, is already a disappointment. Losing in the NIT at home to a mid-major opponent just makes it that disappointment so much worse. If the Deacs weren’t going to play any better than that, they probably should have just declined the bid and moved on to next season.
The 2025-26 season was certainly one to forget for the Deacs. Wake finished the season 18-17 overall and didn’t have a single marquee win worth talking about—their best win was probably an 85-77 win over a Clemson team that lost 7 of their final 11 games. At 1-10 in Quad 1 games, Steve Forbes in now just 7-46 in such games and has still never won more than two Quad 1 games in a season in his 6 years at Wake Forest. The 2023-24 season remains Wake’s only season with more Quad 1 wins than Quad 3 losses in the Forbes era. Despite that and the terrible home loss in the NIT, all signs are pointing towards Steve Forbes returning for year 7 next season.
If that is the case, next season begins right now for Wake Forest. The Deacs have to do a better job in the portal for next season, and that starts with finding an ACC caliber center who can clean the glass and protect the rim. Wake was completely outmanned in conference play in those 2 areas—Wake was 296th in keeping opponents off the offensive glass and allowed opponents to shoot nearly 67% at the rim this season, the 13th highest percentage in the nation per CBBAnalytics. It was mentioned by Florida head coach Todd Golden last week that teams are moving away from the 5 out, small ball style and getting back to having big guys who can dominate the paint.
There’s a lot of variance in teams that are over reliant on 3-point shooting, but teams that dominate the offensive glass and don’t allow their opponents to score in the paint are going to be tough to beat even if they are having an off shooting night. If Wake is going to be competitive next year, they are going to have to find a couple of guys that fill this role, as they just cannot afford to continue playing small ball while everyone around them gets bigger. Outside of that, a lot of what the Deacs do in the portal is probably going to revolve around whether Juke Harris returns for his junior season, transfers elsewhere, or goes to the NBA. That decision will have a huge impact on the outlook for the 2026-27 season.
This season was not one that I think any of us will look back on fondly, but the good news is that we can move onto next season in a just a couple of weeks when the transfer portal opens on April 7th.
Go Deacs.
