By Derek DeBurger
Louisville will head to Winston-Salem to play against the Wake Forest Demon Deacons.
Despite losing two out of their last three, Wake enters Saturday’s game as one of the hottest teams in the country. The Demon Deacons won nine games in a row at one point in the season, showing vast improvement on both ends of the court. KenPom ranks Wake Forest’s offensive and defensive efficiency 30th and 60th in the country, including their slow start to the year.
The offense for Wake is what is truly scary. Wake averages 80.6 points per game, facilitated by guard Kevin Miller’s 17.8 points per game, guard Hunter Sallis’ 17.6 points per game, and two other players averaging over 14 points. They play a very fast-paced brand of basketball, ranking as the third-fastest team in the ACC.
The one negative I see is that they don’t share the ball effectively, running mostly in isolation. The Deacons rank 313th in the country in assists per game, 12.4, but a little over four come from Miller. It’s a tall task, but if the Cards can slow down Miller they won’t be able to stall Wake’s offense completely but they will limit its potential.
On defense, the Deacons are just solid. They don’t allow too many points, a high shooting percentage, or a lot of rebounds leading to second-chance points. Louisville tends to struggle against good defensive teams, and I don’t see that changing on Saturday.
Louisville—like many games this season—will be the more talented team, but enters the games as heavy underdogs, and rightfully so. Wake Forest is playing themselves into the tournament, and Louisville could not be further from any type of postseason invitational tournament.
The major difference in these teams is coaching, and I don’t have any expectation that Kenny Payne will be able to coach the Cards—who are more talented—to a win. Of course, I’m always hoping that I’m wrong.
