Madison Jones: Wake Forest Moves On
Wake Forest senior guard Madison Jones was dismissed from the team for violating athletic department policy according to reports by Chip Patterson of CBS Sports. Jones marks the fourth signee from the 2012 recruiting class to leave the program.
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Perhaps it may surprise you that Wake Forest has had this exodus of talent away from the program, but it really should not. This kind of occurrence is common when transitioning between coaching regimes. Two 2012 recruiting class members left the moment that Danny Manning was hired as head coach and another, Aaron Rountree, has transferred to Iona this year in search of a bigger role.
Jones made the mistake of becoming an easy target (and breaking team rules), because the new coach is looking to things his way with his guys. The more opportunities he can open up for them the better. Jones’ dismissal means that Coach Manning can find more minutes for incoming freshman Bryant Crawford.
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Wake Forest still has its core group intact. The two holdovers of Codi Miller-McIntyre and Devin Thomas now team with the sophomore trio of Mitchell Wilbekin, Konstantinos Mitoglou, and Cornelius Hudson. Manning can now focus on team chemistry and really start to do things that he wanted to do last year. The pressure should still be off of Manning for this year since State, Duke, and North Carolina will collectively be pretty good.
As we touched on last year before the basketball season, year 2 is an important year for coaches whose last job was Tulsa. This may well be the season that determines if Manning becomes the next great coach out of that pipeline or one of the duds. Still, patience is urged. He is out there recruiting with his last recruiting class having been 32nd in the country. Things will get better for the Deacs.