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The Ups
Dinos Freakin’’ Mitoglou. Okay, Dinos had just flat out absurd production. He torched the Tigers for 28 points on 10-14 shooting, 8-11 from deep. Here’s another ridiculous stat. Dinos had made 8 three point baskets the rest of the season to this point. He matched that total in one game last night. Just bonkers. No other way to put it, and there’s not much more to be said.
Dinos Wasn’t Alone. When you score 110, obviously you’re going to have a huge number of high scorers, but let’s go through the tally. Bryant Crawford had 20 points on 8-13 shooting, 2-4 from deep, 2-2 from the line. Austin Arians had 15 on 5-8 shooting, 3-5 from deep. John Collins had 15 on 5-8 shooting and a great 5-6 from the line. Keyshawn Woods notched 14 points on 6-7 shooting, 2-3 from the line; hilariously, Keyshawn made nothing from beyond the arc. Mitchell Wilbekin added in 10 points with 3-4 from deep and 1-2 from the line. It was an absolute offensive master class across the board.
Good Defense As Well. LSU shot 40% in the game, and only 4-14 or 28.6% from three. So yes, Wake Forest was on fire offensively, but even if they hadn’t been, they probably would have done enough on shooting defense to keep the win for the good guys. Also worth noting the team notched 7 steals and 6 blocks, allowing for good transition opportunities.
The Downs
Turnovers. 14 turnovers. Not good. It’s not terrible by any means, and it’s close to what can be reasonably expected over 40 minutes of hoops, but still, we can tighten up a little bit, surely. Still, our A/T ratio was good, with 22 assists to the aforementioned 14 turnovers.
Fouls, Fouls, Fouls. The Deacs notched 28 fouls, leading to 35(!) LSU free throws. That just can’t happen, That is the only part of the game I’d really call majorly ugly by the Deacs. We’re lucky that A) we shot as well as we did and B) LSU missed 11 free throws, because otherwise it could have been a whole lot different.
16 Offensive Boards For LSU. Admittedly, a lot of that is down to the fact that that’s a big part of LSU’s identity, but Wake easily could have dominated even more if they had been able to more effectively clean up the glass.
The Bottom Line
That was...awesome. I’m going to out myself as a wrestling fan here and say that on that night, the Deacs were Brock Lesnar, Three Point City. It wasn’t flawless, but offensively, it was darn close to perfect, and defensively itt was good enough that you’re certainly not going to be mad about it. Now admittedly we might lose some people to the league (I hope not) but think about this. We have no seniors (except Austin Arians). Our major core are sophomores. We’re on a clear upward trajectory. Honestly, this game was an amazing early Christmas present. Let’s get a bowl win on the 27th, shall we?
On to the next. Go Deacs.
—SF