Wake Forest vs. Arkansas: Preview

The Wake Forest Demon Deacons will travel to Fayetteville, Arkansas to take on the Arkansas Razorbacks on Wednesday at 9 p.m. on the SEC Network. How do the teams match up on paper? We go to Ken Pomeroy's statistics to look at the four most important factors in basketball: effective field goal %, effective field goal %, rebounding % and free throw rate.

To win this game, Wake Forest is simply going to have to do a much better job at limiting turnovers. Arkansas loves to apply full-court pressure, and that is trouble for Wake Forest if trends continue. Wake Forest has turned the ball over on 28% of its possessions, while Arkansas forced turnovers on 28% of its defensive possessions.

Wake Forest does have an advantage, however, on the glass. Wake has rebounded nearly 41% of its misses, while Arkansas has allowed opponents to to grab nearly 42% of their misses. Alabama State out-rebounded Arkansas 38-27 on Sunday, which is encouraging for Wake Forest. Devin Thomas leads the way for Wake with 13.5 rebounds per game, so I expect him to shine. Free throw rate will be an interesting statistic to watch, and one that "will have to give."

Wake Forest is going to have to try and contain Bobby Portis to be successful. Portis is a future NBA player who stands at 6'11" yet still made all three of his three pointers attempted against Alabama State. He made 9 of his 11 field goal attempts and was dominant. Devin Thomas and the Greek Deac are going to have to play excellent defense without fouling. If those players get in trouble, then Wake will be in trouble. Codi Miller-McIntyre will have to contain Anthlon Bell. The junior made all four of his three pointers and finished with 20 points. Again, Wake Forest should control the rebounding battle. Hopefully Wake doesn't send the Razorbacks to the line too often.

Wake Forest  74

Arkansas   80