The Basketball Tournament: No. 5 Wake The Nation “Upset” by No. 12 Showtime 68-55

It was not the debut that Wake The Nation wanted in The Basketball Tournament, but hopefully it will show the team what is needed to compete moving forward. The twelve seed Showtime dominated after a sluggish first quarter en route to a 68-55.

Since it is a single-elimination tournament, this is all she wrote for the Deacs alumni team. It was the first ever win for Showtime in The Basketball Tournament in their five year history.

While Wake The Nation was the five seed, there is very little doubt that Showtime was the better team, and they used their knowledge gathered from the past four TBT’s to put together a team that the Deacs simply could not keep up with.

The first quarter was slow and sluggish for both teams, and six of the 22 points came in the final 30 seconds on a Ty Walker ‘“and-1”, followed by a half-court heave by Showtime to tie it at 11 heading into the second quarter.

The second would prove to be the defining quarter, as Marcus Posley, a former St. Bonaventure guard hit three after three on pace to 21 points at the half and a 38-26 Showtime lead.

Posley would finish with 26 points.

The Deacs shot 5-17 from 2’s in the first half, and simply could not score the basketball.

Travis McKie and LD Williams put forth a lot of energy and effort in the 4th quarter to make things a little bit more interesting, but it was a case of too little too late. A 2-1-2 full court press and a devolution into more of a pickup style play proved to be successful for the Deacs.

The lead was actually cut to 9 at 61-52 when The Elam Ending kicked in and made the target score 68 points.

Unfortunately, Showtime got the ball first and was able to knock down a quick two, courtesy of Posley.

Williams and McKie led the Deacs with 14 points apiece.

Had Wake been able to knock down some shots in the first half, or perhaps picked up the pace earlier then it could have been a different game altogether.

There were a couple of fun highlights, and an impressive dunk by LD Williams early in the game.

Wake seemingly had a lid on the rim for most of the game, and didn’t get a lot of help at all inside from Ty Walker and Eric Williams, the latter of whom was plagued with foul trouble, bringing back fond memories of his time in the ACC. Missed layup after missed layup was the story for most of the game.

The conditioning of some of Wake’s guys was certainly in question, and Showtime was quite frankly just the better team for most of the game.

As the announcer said towards the end of the third quarter, “ this isn’t 2009 anymore,” and unfortunately fatigue was a big problem throughout the 36 minutes.

If Wake is going to bring back a team in the future then it will need to get guys who are in game shape, or some younger alums who can keep up with opposing players who are right out of college.

Overall it was great to see some former Demon Deacons representing the jerseys again, but what could have served as a fun summer respite given the current landscape of Wake Forest basketball quickly turned into another frustration for fans.