The Wake Forest basketball team got their first taste of summer league action Monday night at Forsyth Country Day School. Click through for our full report of the action!
The first game of the night was supposed to feature incoming freshman Travis McKie and senior Gary Clark against the defending champions plus the addition of former Deacon David Weaver. However, only McKie and one of his teammates showed up to the gym. As a result, the players that did make it divided up and played 4 on 4 for several minutes. Although play was very loose and not much effort was being put forth, we did get to see a bit of Mckie's skill set. He had much more perimeter skill than I expected after hearing several reports over the past few years that he was a bit of a tweener 3/4. McKie displayed solid handle and knocked down a few threes in addition to a couple drives for dunks. He was not bashful in the least and looked to score at every opportunity. We look forward to seeing much more from Travis once the rest of his teammates show up and play a real game.
The second game of the night featured C.J. Harris and Carson Desrosiers' team against the trio of L.D. WIlliams, J.T. Terrell and Tony Woods. In a tightly contested game, J.T.'s team came away with the victory, 64-61. C.J. Harris appears to have improved his quickness and was very aggressive throughout the game. Harris, who may very well be the leader of the 2010-2011 Deacs, ended the game with 16 points. He connected on a few threes and was able to convert several drives in the lane. Although his long-range shot did not fall on a few occasions, I came away very impressed with the improved C.J. Harris.
Terrell got off to a bit of a slow start and never really got it going from distance like we have often seen, but we did get to see a new side of J.T. . He made a couple very nice passes to L.D. Williams that led to crowd pleasing dunks. Terrell scored on a few nifty scoops, a nasty dunk, free throws and one or two long range shots to end with 15 points.
The battle between the big men was pretty interesting as well. Neither guy did a whole lot in the first half, but each stepped up their play for spurts in the second. Although Desrosiers clearly needs to add some strength, he is very skilled around the basket with soft touch and gets the ball up quickly to convert the opportunities he is given. He also did a good job of running the floor, rebounded well and did a solid job pushing on Tony Woods on the defensive end. Woods played pretty much how we have come to expect him to play. He still does not possess a lot of offensive skills, but works hard on both ends of the floor. Of course, he is always good for a couple rim-rattlers per game. His best highlight was probably pinning one of the rookie's layups against the backboard and giving Carson a slap on the back of the head afterwards. You can't go up soft when TWoods is around. In the end, Woods tallied 11 points and Desrosiers had 12.
The last game was supposed to feature Ty Walker and Tony Chennault, but Chennault did not arrive until halftime. Walker struggled to get involved throughout the game, but did convert a crucial and-one on a feed from Chennault in a tight game with around a minute left. Chennault, however, stole the show when he finally got onto the court. He was quicker with the ball than I expected and was nailing shots from deep. In only one half I counted 16 Chennault points, including 4-5 from deep. He also set his teammates up nicely and led his team to the narrow victory. Chennault definitely seems to be undervalued by the recruiting experts.
Overall, I thought Chennault was the best Wake player on the court tonight with Harris being a close second. We did not get to see the Ari Stewart, Melvin Tabb and Nikita game, but heard that they won comfortably behind a solid effort from all three guys. We will be sure to catch that team in action soon.
The next set of games is on Thursday, so be on the lookout for the schedule/results from those games!