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Deacon

Yeah I'm more bullish on this team than most. I think we'll be around the same ken-pom ranking as last year(maybe slightly worse), but should translate to a few more wins simply by regressing to the mean in the luck factor. Could see something like 21-9(11-7) and a 7-seed, while finishing around #40 in kenpom.

I know people keep mentioning all that we lost, but we still bring back more a lot more experience than most other ACC teams. If all returning players can just make a slight jump from last year, that should be close to compensate for the loss of JC and Dinos. Give me freshman Chaundee over senior Arians any day of the week.

Very surprised at how little respect this team seems to be getting. Norlander ranking us at #86 in his preseason rankings is a joke. I know it's gotta be tough to write about all 351 teams but come on.

"John Collins is balling out for the Atlanta Hawks right now. If he were still at Wake Forest, I'd have the Deacs in the top 50. Still, Bryant Crawford's going to be one of the five best point guards in the ACC. "

Crawford top 5 PG in the ACC? Okay bro...
 
I'm still having a hard time figuring out our potential for success this year, but I'm also in the bullish camp (largely because the ACC should be worse this year).

I had been worried about our frontcourt, given the losses of Collins and Dinos... But I think we have 4 capable bodies down low and less minutes to fill there than I had initially expected (playing more small ball).

Now I am worried about shooting. Less open looks from teams having to respect Collins and no Dinos to spread the floor. Had thought Wilbekin would lose a lot of minutes, but we're going to need him (and Woods) to hit some of the big 3s that Arians made last year. There were so many times last season when Arians hit 3s to stop runs when we really needed a basket and/or a change in momentum. Playing a guard heavy rotation this year makes me worry that we'll have nights when the perimeter shots just aren't falling and we won't have Collins around to make an easy basket or follow.

Overall, I still expect our defensive rating to improve significantly and our offensive rating to decline significantly... Hoping the defensive improvement more than offsets the offensive regression.
 
Last year we could dribble outside with little penetration by the guards and then hit up JC with a pass and let him score. I think now we need to have the guards attack and drive into the lane to score or pass to Doral for an open dunk, which is the sum total of his offensive game so far. As for Sam, I wouldn't look for much of anything from him except as a body when Doral inevitably gets into foul trouble, unless he can make a sudden jump in a positive way forward. Whether we like it or not, our guards will determine our success this season and the nights when they are off (like against Md) could be long nights
 
If Sarr had played his senior year in the US and been ranked at least a top 50 recruit then pundits would take us more seriously. Think he is a secret weapon for us. Will know more after the Queens game about his potential to help this season.
 
deaclite said:
If Sarr had played his senior year in the US and been ranked at least a top 50 recruit then pundits would take us more seriously. Think he is a secret weapon for us. Will know more after the Queens game about his potential to help this season.
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I think it will take a little time for him to be ready for the ACC. If he's ready against Queens, he's going to be a star quickly.

Realistically, I'd love to have him ready by mid-January. It's a new game to him. But he's got a lot of talent.
 
sportsnut said:
Last year we could dribble outside with little penetration by the guards and then hit up JC with a pass and let him score. I think now we need to have the guards attack and drive into the lane to score or pass to Doral for an open dunk, which is the sum total of his offensive game so far. As for Sam, I wouldn't look for much of anything from him except as a body when Doral inevitably gets into foul trouble, unless he can make a sudden jump in a positive way forward. Whether we like it or not, our guards will determine our success this season and the nights when they are off (like against Md) could be long nights
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Agree, I think we see Crawford, Childress, and probably Chaundee attacking even more this year. Doral's presence creates a dilemma because anyone cheating off of him to help on the dribbler has to know that if the ball gets thrown up anywhere near the rim he is going to dunk it.

My hope this year is that they can find a way to keep Doral from picking up cheap fouls. It seemed like every game he got 1 or 2 from moving screens somewhere beyond the 3 point line. Refs just salivate at calling this foul. He either needs to 100% learn to stand still or they need to stop asking him to do it.
 
sportsnut said:
Last year we could dribble outside with little penetration by the guards and then hit up JC with a pass and let him score. I think now we need to have the guards attack and drive into the lane to score or pass to Doral for an open dunk, which is the sum total of his offensive game so far. As for Sam, I wouldn't look for much of anything from him except as a body when Doral inevitably gets into foul trouble, unless he can make a sudden jump in a positive way forward. Whether we like it or not, our guards will determine our success this season and the nights when they are off (like against Md) could be long nights
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I see what you're saying, but I think the success of our team is going to be determined on what we can get from the 4 and 5. We know what we're going to get from our guards and yeah, they'll have some bad shooting nights but they're definitely the strength of the team and will carry us. If Thompson can give us 20 minutes of solid play a night and if the reports of Doral's massive improvement are true (and he can stay out of foul trouble), then we could be a very ccomplete team.
 
Our success will be determined by how well our 4s/5s play. Without someone stepping up, we will have a long season. That being said, the reports about Doral are incredibly encouraging. We have to be patient with Sarr. I can't see any way he doesn't progress, but it may take some time.

If the light comes on for Doral and Sarr, we could be a very good team.
 
RJKarl said:
Our success will be determined by how well our 4s/5s play. Without someone stepping up, we will have a long season. That being said, the reports about Doral are incredibly encouraging. We have to be patient with Sarr. I can't see any way he doesn't progress, but it may take some time.

If the light comes on for Doral and Sarr, we could be a very good team.
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RJ, do you think this year we will try to outscore people and not play D or we will try to play D and not outscore people? :p
 
MichDeac25 said:
RJ, do you think this year we will try to outscore people and not play D or we will try to play D and not outscore people? :p
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If Sarr and Doral are ready to play, we will have a much better defensive team. That being said, having them on the court a lot will allow us to run even more off of D and rebounding.

Having them behind our guards will allow the guards/SFs to play tighter D knowing they have one or two shot blockers behind them.

If they are ready, we will play better D, but will still try to score close to 80 ppg.
 
RJKarl said:
Our success will be determined by how well our 4s/5s play. Without someone stepping up, we will have a long season. That being said, the reports about Doral are incredibly encouraging. We have to be patient with Sarr. I can't see any way he doesn't progress, but it may take some time.

If the light comes on for Doral and Sarr, we could be a very good team.
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Yeah, we have the guard play to hang with anybody, but we're going to need to find a way to break up droughts when shots aren't falling. Last year, we would just give it to Collins and let him do work on the block/short corner. I'm not very confident in SJM, Moore, or Sarr being THAT type of big man, but maybe if shots aren't falling, instead of running our offense through a big maybe we can start slashing/attacking more and help set our big men up for either easy shots or put backs.
 
Point of reference:

Collins was #1 in the nation in offensive efficiency (at least 28% of possessions used)
Arians was even better if you take away the usage parameter (#1 in the ACC... List went: Arians, Kennard, Collins)

Crawford was also very good, but losing Collins and Arians (and even Mitoglou) is going to hurt the offense.
 
DeacsATS said:
We aren't going to be better on offense, so we sure as shit better improve on defense.
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Agree with this. Unlikely we will score as many ppg as we did last year, plus rebounding will likely be worse, so we HAVE to get some stops defensively to have a good season. From practice reports I have heard Danny has really coached them up on defense, and add to that more length, we should be better defensively
 
Still can't believe Kansas State shot 66% against us. Defense couldn't have been any worse last year.
 
Another thing we did really well across the board last year was shoot FT. That should remain a strength for our guards. Not sure how Chaundee shot FTs in HS. Doral has been around 50% which would be a big drop off from Collins--back in the Devin Thomas range. I'm hopeful that Doral can bring this average up because he probably will get fouled a good bit. If he stays at 50% that is lots of empty or partially empty possessions. If he can bring it up it might even prevent some fouling. I have no idea how he shoots in practice etc, but at times his stroke looks nice and at others it looks like a concentration/confidence thing.
 
Doral has good form though and decent touch, as his minutes go up and he gets more attempts I'd expect him more in the high 60's low 70's from the line.

I think the bottom line is we have absolutely no idea what to expect from our front court, and that uncertainty is compounded by the fact that the two guys that left the program were objectively terrible on defense. You look at a game like Louisville last year as arguably our biggest win - Collins/Dinos combined for over 40% of our scoring and over 50% of our rebounding. The guys with actual experience taking their place this year played 13 minutes, had no attempts, pulled one rebound, and tacked on 5 fouls between them. Then again, Louisville's front court put up even better numbers than Collins/Dinos.

Either Sarr has to be ready to go on day 1 or Doral has to have made a massive jump since last year for Wake to reach the tourney. Nice to know we have a great class coming in next year - a good season this year will feel like a bonus.
 
Agree that Doral has good form. He could be a solid FT shooter.
 
We were 7th in offense and 176th in defense last year. You’d have to think that gap shrinks significantly this season. Have to compensate loss of extremely efficient offensive players with someone guarding their damn man
 
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