Wake Forest Basketball Recruiting: Juke Harris Commits!!

[DeacsATS]

Next year Wake will be as good as Ituka and "Appleby 2.0." For next year, quality of point guard will largely determine success level of team.

Of course, as the last couple of offseasons have shown, predicting a rotation ~10 months before our first game is just silly. So we'll both be wrong.

Forbes should be able to bring in a couple of portal guys that can help immediately.

 

[MichDeac25]

“I chose Wake Forest because they made me feel at home.”

Finally! The whiteness of Wake's student population worked to our recruiting advantage!

"The largest Denmark racial/ethnic groups are White (92.1%) followed by Black (3.4%) and Hispanic (3.0%)."

 

[thatguy2016]

can almost roll out an all euro lineup

All-foreign born if we go Ituka/Cam/Bobi/MMM/Marsh

 

[Deaconblue]

Of course, as the last couple of offseasons have shown, predicting a rotation ~10 months before our first game is just silly. So we'll both be wrong.

Forbes should be able to bring in a couple of portal guys that can help immediately.

"Appleby 2.0" is my shorthand for a portal guy who plays the point guard position well enough to be a legit contender for ACC player of the year.

 

[PhDeac]

Why not Alondes 3.0?

 

[DeacsATS]

"Appleby 2.0" is my shorthand for a portal guy who plays the point guard position well enough to be a legit contender for ACC player of the year.

Yeah, I knew what you meant. Definitely need another ballhandler... Preferably one that can also shoot and defend.

And if Monsanto doesn't come back, the need for a shooter obviously increases significantly.

 

[Deacsfan27]

I love Ituka's game as much as anybody, but Forbes isn't going to bet his "make or break" season (at least in some folk's eyes) on a guy who he has only seen play at the MAAC level and then practices on a bad knee here. I would expect us to go hard for an Appleby/Alondes type guy to grab the starting PG role. We should be a very enticing spot, especially if Monsanto comes back. Look for a guy with a 26-28% assist rate and shoots 35%. That's been where Forbes landed Appleby and Alondes. Ideally it's a P5 guy who is going through a coaching change.

 

[BeachBumDeac]

Of course, as the last couple of offseasons have shown, predicting a rotation ~10 months before our first game is just silly. So we'll both be wrong.

I still expect a minutes prediction post from you <1 week after the season ends though

 

[DeacsATS]

I love Ituka's game as much as anybody, but Forbes isn't going to bet his "make or break" season (at least in some folk's eyes) on a guy who he has only seen play at the MAAC level and then practices on a bad knee here. I would expect us to go hard for an Appleby/Alondes type guy to grab the starting PG role. We should be a very enticing spot, especially if Monsanto comes back. Look for a guy with a 26-28% assist rate and shoots 35%. That's been where Forbes landed Appleby and Alondes. Ideally it's a P5 guy who is going through a coaching change.

Couldn't agree more.

I'm just excited to see what a healthy Ituka can do. It's like adding a totally new player next year (though I wish he had him this season).

 

[WFUWaldo]

It was just a static image taken of a google spreadsheet I think, here was the last one that was up:

Man, there were some awful players on those teams.

Imagine if our team next year was going to be led by seniors Quadry Adams (260 minutes this year for Sacramento State) and Emmanuel Okpomo (61 minutes played this year for Temple).

 

[PhDeac]

It's crazy we have a player on this team who played with players I barely remember.

 

[BacktoBack]

I love Ituka's game as much as anybody, but Forbes isn't going to bet his "make or break" season (at least in some folk's eyes) on a guy who he has only seen play at the MAAC level and then practices on a bad knee here. I would expect us to go hard for an Appleby/Alondes type guy to grab the starting PG role. We should be a very enticing spot, especially if Monsanto comes back. Look for a guy with a 26-28% assist rate and shoots 35%. That's been where Forbes landed Appleby and Alondes. Ideally it's a P5 guy who is going through a coaching change.

Just to throw in my opinion on this. Anyone who thinks next year is a make or break year for Forbes is absolutely on crazy pills. We're not where any of us want us to be. But, the depths that we are slowly climbing out of, can't be overstated. We're on a very solid trajectory for this rebuild. There are no signs of the lethargic and lackadaisical coaching and playing that plagued the last two coaches. This guy can coach and knows how to win. It's coming

 

[myDeaconmyhand]

I’m always talking about how similar Winston Salem is to Denmark

 

[wvudeac]

That’s why they call it the Malmo of the US

 

[WRS]

Just to throw in my opinion on this. Anyone who thinks next year is a make or break year for Forbes is absolutely on crazy pills. We're not where any of us want us to be. But, the depths that we are slowly climbing out of, can't be overstated. We're on a very solid trajectory for this rebuild. There are no signs of the lethargic and lackadaisical coaching and playing that plagued the last two coaches. This guy can coach and knows how to win. It's coming

I don’t think anyone expects Forbes to be fired if he doesn’t make the tournament next year. That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if even he views it as a critical year after having two teams (likely) fall short.

 

[siff]

From one Dane to another, velkommen!

 

[DeacDownUnder]

I love Ituka's game as much as anybody, but Forbes isn't going to bet his "make or break" season (at least in some folk's eyes) on a guy who he has only seen play at the MAAC level and then practices on a bad knee here. I would expect us to go hard for an Appleby/Alondes type guy to grab the starting PG role. We should be a very enticing spot, especially if Monsanto comes back. Look for a guy with a 26-28% assist rate and shoots 35%. That's been where Forbes landed Appleby and Alondes. Ideally it's a P5 guy who is going through a coaching change.

I fear Monsanto will not be back. This NIL stuff has gotten so out of hand, and I'm certain he'll have NIL collectives reaching out to him behind the scenes. We're into the wild West now. But I'm going to keep fingers crossed that he's bombing like crazy from 3-point land over the remainder of our season.

 

[DeacDownUnder]

Just to throw in my opinion on this. Anyone who thinks next year is a make or break year for Forbes is absolutely on crazy pills. We're not where any of us want us to be. But, the depths that we are slowly climbing out of, can't be overstated. We're on a very solid trajectory for this rebuild. There are no signs of the lethargic and lackadaisical coaching and playing that plagued the last two coaches. This guy can coach and knows how to win. It's coming

Agree 100%.

 

[Deacsfan27]

I fear Monsanto will not be back. This NIL stuff has gotten so out of hand, and I'm certain he'll have NIL collectives reaching out to him behind the scenes. We're into the wild West now. But I'm going to keep fingers crossed that he's bombing like crazy from 3-point land over the remainder of our season.

That's why we use our NIL to our advantage.

I can pretty much guarantee that one of our main priorities with regards to basketball will be to keep him here for one more year.

 

[Brendan207]

Just to throw in my opinion on this. Anyone who thinks next year is a make or break year for Forbes is absolutely on crazy pills. We're not where any of us want us to be. But, the depths that we are slowly climbing out of, can't be overstated. We're on a very solid trajectory for this rebuild. There are no signs of the lethargic and lackadaisical coaching and playing that plagued the last two coaches. This guy can coach and knows how to win. It's coming

I agree. But year four of NIT or worse and certainly year five of NIT or worse would definitely be a decision point. Where I want us to be is either solidly in or at least on the bubble every year. A team that plays well enough to be considered dangerous by any opponent. I'd like to go to another Wake Forest Sweet 16 game.

Random story - At the Wake / St Josephs Sweet 16 game we sat right behind Spike Lee. After the Pitt / Oklahoma State game was over (Pitt lost) Dan Marino got up out of his amazing seats and headed for the exit. We ran down to ask if we could take his seats and noticed he was literally crying over the Pitt loss. But he kindly gave us his ticket stubs and we pulled up in the 2nd row right behind Spike (who let us take a pic with him). Just a few minutes later Lebron and Bill Cosby both came over to say hi to Spike. Danny Ainge was a few rows behind us sitting with John Thompson and John Starks (random trio I know). I went up to Danny and explained I was a big C's fan and asked if he was there to see CP3. He was a jerk and kind of ignored me altogether. I had sour grapes and told him "Raef Lafrentz sucks" (in reference to the wildly unpopular trade he had made recently where the C's sent Antoine Walker and Tony Delk to the Mavs in exchange for Raef Lafrentz and Jiri Welcsh). That got a laugh from Starks and Thompson. St Joes got the last laugh on Wake though and we left super bummed.

My buddy from Wake lost his cell phone just a few weeks later and we don't have any of the pics from the night / game.