In a battle of two teams trending in opposite directions, the Deacs were blown out on their home court yet again, this time by the NC State Wolfpack by a score of 96-78. This one was a wire-to-wire beatdown, as Wake only managed to lead the game for a whopping 32 seconds after making the first basket of the game. The loss moves Wake to 11-11 overall and 2-7 in the conference.
In the first matchup with State, it was the Wake Forest offense that caused them to go blown
out—this time around, it was defense. Wake started out the game with their usual aggressive doubling in the post and crashing down on the driving lanes, and that allowed NC State to pick them apart from the 3-point line, especially in the corners. It seemed like every time down the court, the Wolfpack would simply make a couple dribbles inside the arc, draw the closest Wake Forest defender to help, and kick it out for a wide open 3-pointer. The Wolfpack finished the 1st half 9-15 (60%) from beyond the arc, which really helped them build a double digit lead just 8 minutes into the game.
When the Wolfpack weren’t simply driving and kicking for an open 3, they were finding a way to isolate freshman Isaac Carr on Quadir Copeland. Carr did what he could, but he was simply overmatched by the bigger, stronger senior, and when help came, Copeland was dishing the ball to his teammates for easy baskets. Copeland finished the 1st half with 6 points and 8 assists to help NC State going into the locker room with a 49-31 lead.
From that point, it was mostly just a matter of running out the clock in the second half. The Deacs made a couple of pushes to get the lead down under 10, but the Wolfpack answered back every time—Wake never got closer than 7 points, and State led by double digits for all but around 45 seconds of the second half. Juke Harris did his best to keep the Deacs within striking distance with a game high 31 points on 11-25 shooting, but without Calmese, Wake just didn’t have enough fire power to ever make it interesting. Omaha Biliew was the only other Deac to finish in double figures with 12 points on 4-6 shooting.
I think most of us probably had a good idea that this was going to happen after the Deacs lost Calmese in their last game, but that doesn’t make the result any better. Wake getting blown off their home court for the 4th time this season while “Wolf-Pack” chants ring out through the stadium is not the look of a program that is headed in the right direction. At the time of writing, the Deacs are now tied with Pitt with the bottom of the ACC at 2-7, and since Pitt has the tie-breaker, Wake would be dead last if the season ended today. With Louisville coming to town next Saturday, the Deacs are in danger of falling to below .500 in February for the first time since Steve Forbes’s first year as the head coach during the Covid pandemic.
Onto the next.
Go Deacs.
