Wake Forest Taps ETSU's Steve Forbes as New Head Coach

SI's Pat Forde shares how he believes Forbes will fit into Wake Forest and the ACC

Wake Forest basketball has its new coach, Steve Forbes, from East Tennessee State. This move makes sense on a number of levels. You start with the prior relationship he had with the athletic director, John Currie. They were both at the University of Tennessee a little over a decade ago. Forbes was the right hand man to Bruce Pearl there, and Currie was executive associate athletic director. 

Forbes went on to do outstanding work first as a junior college coach, and then in his first division one coaching job at Eastern Tennessee, he averaged twenty six wins a year there, and this past season - they went 30-4. They won the Southern Conference, a really good mid-major conference, and they won the conference tournament. He would have been playing in the NCAA tournament, and I think Eastern Tennessee would have been a very dangerous team to compete with at that level. 

Wake Forest has been stuck near the bottom of the Atlantic Coast Conference, the best conference in college basketball. This really should be a team that, when things are operating well, could be a mid pack program. Maybe not up to the level of Duke, North Carolina, Louisville, Syracuse, and Florida State - but not far behind. 

Wake Forest has a great tradition, and a great emphasis on basketball. And I think Steve Forbes gives them a chance to get back up to that level. And who knows, perhaps beyond that. He's a good recruiter. He's seasoned in the non-traditional recruiting path that you now have to be adept in with transfers and junior college guys. Steve Forbes is always going to field a tough team and athletic team. They're not going to beat themselves. Wake Forest should be headed for much better days in the near future in college basketball.