Lost in all the Ben Simmons talk: Wake Forest gets another big win
You probably heard LSU fell for a fifth time Tuesday night. You probably heard all of those losses have come against opponents outside the AP Top 25. You probably heard the Tigers are in serious jeopardy of wasting Ben Simmons’ lone college season if they don’t turn things around in SEC play.
All of those statements are accurate, but they ignore one salient point: The team that beat LSU on Tuesday night has earned some attention too.
With its 77-71 road win in Baton Rouge, Wake Forest closed the non-conference portion of its schedule with an impressive 9-3 record. The Demon Deacons own quality wins over Indiana and UCLA and the LSU victory could also be noteworthy by March if the talent-laden Tigers ever manage to play to their potential.
Wake Forest’s strong start suggests it has a chance to contend for its first NCAA bid since Dino Gaudio’s final season in 2010. The Demon Deacons went 17-51 in ACC play during Jeff Bzdelik’s four nightmarish seasons in Winston Salem, however, they’ve made progress under second-year coach Danny Manning.
Six-foot-9 senior Devin Thomas has emerged as a dominant and consistent interior force who averages 16.6 points, 10.5 rebounds and 2.0 blocks despite drawing frequent double teams. Guard Bryant Crawford and forward Konstantinos Mitoglou are both dangerous perimeter shooters and last year’s leading scorer Codi Miller-McIntyre is still rounding into form after missing the first eight games of the season due to injury.
While Wake Forest turns the ball over far too frequently and sometimes struggles to string together stops, the Demon Deacons have still managed to consistently win tight games so far this season. They’re 6-0 in games decided by six or fewer points, a trend that continued in Baton Rouge on Tuesday night.
LSU built a five-point second-half lead thanks to an aggressive zone defense that made it difficult for Wake Forest to get the ball inside to Thomas. Too often the Demon Deacons either settled for 3-pointers or forced passes into the teeth of the zone, resulting in a stretch of six turnovers in seven possessions midway through the second half.
That stretch might have doomed Wake Forest against a more well organized opponent, but LSU could never pull away. The Tigers shot 2-for-14 from behind the arc, surrendered 14 offensive rebounds and committed 17 turnovers of their own. Simmons had 21 points and 12 rebounds, but even his stat line felt like it could have been better had he been more aggressive going to the post when Wake Forest defended him with 6-foot-3 Miller-McIntyre.
Wake Forest made LSU pay for not delivering the knockout punch when Mitoglou and Crawford caught fire from the perimeter in the game’s final six minutes. Two 3-pointers apiece from both players forced the Tigers out of their zone and gave the Demon Deacons a 67-62 lead they never surrendered.
Whereas Wake Forest should be proud of its 9-3 non-conference record, LSU should be embarrassed that it could only go 7-5 against a tissue-soft non-conference schedule. The Tigers have lost to all five top 140 KenPom teams they’ve faced: NC State, Marquette, Houston, Charleston and now Wake Forest.
It will now take one heck of a turn-around in SEC play for LSU to get Ben Simmons to the NCAA tournament, but that shouldn’t be the only storyline from Tuesday’s game.
Save some attention for Wake Forest, which has endured five rough seasons and now finally has reason for optimism.
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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
