You see defense and offense as interchangeable. If you are good enough at one, it can make up for a short coming on the other. As a theory that may be true.
The difference is that a coach can have a greater effect on defense than offense. If a player comes to wake with a broken jump shot, or no handles, it is a major long term project to fix. You can teach post moves and foot work but results will take a long time to really show.
Strong defense is mostly a measure of athleticism, desire, and attention. Granted that exceptional defensive play cannot just be taught, but competent to good defense can be quickly taught so long as the player has the requisite athleticism. Wake has had plenty of athletic players that routinely play bad defense. I think part of it is a lack of emphasis or an inability to teach defense.
It appears that there is also a lack of consistent effort on defense. This is likely a result of not not holding players accountable for their defense or a lack of motivation.
If you watched Ryan Odom's teams play, you could see a lack of overall talent and athleticism but their defense was better than anything in a Wake uniform in a long time.
Wake is never going to be able to recruit at a level to win with this kind of a defensive effort. I don't think any team really can.
