http://chazsports.blogspot.com/2005/...only-hope.html
One can only hope Skip Prosser made a mental note of what it felt like to walk off the court Saturday night in Cleveland, after West Virginia shocked his heavily-favored Wake Forest team in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. With three vital seniors graduating and the very-real possibility of Chris Paul bolting to the NBA, it could be a long time before Prosser has another chance to run a team this talented into the ground.
Wake’s double-overtime loss showed the country what Deac fans have known for too long; Skip Prosser is a terrible head coach. The team’s lack of any defensive strategy, their substitution patterns and total disregard for the Mountaineers when they were down 13 can all be pinned on Prosser, who now joins Bob Huggins as coaches whose careers can best be summed up by their Tournament failures.
Prosser had it all on this Wake Forest team. A bruising center who could dominate the low post, a tall, athletic rebounder at the four, a third guard off the bench with a sharpshooter’s touch, a scoring shooting guard and an all-world sophomore running the show. This team had the talent to win it all. Look at the roster of every remaining team in the NCAA Tournament. With the exception of North Carolina, perhaps, not one team is close to being as talented as Wake Forest.
But it takes more than talent alone to make it to the Final Four, it takes a coach who can make his players better. And, with the exception of Eric Williams, whose improvement can be attributed to losing weight and maturing, every single player on Wake Forest either regressed or saw their play stay stagnant compared to last year.
Jamaal Levy and Justin Gray played worse in 2005 than they did in 2004. Trent Strickland was the most athletic member of the team for the second straight year, but couldn’t rein in his poor decision making and harness his talents. Chris Paul again showed flashes of brilliance, but wasn’t the star on the defensive end he should have been. Vytas Danelius added the deep ball to his repertoire, but still wasn’t the player he was back in 2003.
Prosser should have had these guys on the top of their games headed into this season. And they were, at least on the offensive end. But the team’s Achilles Heel was always its defense and that showed on Saturday as they gave up 34 points in the ten minutes of overtime (that would come out to 136 points over a 40 minute game).
Except for the possessions ending regulation and the first overtime and once in the middle of the second OT, West Virginia scored every time they touched the ball in the game’s last 12 minutes. That’s inexcusable, even if they were shooting lights-out from the floor.
Defense is what has killed Skip Prosser’s team all year, and it’s what ended their season prematurely in the second round.
Now the Wake Forest Demon Deacons are forced to play a game of “what-if” for the next seven months. What if Jamaal Levy could have hit one more free throw? What if the refs hadn’t made a terrible charging call on Taron Downey? What if one West Virginia shot rattled out? What if Trent Strickland’s three pointer had fallen?
There will be hundreds of what-ifs that Wake Forest players, coaches and fans will play out in the head before next season. But the most important one to ask is this: “What if Skip Prosser wasn’t the Wake Forest head coach?”
Well, for one, today we’d be looking ahead to the Deacs next game instead of sulking over their last one.
- Some other quick thoughts on Wake’s loss to West Virginia:
Wake Forest’s guards went 18-20 from the free-throw line (the two misses were the last two free throws shot by both Chris Paul and Taron Downey though). The rest of the team shot 6-16 from the line, including missing the front-end of three one-and-ones. Eric Williams and Jamaal Levy finished 3-12. If they had hit on just 50% of their attempts, Wake would have advanced to the Sweet 16.
