Wake Forest Basketball Season Preview: Can Wake Make the Postseason?

[CumberlandDeac]

Is it true McClinton might only be a few weeks away? Redshirt has been taken off the table I assume?

He definitely won't be redshirted. Buzz said a few weeks, so we'll see exactly what that means. But I'd expect him to be back by Christmas.

 

[morrison2951]

As it is, Buzzdick is our coach, and we play awful D and therefore can't win on the road. So we'll win an uninspiring 13-15 and miss out on postseason play.

Skip's teams also didn't play any D, but his philosophy was to win the game 100-99...and they were fun games to watch!

 

[TBDeac]

Solid player by player analysis. I'm not sure why at the beginning there is such a focus on replacing CJ's production when even the team with CJ didn't sniff the post-season.

 

[bym051d]

SHAKA'S COMING!?!

Shaka is coming, Shaka is coming...

 

[BabyDeac75]

"[Redacted] recently said that Green could be back after Christmas, but at this point it's very difficult to predict what exactly to expect out of the big man."

Yeah, but how long after Christmas? Next year? Misleading at best by Bz. He might be back after Christmas implies that he might play this season. However, it is not difficult to predict what to expect ... do not expect anything from DGreen this year.

 

[CumberlandDeac]

"[Redacted] recently said that Green could be back after Christmas, but at this point it's very difficult to predict what exactly to expect out of the big man."

Yeah, but how long after Christmas? Next year? Misleading at best by Bz. He might be back after Christmas implies that he might play this season. However, it is not difficult to predict what to expect ... do not expect anything from DGreen this year.

I agree with you, Baby. At the practice I attended he barely participated in any drills (mostly just passed around the perimeter with coaches during defensive drills). He didn't look like a player who could contribute much, if anything, this season.

 

[CumberlandDeac]

Cville, I am too young to remember any of the teams of the 70s and the 80s (I was born in 1990) and obviously the talent level of college basketball has been diluted by the 1 and done rule and teams now are not as strong as the late 90s or early 2000s, but I still maintain our conference schedule is very difficult at least relative to the competition available in today's college basketball game. That's certainly not to make an excuse for this team, but I believe it's just a fact. I think you're underrating how good teams like Pittsburgh and Boston College are.

 

[ironwill24]

our OCC schedule is so easy that we are almost guaranteed to make NIT...then again this is Wake under Wellman so maybe no

 

[TBR]

Cville, I am too young to remember any of the teams of the 70s and the 80s (I was born in 1990) and obviously the talent level of college basketball has been diluted by the 1 and done rule and teams now are not as strong as the late 90s or early 2000s, but I still maintain our conference schedule is very difficult at least relative to the competition available in today's college basketball game. That's certainly not to make an excuse for this team, but I believe it's just a fact. I think you're underrating how good teams like Pittsburgh and Boston College are.

The conference schedule is certainly difficult compared to our own recent past. The '11-12 ACC was historically bad (this was largely the source of our improved win record versus the previous year, not any addition by subtraction bullshit). The ACC got a fair bit better the next year and will improve just as much this year.

 

[RacerDeac]

lol i look forward to RacerDeac to help them get that thing up and running so we can read those articles.

I've offered my services to put together his "blog" (I think he means forums), at a discounted rate mind you, to Jason. So far, no response. anda:

 

[RJKarl]

"[Redacted] recently said that Green could be back after Christmas, but at this point it's very difficult to predict what exactly to expect out of the big man."

Yeah, but how long after Christmas? Next year? Misleading at best by Bz. He might be back after Christmas implies that he might play this season. However, it is not difficult to predict what to expect ... do not expect anything from DGreen this year.

Daniel will be back after Christmas, but maybe not this Christmas.

 

[RJKarl]

our OCC schedule is so easy that we are almost guaranteed to make NIT...then again this is Wake under Wellman so maybe no

If we go 11-2 OOC(everything would have to break in our favor), 6-12 (that's optimistic) and 0-1 in the ACCT, we'd end up 17-14.

That's truly up in the air for the NIT. It's extremely likely that 17-14 won't get us into the field.

 

[morrison2951]

If we go 11-2 OOC(everything would have to break in our favor), 6-12 (that's optimistic) and 0-1 in the ACCT, we'd end up 17-14.

It's definite that 17-14 won't get us into the NIT field.

FIFY

 

[Wakeforest22890]

Cumberland, your assertion that our conference schedule is "very difficult" misses the mark. Either that or you're too young to remember what ACC hoops was like in the 70s, 80s, 90s and early 00s. Bob Staak's ACC schedule was beyond very difficult - it was brutal. Now the ACC only has a handful of very good teams (Dick, UVA, Cuse, ND and UNC), and most of those we only have to play once. And for each of those good teams, we get 2 games against mediocre or bad teams (Miami, Clem, GT, VT, NCSt, FSU, BC, Md and Pitt). Add to that Buzzdick scheduled mostly OOC cupcakes outside of his Caribbean excursion. I would assert that this schedule is not "historically competitive" when compared to Wake schedules of the past 40 years.

I would completely disagree with regards to the ACC point. The ACC this year is going to be very, very talented. With more teams and mid-majors being more competitive it's hard for a conference to have THAT many teams that are in the top 25, but with seven of the top 37 teams in the country in the ACC at this point it is clear that this schedule is in fact very difficult as far as the ACC portion goes.

Travis is pretty consistent. He only had eight games last year where he was below the 100.0 efficiency mark. 100.0 is the average player.

 

[CumberlandDeac]

Our chances of winning an ACC Tournament game this year are higher than the past several years because the tournament will begin on a Wednesday this season and "feature" the bottom six teams in the conference. If you want to argue it's not much of an accomplishment to "advance" to Thursday of the tournament I'm not going to disagree.

 

[Wakeforest22890]

FSU went 18-15 last year and got into the NIT with a non-conference schedule ranked 218th. I don't know where Wake's rank will be but I would guess between 250-300 maybe?

 

[cville deac]

Cville, I am too young to remember any of the teams of the 70s and the 80s (I was born in 1990) and obviously the talent level of college basketball has been diluted by the 1 and done rule and teams now are not as strong as the late 90s or early 2000s, but I still maintain our conference schedule is very difficult at least relative to the competition available in today's college basketball game. That's certainly not to make an excuse for this team, but I believe it's just a fact. I think you're underrating how good teams like Pittsburgh and Boston College are.

Pitt may be decent, but BC is mediocre. No offense, but your youth is completely clouding your judgment. 20-40 years ago we had 7-9 ACC teams. At least half the ACC had the ability to get to the final-4 back in those days. So most of your ACC games were brutal. Take the late 70s to early 80s for example. UVA was at its zenith with 2 final-4s with Ralph, Lamp, Raker, Othell, Miller, Jones and Carlisle. UNC won a natty with Jordan, Worthy and Perkins, and that was after Phil Ford. Dick had a final 4 in the late 70s and had Gman, Banks, Spanarkle and Dennard, and that was before Coach Relationships. NCSt won a natty. We had guys like Skip Brown, Rogers, Young, Rudd, Johnstone, Johnson, Teachey and Morgan. And MD should have had some final-4s with King Albert and his Court - Williams, Manning, Graham and Gibson. So please pardon me if I'm not wowed by how tough our conference schedule is this year. Sure, the addition of ND, Pitt and Cuse adds some badly needed quality, and it's a bit tougher than it was last year or the year before. But it ain't nothing like it was 10 years ago, 20 years ago or 30 years ago.

 

[Wakeforest22890]

BC is a top 40 team. If you take the top 9 teams in the ACC now and compare them to the 9 teams in the 90's that were in the ACC, I think it's likely that they are within a relative margin of one another. "Half of the ACC" having the ability to get to the Final Four these days would require 7 or 8 teams have that ability. That's simply not likely given the improved nature of mid-majors and the larger conferences. The ACC certainly has four or five teams this year that could reach the Final Four in my opinion.

 

[wsc8521s]

FSU went 18-15 last year and got into the NIT with a non-conference schedule ranked 218th. I don't know where Wake's rank will be but I would guess between 250-300 maybe?

I have a feeling FSU was helped out by being a very good team the two years before. Not something we can exactly say

 

[CumberlandDeac]

I'm just not sure I see the relevance to saying whether or not our schedule is difficult compared to an ACC schedule or the 70s/80s/90s. It's a difficult conference schedule for the 2013-2014 season and that's all they would be judged on if they were being judged by the NCAA Tournament selection committee (not saying this team has a chance at even getting close to bubble consideration). Would they say Wake's hypothetical win over North Carolina wasn't that impressive because Michael Jordan wasn't on the roster? No, they would look at it as a win over a top 10 opponent. Our conference schedule is difficult by 2013 standards and that's all that matters. I don't think we need to schedule John Wooden's UCLA Bruins led by Bill Walton to say we faced a tough opponent.