I’m not saying Wake Forest struggles on the road under the tenure of Jeff Bzdelik. I really don’t have to. The numbers do it for me.
The overall record in 3+ years is 45-64.
ACC Record: 12-40
Home ACC games: 11-13
Road ACC games: 1-27
Last road win: January 21, 2012 at Boston College.
This is year four of the Jeff Bzdelik experiment for Wake Forest. It has led to billboards, anger, apathy and diminishing attendance in Winston-Salem. In Boulder, Colorado I have to believe Buffalo fans still send yearly thank you cards to the WF AD for plucking Bzdelik away from them. Allowing for the hire of Tad Boyle and real success on the court.
Whatever good feelings Wake had about their big home win against UNC last Sunday, went out the window by Wednesday as the Demon Deacons got decimated by 23 in Charlottesville by a disappointing Virginia squad while UNC was losing to Miami.
Wake Forest has made very small improvements each season, but this is still a team that does not handle the road well. In the six road or neutral site games, WF is 1-5. They beat USC, and gave Kansas more of a game than anyone thought. But after that, it’s bad.
Needless to say, this would be a really bad loss. Sooner or later Wake is going to win a road game in the conference. No ACC team wants to be the one to crap out to them.
Not a lot of optimism from WF partisans or from others looking at the game for an upset.
Other stories.
Durand Johnson enjoyed beating Maryland.
Wake’s third leading scorer is a 5th-year, graduate transfer from Robert Morris.
The locals had pieces focusing on Mike Young and Jamel Artis playing and competing for the 4-spot.
Young said learning how to play great defense has only been one part of the growth process for him as a freshman, and that he and Artis have committed to becoming great defenders. And he said the two make each other better every day in practice because they compete and work hard.
“We can learn from each other,” Young said. “I tell him every day, come at me as if you were coming at someone you don’t know. Play me your hardest and I will play you at my hardest every day and that is the only way that we are going to get better. Coach, for the most part, he just wants us to go out there and focus on playing defense and rebounding, so that is what we do. We run the offense and just try to play how we know how to play.”
Finally Will Graves of the AP with a piece on Pitt.
It is a noon game. It is on ESPN3.com. But it is also being shown on the ESPN FullCourt pay-per-view channels. Find it on your cable/satellite provider because it is free preview week so you don’t have to watch on the computer.
Somebody else fell in that spot on the court earlier in the half. Wonder if it was wiped up properly, cause you could see his feet sort of slipped out from under him.
Crap, he had an open look when he caught the pass I believe and was trying to get a better shot.
He was our big gun off the bench. Maybe Chris Jones can step it up a bit. He’s got an opportunity.
Heal well, heal fast Durand Durand.
…and so am I.
took 25% of the teams shots, involved in 22% of offensive possessions, played 50% of the minutes.
Big loss, that provides opportunity for Newkirk and Jones.
But, Jones is supposed to have surgery, after the season, on his hand. It will be difficult to replace Johnson’s offense. Jones showed good defensive ability in Raleigh. I hope the Jones can show, in league play, what he displayed in Greentree.
I hope DJ has a successful surgery and a complete and rapid recovery.
Jones may get in the action as well but I read the same article about his hand.
Newkirk seems to have a good three point shot as well, sure we will see more of it.
Really too bad though, Johnson is a very likeable player.
We have been very lucky in the Dixon era, someone mentioned Mike Cook, but I can’t remember other season ending injuries. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.
Maybe we have a great S&C coach.
I was turned off by Penn State after they terminated the rivalry with Pitt, but they always found time to play Temple, Akron, Toledo, et al.
Penn State, specifically Paterno, is the reason there was never an all Eastern conference and we all know it.
For what it’s worth, Pitt could have been in the Big Ten twice. The B10 picked Michigan State over Pitt after the University of Chicago dropped varsity sports. they could have taken Pitt again, but decided on Maryland and Rutgers in the vain attempt to spread their cable network.
We’re better off in the ACC.
Glad it happened now rather than later, but this is big losing his FT’s and big 3’s and even his length for rebounds and defending.
Now, next man up. And, if DJ is Mike Cook, then someone has to be Levance Fields.