This is the game — a home game to a team forecast to finish toward the bottom of the league —where a loss would make me consider removing my orange and blue glasses for a hard dose of reality.
It’s not outside the realm of possibility. While we’re 3–0 against Danny Manning’s Wake teams and our fan base tends to disregard Wake as a threat thanks to the lingering stink of the Bzdelik era, two of those three wins — the Daricle last year and the Mitoglou game in 2015 — were decided by one point each, with both coming down to the final possession. The third — a 36-point Virginia win in Winston where the outcome was decided in warmups — is more my speed, but can’t be taken as the norm.
A win would be great, but there are some things we need to address first.
We’ve been decisively beaten down on the glass (surrendering 30 and 40% offensive rebound rates and 79 and 83% on D) and given up a ton of threes (21–36, 58.3%) in this little two game mini-swoon, and while the first one of those is clearly an indictment of our undermanned front line and the second is more fluky (one guy and then every guy got hot), those are both trends that Wake has the horses to extend.
Since conference play began, the Deacs — led by 6'10'’ soph John Collins and Mitiglou (still, somehow he’s only a junior) — are securing 80% of defensive rebound chances and more than a quarter of offensive boards — numbers that still look good (72.3% and 32%) when extended to the full season. Similarly, they’re hitting 40.7% of their three point tries in conference play and 39.5% overall, with four of their five starters hovering around 40% from the arc and six of their top seven guys boasting at least 10 makes for the season. Everyone orbiting the arc in their 1–4 alignment can shoot it and is more than willing.
The good news is that Wake looks more like a traditional basketball team than either of FSU or Pitt. They don’t start a 6'10'’ big with guard skills next to an anthropomorphic mountain range or roll out an assembly line of 6'7'’ wings, so we can and definitely should play two bigs against them. Mitoglou still takes a ton of threes but is not mobile and Collins, while skilled and filling stat sheets this season, is the kind of traditional post-bound big that we can run our trap against. We shouldn’t have to go unusually small to do our thing in this game. The only lineup of bigs I wouldn’t use is Reuter/Salt, as I don’t want to see either of those two trying to recover to Mitoglou behind the three point line.
Collins is the straw in Wake’s drink — he’s averaging 27.5 points and 16 boards per 40 minutes, posting a player efficiency rating of 34.9, shooting 74% around the basket, and grabbing 17.2% of offensive rebound chances when the play doesn’t go through him. Wake posts up more than almost anyone in an effort to get one of three outcomes: an easy look for Collins, free throws (he draws 7.4 fouls per 40 minutes, takes six free throws for every 11 FGA, and hits 70.6% from the line), or a kickout to any one of the four three point shooters surrounding him. It’s a flammable combination, and one that has kicked Wake’s offense up from middling (132nd last season) to very good (32nd so far this year). The Wake offense resembles the four-out look the mid-00s Orlando Magic ran around Dwight Howard, with Howard running the show surrounded by a screening and rolling labyrinth made of capable shooters.
Collins’s biggest weaknesses are foul trouble (4.9 per 40), which has limited him to the fifth-most minutes on the team, and his reliance on his strength — he has range to 10–12 feet, but mostly prefers to hammer away at the rim, where he tries (and has the explosiveness to) dunk everything. We won’t draw many fouls on Collins from designed offense from our post players (that’s not what they do other than Jarred, and we don’t do it), so we’ll need aggressive/angry forays to the basket from Devon, Darius, and London (yes, we saw it, so now we know it can happen and can expect it) to try to exploit Collins’s tendency to foul. His size advantage (he runs 6'10,’’ 235) could buy us some cheapies in loose ball situations if we get the benefit of a friendly officiating crew as the higher-ranked team at home (and not one that has checked stats from recent games).
Bryant Crawford is Wake’s other focal point — he actually leads Wake in shot attempts and assists on more than a third of his possessions used (35.8%, 34th nationally, good for 5.9 per game, doing so while being very safe with the ball (19.2% TO rate). Crawford’s lightning fast and crafty — he’s taking a lot of shots around the rim and hitting 61% of them at 6'2,’’ compared to just 35% of his threes. The onus will be on London and Devon to stay in front of him and turn him into a jump shooter first — if he lives in the lane, it opens up everything: floaters and layup attempts for him, dump offs to Collins, and open threes for their other two wings and Mitiglou. Speaking of threes, 6'3'’ Keyshawn Woods joins Crawford in the backcourt as a stellar spot-up shooter (46% on threes) and secondary initiation point when Wake restarts the offense for a second pick and roll (19.8% assist rate, 3.3 per game).
Wake is going to try to spread us out on both ends of the floor, with the shooters extending the Pack Line on one end and Collins (7.4% block rate) serving as a deterrent on the other. Fortunately, the Pitt game at least showed that our wings are willing to try to get to the rim, as Devon, Darius, and occasionally even Marial showed a willingness to try to get to the basket. We don’t have a 6'6'’ high flyer with the strength to create two outcomes (a dunk or a foul) at the front of the rim, so their efforts will have to suffice, assuming they keep it up. Hopefully, it does — the first step to drawing more fouls and being a complete offense is to be less of a midrange team (even though — shhh — that might be the strength of this team).
The key for us will be slowing Collins (it can be done — FSU held him to two points and foul fouls in 18 minutes with their parade of bigs, and Clemson used constant double teams to deny him in their 15–0 game-closing run) with post traps, but not doing so at the expense of contesting three point tries, something that should be easier against Wake than some foes, as the Deacs go 6'2,’’ 6'3,’’ 6'6'’ on the wing.
I’d like us to grab 75% of defensive rebounds and I’d like London to shoot it 12 times and have five assists, which are numbers he hasn’t hit in the same game this season, but could if he wanted to. Danny Manning likes to go to a 2–3 at times, so we’ll have to not lose our shit as we sometimes do and make crisp, smart passes for jumpers. Isaiah (or Devon) will be key in the Malcolm Brogdon facilitator role at the foul line.
Virginia:
G: London Perrantes — 6'2'’ sr #32
I love London Perrantes for how he’s shepherded this program through its greatest period of prolonged success in 30 years, BUT it’s frustrating to know that this team would be better if someone took control and also that LP is capable of grabbing the wheel and making games his like he did at the end against Pitt.
G: Devon Hall — 6'5'’ jr. #0.
Devon’s last three games: 11.7 points and 5.7 rebounds per game while guarding ones through fours and chipping in as an auxiliary ball handler.
G: Kyle Guy — 6'3'’ fr #5
Guy’s rough first start (1–7 shooting, two points) had nothing to do with The Zoo and everything to do with good D by a 6'7'’ senior. He’s fine.
F: Isaiah Wilkins — 6'7'’ jr #21
Zay’s only game without either of a steal or block was the opener in Greensboro. He’s had at least one of both in nine of our 14 games. He’s had multiples of both three times.
F: Jack Salt — 6'11'’ so #33
Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains, and sometimes your opponent doesn’t have anyone that it’s appropriate for you to guard. Jack will see another day.
G: Darius Thompson — 6'4'’ jr #51
Darius taking drives all the way to the basket area is kind of a new leaf, and one I liked seeing. His 11 points were more than he scored in seven February games last season.
G: Marial Shayok — 6'6'’ jr #4
Marial had a nice game against Pitt, and has now put up back to back double figure outings. He did whiff on a couple of rotations in the second half and is more of a black hole than ever (witness the assist rate, declining for the second straight year), but his offense is a needed boost when it’s on.
F: Mamadi Diakite — 6'9'’ fr #25
Pitt would have been different if Mamadi hadn’t gotten into foul trouble in the first half. Watching him guard Young (and picturing him getting out to contest shooters) was frustrating in the wake of what happened.
Wake:
G: Bryant Crawford — 6'3'’ so #13
Rough start to ACC play: 32% shooting, 14 assists to 13 turnovers, and four fouls in two of the three games. Three straight games with ORTG under 100 follows just one in the first 12.
G: Keyshawn Woods — 6'3'’ so #1
November: 16–25 3PT, 64%. December/January: 7/25, 28%, and three of those came in one game.
F: Austin Arians — 6'6'’ sr #34
Rebound and assist rates are both under 10 and his FT rate is under 20, so the Milwaukee transfer almost literally just shoots threes, which make up two thirds of his shot attempts. Good thing he’s good at shooting them (42.4%).
F: Dino Mitoglou — 6'10'’ jr #44
Making 39.1% of his threes, which is a bounce back to his freshman year (38.5%) after a rough soph campaign (31.8%). Chips in like a 6'10'’ guy should on the defensive boards. Is tremendously slow afoot, so I’d be disappointed if we don’t get something out of his transition defense.
F: John Collins — 6'10'’ so #20
Hasn’t fouled out of a game yet, but has committed four five times in fifteen games, including two of their three ACC contests. I covered the good stuff already.
G: Mitchell Wilkebein — 6'2'’ jr #10
Pretty sure Wilkebein was part of Loren Woods’ recruiting class. Junior guard is on a hot streak, hitting eight of 14 threes over the last four games.
G: Brandon Childress — 6'0'’ fr #0
Shut up. Randolph Childress does NOT have a college-aged child. He just took over the ACC Tournament like three years ago. Shut up. Stop.
F: Greg McClinton — 6'7'’ jr #11
Likely to be a career reserve on the wing, he’s seen his % of Wake’s minutes drop every year.
Verdict:
I know we’d better not go into a week’s break with a three game losing streak, because I enjoy Twitter and want to continue. I think we have an edge on Wake at most spots, and if we can slow half of their offense — either Collins or the four guards hocking threes — we’ll be in good shape. I have a good feeling about the kind of crowd we’ll see, too. JPJ has a way of knowing when it needs to be louder than usual, and this is one of those times — the team can use some vocal support.
