Wake Forest Basketball: 2019-20 season preview for the Demon Deacons
By Jacob Shames
Wake Forest Basketball brings back a ton of contributors from last season, but that team won just 11 games. Will their returning talent be enough to improve that record — and save Danny Manning’s job?
It’s hard out there in the ACC. Look no further than Wake Forest Basketball for proof.
An outsider might see the Demon Deacons‘ one NCAA Tournament appearance in the last nine seasons and take that for granted. The smallest university in the conference fighting for scraps with little hope of ever competing with the big boys.
But it hasn’t always been that way.
Under coaches Dave Odom and Skip Prosser, Wake Forest didn’t miss the postseason between 1990 and 2006. The Deacons won 339 games in that span and produced future Hall of Famers Tim Duncan and Chris Paul and a host of other NBA studs. You knew what Wake Forest was about.
Then, tragedy struck on July 26, 2007 when Prosser died after suffering a heart attack at just 56 years old. Dino Gaudio took the Deacons dancing in 2009 and 2010 but continued the trend of failing to do much once he got there and was fired as a result. Wake Forest then hired Jeff Bzdelik, who failed to make the NCAA Tournament at all in his four years and resigned due to massive fan unrest.
Under Danny Manning, the Demon Deacons have had their moments. They made the NCAA Tournament in 2017 behind a roster featuring future first-rounder and Atlanta Hawk John Collins. But five years into Manning’s tenure, the positive signs have mostly fizzled out. Wake Forest has sunk to the bottom of the ACC the last two seasons, and help doesn’t seem to be on the way.
This season, Manning at least has an intriguing young team with the potential for respectability. A lot has to go right, though — and while some sort of improvement is likely, a rapid jump into the ACC’s middle tier might be too much to ask.