Wake Forest Basketball: 5 candidates to replace head coach Danny Manning
By Joey Loose
2. Steve Forbes (East Tennessee State)
The general theme of these candidates is a young, successful mid-major head coach with connections to the area or program. While Forbes bucks from that trend slightly, it would be irresponsible to say that he wouldn’t be a fantastic hire for the Demon Deacons. He’s coached for over three decades at a lot of schools but has certainly shown his prowess as a head coach in recent years.
Forbes has spent time as an assistant under Bruce Pearl, Porter Moser, and Gregg Marshall among others, while nearly winning a junior college national title at Northwestern Florida State earlier this decade. The real success has come since his hiring in 2015 at East Tennessee State, leading a complete revolution for the Buccaneers. Inheriting a program with limited success in recent year, Forbes has won a pair of SoCon titles, including a 30-4 mark this past season. This ETSU team had the ability to make a legitimate run had the NCAA Tournament not been cancelled.
Forbes is a candidate that a number of power conference schools would gladly scoop up and Wake Forest should be no different. He has the experience and energy to revolution the Demon Deacons program like he’s done with the Buccaneers in just five years. While Forbes doesn’t possess the geographical familiarity that some of these other candidates have, clearly the head coach at Wake Forest has the ability to look beyond North Carolina to build a competitive team.