Playbook: Wake Forest vs Boston College

The Deacs lost to the Boston College Eagles by a score of 77-71 this weekend in what was a very frustrating game for many Wake fans. The Deacs were lucky to be tied 35 all at the half, and then played what could be called one of the worst halves of basketball in recent history. In the first 19 minutes of the 2nd half, the Deacs managed to make just 5 shots (per Les Johns).

The first thing I want to look at is another great Danny Manning inbounds play. Whatever your thoughts are on Manning, there is no denying that the Deacs have been successful this season scoring on baseline inbounds plays. Here is another great one that got Chaundee Brown, who was on fire in the first half, a wide open 3.

This play involves 3 players, and they all end up setting a screen at some point. First Terrence Thompson screens for Donovan Mitchell. Thompson then curls to the opposite side of the basket off the Chaundee Brown screen. Mitchell then sets a nice screen to wall off Steffon Mitchell and Brown hits the 3. Brown finished wit 20 points and shot 6-7 from beyond the arc.

Now on to something that wasn’t so good: shot selection. The Deacs finished the game shooting 24-69, for a whopping 34.8%. That’s, uh, not great. One of the reasons Wake struggled to make shots is because they took a lot of bad shots. Let’s take a look at a few examples.

To avoid sounding like I’m singling any one player out (which is not at all what I’m trying to do), I won’t go into to much detail on these. I will just say that my point here is that you won’t win many ACC games shooting 35% from the floor, and you won’t shoot better than 35% from the floor in many games where you consistently take contested midrange jumpers 5 seconds into the shot clock.

Hopefully the Deacs can right the ship on Wednesday against the Hokies.