Playbook: Wake Forest Bullies Boston College

In case you happened to be watching football all day yesterday, the shorthanded Deacs won in blow out fashion over the even shorter handed Boston College Eagles by a score of 80-62. While the Deacs were missing Chaundee Brown (13.3 pts, 6.5 reb) and Isaiah Mucius (6.6 pts, 4.5 reb), the Eagles were without 4 of their top 7 players in Nik Popovic (11.8 pts, 5.9 reb), Jared Hamilton (8.8 pts, 2.5 reb), Steffon Mitchell (6.9 pts, 8.9 reb), and Julian Rishwain (5pts, 2.2 reb). That left Luka Kraljevic—who plays just over 6 minutes per game—as the only player on Boston College over 6-7. The Deacs wisely took advantage of that and absolutely dominated the Eagles in the paint.

With Isaiah Mucius out of the game, Manning decided to start both Olivier Sarr and Ody Oguama for the first time this season, likely due to the fact that Boston College had no way to stop them. Sarr finished with 14 points on 4-9 shooting and 13 rebounds, picking up his 6th double-double of the season.

Ody Oguama had the best game of his Wake Forest career, picking up his first ever double-double with 16 points on 6-9 shooting and 10 rebounds.

Like the Monstars figuring out they’re bigger than Mr. Swackhammer at the end of Space Jam, the Deacs realized early on in this one that they could pretty much do whatever they wanted to a much smaller team. Kraljevic was completely outmatched and fouled out of the game with 13 minutes left in the 2nd half. Wake went on to out rebound the Eagles 44-27 and almost had as many offensive rebounds (12) as the Eagles had defensive rebounds (18). The domination in the paint opened up things outside for the perimeter players, and the Deacs hit 10 of their 23 3-point attempts (43%).

The final thing I’ll say about this game is that the Deacs moved the ball well and finished with 16 assists, the most they have had in any game since November. Unfortunately, they once again finished with 16 turnovers, so they will need to clean that up before heading to Clemson on Tuesday.