Playbook: Wake Forest vs Duke

Welp. That’s all I have to really say about last night’s game. You can probably guess everything I’m going to say in this article because it won’t the first (or even the tenth) time. The Deacs continue to struggle on defense, causing them to give up what seemed like a billion points in the paint last night against Duke. The problem is seemingly the same problem we’ve had since Manning was hired.

You get the blow by, everyone watching the ball, and a pass to a guy for a dunk. I really don’t know what else to say about it at this point. It has been happening consistently for 4+ years.

Granted, Duke is obviously a really good team with a ton of talent that is difficult to guard, but when the other team is getting layups after made baskets, I begin to wonder whether that is a lack of ability or just a lack of concern on the defensive side of the ball.

Again, I really don’t know what else to say at this point, other than this: saying that the team needs to do a better job doesn’t actually make anything different happen. If it did, we would be the best defensive team in the country.

Unfortunately, it’s not just the defense where we have issues. The offense has become completely stagnant, to the point where it seems our whole strategy is the player with the ball attempts to score 1 on 1 while everyone else watches. If he can’t score, he passes to someone else who proceeds to do the same thing. Sometimes this works, especially when you have talented players.

But many times, we end up with possession where whoever gets the inbounds pass dribbles the ball to death and then throws up a bad shot. You are never going to be very successful on offense with that kind of strategy.

This is the reason we are 323rd in the nation in assists per game and 254th in field goal percentage. We hardly ever get an open look at the basket. Most of our shots are contested 1 on 1 moves followed by a forced shot.

Sure, we got bailed out with a goaltend here, but how many times is a possession like this going to actually be successful? I’d argue that our FG% shows — not many.