Basketball season is finally here! Well, sort of. The Wake Forest basketball team will play its first of three games in the Bahamas on Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. ET against the University of Toronto Varsity Blues (INSERT JONATHAN MOXON JOKE HERE). Every Bahamas game will stream live on YouTube, and we will embed the streams on our site each day. What should Wake fans be expecting in this one?
Toronto, as Riley pointed out yesterday, beat UNLV (134 in KenPom) 80-79 on Sunday afternoon. Toronto was down 10 with 4 minutes remaining, but closed the game on a 16-5 run. The Varsity Blues, however, lost to Charleston Southern (321 in Ken Pom) 77-79 last week. They also went just 6-15 last season, so this is most definitely a game that Wake Forest should win, and win easily. If Wake doesn’t, then that’s a serious cause for concern.
The Varsity Blues are by no means a tall team. They have Miroslav Jaksic (6’10”) and Nicholas Morris (6’9”), but no other player on the roster is above 6’7”. In fact, only three players on the entire roster are 6’7” or taller. Wake Forest, however, has four players (Doral Moore, Sam Japhet-Mathias, Dinos Mitoglou, and John Collins) who are at least 6’10”. Wake should dominate the boards, points in the paint, and should also block/alter a lot of shots.
From a Wake perspective, I’m not excited to see how well our new guys perform. The actual season doesn’t begin for three more months, but this trip should give us an excellent idea of what to expect from our new players. If transfers Keyshawn Woods and Austin Arians can be impact players for the Deacs, then this team has the talent to make the tournament. That will also depend on how much Bryant Crawford, Doral Moore, and John Collins have progressed, but this should be Wake Forest’s best team since the 2009-2010 team.
What are you all most looking forward to watching?
