Wake Forest Demon Deacons: The Magic Number is Now One
The Wake Forest Demon Deacons advance to the second round of the ACC Tournament with their NCAA aspirations intact.
The Wake Forest Demon Deacons had to win yesterday against Boston College. Not only was their ACC Tournament run at stake, but their at large bubble aspirations would likely have gone down in flames with a loss to the Eagles. Instead the Deacs are right on track and a win over Virginia Tech today would seal a berth into the 68 team field for them.
The route to beating Boston College was not the typical Wake Forest victory pattern. The Eagles were committed to stopping John Collins at all costs. They assigned a double team to him that never left his side. Therefore Collins was not the direct engine for scoring in the game and he still had nineteen points. Help was on hand.
That would be Austin Arians. He scored seventeen points which almost match the winning margin for Wake of 92-78. Arians did his work in nineteen minutes while Bryant Crawford scored twenty points in twenty two minutes. Keyshawn Woods added seventeen in similar minutes. That balance kept Wake out of trouble for much of the game.
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That does turn the page to today’s game against the Virginia Tech Hokies. Wake beat the Hokies in the season finale, so the foe should be fresh on their minds. The Hokies will be fresh and they will also be eager to play a team that beat them in their last game.
Like Wake, the Hokies like to play a one in and four out style. The difference is that one of those guys for Wake is Dinos Mitoglou, a European style big, while the Hokies look more like a Villanova-style Big East team or perhaps like the teams that Buzz Williams used to coach at Marquette. Both teams go about eight deep.
Wake needs to take advantage of that to dominate the rebounding inside. They held a +7 advantage against the Hokies in the last game. They also need more interior scoring. Collins had thirteen points against the Hokies last time and that number needs to increase closer to twenty.
A win likely seals an NCAA bid for Wake along with setting up a showdown with Florida State on Thursday.