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The Wake Forest Demon Deacons begin conference play on the road against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets tonight at 6pm. The Jackets are currently 5-3 overall and 1-1 in the conference with a couple of good wins (North Carolina, Kentucky) and horrible losses (Mercer, Georgia State). Here’s a quick look at what could be the key matchup in Sunday’s game.
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This is really less of a one on one matchup and more of a “how on earth is Wake Forest going to stop Moses Wright?” The Raleigh native has started the season off on a tear and is currently 3rd in the ACC in points per game behind Duke’s Matthew Hurt and Miami’s Isaiah Wong. He has hit double digits in all but one of Georgia Tech’s eight games this season and scored 20 or more four times.
With the Deacs being shorthanded in every game this season, Ismael Massoud and Isaiah Mucius have both spent time playing the center role as Wake went to small ball. As a result, Wake has struggled rebounding the ball at times, outrebounding Catawba by just a single rebound and losing on the boards to Longwood by 9 rebounds. While that has not really had an impact on the overall outcome of the 3 games Wake has played this season, against ACC caliber teams, especially teams with bigs like Moses Wright, it could becomes a big problem. After all, it doesn’t matter how good a team’s defense is if they can’t secure the rebound, and offensive rebounds typically result in easy put backs and wide open 3-pointers.
With all the players missing due to injuries or covid-19, Ody Oguama is really the only available player on the Wake Forest roster who can defend a player with the size and athleticism of Moses Wright. He gave the Deacs a solid 7 points and 5 rebounds in 19 minutes against Catawba in his first game of the season, but the quick turnaround from first game to playing one of the ACC’s best big men in just 3 days could be quite the challenge. If Oguama is limited due to fatigue or foul trouble, I have no idea who Forbes will go to in order to slow down Wright.