Takeaways from Wake Forest's 88-79 loss to UNC
Wake Forest dropped their second ACC contest of the year on Wednesday, falling 88-79 on the road to UNC. The Deacs put up a valiant effort but turnovers gave the Tar Heels a few too many easy buckets. Here’s what we learned from Wake’s fifth loss of the season.
Bobi Klintman is close to breaking out
It was an encouraging night for Wake’s bench players. Daivien Williamson had a great first half, scoring 10 points on 4/7 shooting. Davion Bradford went 2/2 from the field for 4 points in 12 minutes and held his own against Armando Bacot in the paint on defense. Klintman’s statline is a little less impressive at 1/4 from field, but he had several flashes that showed me he’s almost ready to produce in a big way.
With eight minutes to go in the first half, Bobi got an offensive rebound and was fouled on the putback, making the bucket and finishing the three-point play. Just a few possessions later, he got another offensive rebound and went up for a corner three, drawing another foul and drilling all three free throws. Six points and two offensive boards in the span of about a minute of gameplay is exceptional production — the next step for him will be playing efficiently and with confidence throughout longer spans on the floor.
The problem with Bobi this season has been, at times, a lack of confidence. There are moments where he’ll pass up an in-rhythm three because the shots haven’t fallen yet (36.7% FG, 21.7% 3PT), but I’d argue that the team needs him to take those shots. I’ve watched Klintman in practice and know he’s fully capable of scoring at a high clip from anywhere on the court.
In the past couple of games, Klintman has done a nice job of taking the ball to the rack strong and generating quality looks around the rim. He simply just has to finish them. - Conroy
Wake Forest is a different team on the road
Wednesday’s matchup was Wake’s third road loss of the season, and the other two defeats have come at neutral sites. Conversely, the Deacs are a perfect 9-0 at home in the Joel. The lone road victory for Wake Forest was arguably their best of the season so far, a 78-75 win over Wisconsin in Madison where Tyree Appleby caught fire for 32 points.
Aside from that game, however, last night was the team’s best effort in a road contest — and they still lost by nine points. Granted, Wake has had a remarkably tough slate of road opponents to this point, facing Clemson (77-57 L) after a brutal travel week, Rutgers (81-57 L), Wisco (78-75 W) and now UNC in true road games so far. Even so, the drop in performance away from home can’t develop into a pattern throughout ACC play. In this conference, there are no easy road environments, especially in a year where it seems like every team is capable of beating or losing to every other one. Wake has no choice but to figure out how to grind out road wins or they’ll risk sinking to the bottom of the pack. They’ll have a great chance to right the ship against a poor Louisville team on Saturday afternoon.
Some growing pains, especially on the road, are to be expected from a group with so many transfers and young players. And there was a lot to be encouraged about from last night’s game — for much of the night, Wake stuck around and arguably outplayed the Tar Heels, even taking a five-point lead a little over five minutes into the second half. Andrew Carr rebounded from a poor first period to finish the game with 16 points on 7/11 shooting. However, down the stretch, UNC’s veteran starpower took over and Wake crumbled a bit under the pressure.
The one thing you can’t do in hostile environments like the Dean Dome is let the crowd control the game for extended periods of time. Late in the second half, though, Wake coughed up several turnovers that led to breakaway dunks or layups and explosions from the Tar Heel faithful, killing any momentum Wake might have had. The tough task of clawing back into the game is made even tougher with the excess of energy in the building. - Conroy
The ACC has no dominant teams
This takeaway is partly a reflection from this game, but also from the action around the league yesterday and in recent weeks. Entering this season, North Carolina, Virginia, Duke and even Florida State seemed capable of winning 15 or more games in ACC play. However, none of these teams are as strong as they were supposed to be, plus a chunk of the middle tier of teams are better than they were supposed to be.
To everyone’s surprise, Clemson and Pittsburgh are the two 4-0 units, yet they both reside outside the KenPom top 50. As great as these teams have been, nobody is expecting them to finish the season at the top of the standings, or become the teams to beat in the conference. In my Week 8 Power Rankings, I claimed that Duke, Miami, Virginia, and North Carolina were the four best teams in the conference. I stand by that, but since then, Duke just lose by 22 to NC State, Miami lost to my No. 14 team in the ACC in Georgia Tech, and Virginia blew a double-digit lead to Pitt.
While North Carolina took care of business over Wake Forest at home, the Deacs were very much in the game until the final few minutes. The preseason No. 1 team is now unranked with five losses. I’m not saying their March Madness run last season was a fluke, but they haven’t shown yet that they can play at that level consistently.
Point is, this is a very tight and balanced conference. Teams will evolve over the course of the next two months, but at the moment it’s evident that there is no team that Wake Forest won’t be able to compete with. This league is completely up for grabs, and the gap between the the best and 10th best team seems smaller than ever before. - Odjakjian
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