Takeaways from Wake Forest's 72-70 loss to LSU

KJ Williams wreaked havoc on the Deacs

Wake Forest suffered a tough loss to LSU on Sunday, blowing a 20-point first-half lead and falling 72-70 in the game’s final moments. This is the second consecutive game where Wake Forest has fallen apart after opening up an early lead – here’s what we learned from the Deacs’ third loss of the season.

Athletic big men will pose a problem

LSU’s KJ Williams finished the game with 35 points and 10 rebounds on 14/21 shooting and 7/9 beyond the arc. Forbes rotated Matthew Marsh and Zach Keller throughout the game trying to find a solution, but nothing stuck. Marsh doesn’t have the lateral quickness necessary to stay in front of an explosive big man like Williams, and Keller isn’t physical enough yet to guard someone like that in the post. Williams is a good player who saw a hole in Wake’s defense and exploited it to the tune of a dominant performance. It also didn’t help that Andrew Carr only played 17 minutes due to foul trouble and fouled out with just under four minutes left in the game.

Forbes said after the game that the five will continue to be a by-committee position with Davion Bradford, Marsh and Keller all seeing time:

“Don’t get caught up on who starts, get caught up in who finishes,” Forbes said. “There hasn’t been a lot of separation.”

There are certainly positives to having several options available at center, but the fact that no one has emerged as the go-to guy there is troubling. Keller, Marsh and Bradford all have clearly defined weaknesses that good teams will continue to attack. You wonder how Wake will approach guarding guys like Armando Bacot and Kyle Filipowski as ACC play progresses.

Tyree Appleby can’t do it all himself

Appleby was nearly flawless against the Tigers, finishing with 26 points on six assists on 11/13 shooting. In the first half, Wake was able to open up a 20-point lead because players like Cameron Hildreth and Damari Monsanto were able to make a couple of shots in addition to Appleby himself being red-hot. But in the second half, the rest of the team aside from Appleby and Marsh (13 points, 6/6 from the field) were unable to get anything going and the team sputtered offensively.

It’s tough to stomach that the best player on the team could play such an efficient game without it being enough to come away with the win. But when other primary scorers like Monsanto (2/10 3PT) and Daivien Williamson (4 points, 1/5 FGs) have such quiet nights, the offense naturally stagnates and it becomes difficult to create quality shots.

Wake Forest also just wasn’t hitting their shots, plain and simple. They missed their last 13 three-point attempts while LSU lit it up from deep and erased the Wake Forest lead in a flash. The problem wasn’t that they were bad shots – they just wouldn’t fall.

“We maybe took one or two quick ones, but a lot of them were wide open,” Forbes said. “And they have to make them.”

Someone from the bench needs to step up

Aside from Marsh, the other four bench players that saw action were a combined 3/10 from the field for eight points. This includes Williamson, who was expected to shoulder a lot of the offensive scoring load heading into the season. I don’t inherently hate the idea of keeping Monsanto in the starting lineup, as he’s shown flashes of exceptional shotmaking ability and plays with active hands on defense (1.5 SPG).

But if Williamson is to continue coming off the bench, the team needs him to be more aggressive on offense. One make on five attempts isn’t sufficient for one of the team’s senior leaders who shot 45% from the field last year. It’s possible that Williamson is still rounding into form after dealing with a lingering back injury, so a rise in production could be on the horizon.

Forbes also hasn’t seen much production yet from the likes of Jao Ituka (3.4 ppg on 7.6 mpg) or Bobi Klintman (5.3 points on 21.4 minutes per game. This isn’t all that surprising, as Klintman is a freshman and Ituka was injured for the early portion of the season. However, with Rutgers, Duke, Virginia Tech and UNC looming in the next few weeks, it will take a collective effort from starters and role players alike to keep things competitive.

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