Some thoughts on Sunday's contest against Boston College.
Wake Forest has an excellent opportunity to finally snap its losing streak 11-game losing streak this Sunday evening. The Demon Deacons host the Boston College Eagles, who have not won a game in the year 2016, have lost 13 consecutive contests, and are 0-13 in the ACC as a result. On the surface it appears to be a great chance to finally get another win, and it is. But in my opinion, this game is all risk, and very little reward.
Boston College is truly terrible. I don't mean to be condescending when I say that. They are objectively terrible. They are 7-19 overall, and ranked 247th in Ken Pom. They have one of the 20 least efficient offenses in the country, and only have one player on the team with an offensive rating above 100. I will add, however, that they are top 100 on defense, which is probably a further indictment of Wake Forest's defense this season. BC's seven wins have come against the following: St. Francis NY, Central Connecticut, Harvard, Maine, Delaware, Fordham, and New Hampshire. The best win of those came against Fordham, who is currently 170th in Ken Pom. There is a very realistic chance that they do not win a game in conference play.
Ken Pom currently projects Wake Forest to win this contest 74-64 (84% win probability). If you asked me in early January if we would be sitting at 10-16, 1-13 I would have thought you were a little bit crazy. But here we are. Hell, in January I wrote that the game against North Carolina State was a "must-win" in order to stay in the hunt for the NCAA Tournament. I stand by everything I wrote in that article, and at that time we absolutely had a chance to make the tournament. We blew our early opportunities in winnable games, and then snow balled during a brutal schedule. Here we are, a few days after Valentine's Day, and we still don't have our second conference win.
Wake Forest has to win this game against Boston College just to avoid embarrassment. I'll also add that it's quite possible that Wake Forest could lose. A win, at least to me, is nothing but a sigh of relief. I'm not going to jump with joy if (hopefully when) Wake Forest beats this Boston College team. The standard needs to be higher. Perhaps I'm taking too much of a pessimistic perspective here, but I expected much better from this season. This team, at less than full strength, proved how well they could play by their 9-3 performance against a very difficult non-conference schedule. Sure, there were close wins, but the team has dropped 40 spots in Ken Pom over the past two months.
Prospect Theory tells us that we weigh losses more heavily than gains. This game against Boston College brings that theory to life. I just want it to be over.
