There is no way to sugar coat this one—that was a very bad loss to a very bad Boston College team. On a night where Juke Harris goes off for 38 points, the Deacs got nothing from basically everyone else and lost on a last second tip in to the second worst (by NET) major conference team in the nation. The Eagles had not won a game since January 21st, losing their last 8 games by an average of over 10 points per game. Despite that, Wake let an offense ranked over 250 on KenPom pour in 46 second half
points to hand them their 14th loss of the season. We are getting pretty close to rock bottom this year.
The first half was the Juke Harris show, as the sophomore was basically the only player for either team who showed up. Boston College spent most of the first half going under screens, and Juke repeatedly made them pay with 19 points on 4-8 shooting from downtown. With about 4 minutes left in the half, Harris was single handedly outscoring Boston College all by himself. Unfortunately for the Deacs, Harris got no help at all from the rest of his team. Nate Calmese, who returned from the ankle injury he sustained in the Pitt game at the end of January, had 5 points before injuring his ankle yet again and leaving the game. Omaha Biliew and Mekhi Mason added 3 and 2 points respectively, and that was it for Wake’s scoring. Outside of Juke, the rest of the Deacs shot a combined 4-23 (17%) for the half and scored just 10 points—6 of the 10 players who played in the first half did not score. Thankfully, the Eagles were no better and finished the half with just 22 points on 9-29 shooting.
One of the teams turned things around at halftime, and unfortunately it was not Wake Forest. Boston College came out of the half playing much better basketball, and used a 14-1 run to take a 36-30 lead at the under 16 minute timeout. The Deacs started the half 0-11 from the floor and didn’t make a field goal until about 5 minutes had passed. The run didn’t stop there, as BC caught fire from deep and outscored Wake 23-5 through the first 10 minutes of the half. Scoring 5 points in 10 minutes against one of the worst power 5 teams in the nation is a new low for the team this season. The Eagles’ lead grew as high as 11 points with 8 minutes remaining in the game.
Despite having one of the first halves of the season, the Deacs were never out of this game simply because Juke Harris was playing out of his mind. Just like the first half, Juke basically single handedly kept the Deacs in the game with 19 points on 6-9 shooting from the floor. With 33 seconds left in the game, Wake trailed by 5 point Juke Harris made a 3-pointer to cut the lead to 2, and then Isaac Carr stole an errant pass from Luka Toews and threw it to Harris for yet another 3-pointer. Miraculously, in the span of 15 seconds, the Deacs went from down 5 to up 1.
Unfortunately, it was all for naught. On the final possession of the game, Wake forced a missed from BC’s Fred Payne, but failed to grab the rebound—that allowed Aidan Shaw to win the game for the Eagles with the putback with 0.5 remaining on the clock. Rebounding has been a massive problem for Wake this season, so it should really be no surprise that it cost them a game tonight.
Losing to a 9-18 Boston College team on a night where Juke Harris has 38 points on 12-19 shooting may be a new low for Wake Forest in the Forbes era. To come out of the locker room at the half and put up 5 points in 10 minutes against a BC team that had given up 80+ points in their last 3 games is simply inexcusable. Outside of Harris and maybe Isaac Carr, the team just seemed to be going through the motions and didn’t appear to have a sense of urgency at all. Juke has proven to be one of the best players in the ACC, but no player can do it alone—when the rest of the team combines for 29 points on 10-43 (23%) shooting, it is going to be nearly impossible to win. This game is probably exhibit 1A for how poorly the staff scouted in the portal during the offseason. Outside of Calmese’s 5 points, the Wake Forest portal additions for this year finished the game with 4 combined points on 1-17 shooting.
This is a terrible loss to a very bad team, and it coming a day after a report that Forbes has the confidence of the Athletic Director and will most likely be back for another season may be the ultimate irony. Wake is still likely to make the ACC Tournament with a couple games over the 16th place team, but at this point, I’m not sure anyone is going to care.
Onto the next.
Go Deacs.
