Turnover troubles continue as Wake Forest falls to NC State

Wake has 33 turnovers over their last two contests

Wake Forest sputtered again on the road Wednesday night, falling to the NC State Wolfpack 90-74 in a critical Quad 1 loss. The Deacs’ fatal flaws were the same as in the loss against Miami — turnovers and a lack of defensive execution. 14 cough-ups leading to 16 NC State points gave the Deacs an even slimmer margin for error against an elite Wolfpack offense.

“I thought we did a really poor job of handling the ball,” Forbes said. “Turnovers, and we don’t defend. We’re not a great defensive team. That’s why we’re not an NCAA Tournament team right now. You’ve got to do other things, you can’t turn the ball over. Because to win an NCAA Tournament game, you’ve got to do both. You’ve got to score and defend. Especially if you’re not great defensively, you better not turn it over.”

For the Wolfpack, Jarkel Joiner was phenomenal on both ends, pouring in 29 points on 12/20 shooting. DJ Burns once again found success against the Deacs, finishing with 21 points on an efficient 8/11 shooting clip.

“NC State’s got a really good basketball team,” Wake Forest head coach Steve Forbes said in his postgame press conference. “They definitely have a tournament team that can go win games. I’m really impressed with the way Joiner moves his feet. I know he can score, he was the best player on the court. I love Joiner’s mentality, his toughness. He’s an all-league guard.”

“Burns played a good game,” Forbes added. “I thought we did a better job guarding him this game. I don’t think I’ve played against too many players that post up outside the three-point line. We didn’t go to the double team to start the game, obviously he had his way there early. So we went to it and I thought it slowed him down a bit. He made a couple of tough shots too. He’s a really good player.”

The game started off at a frantic pace, with both teams lighting it up on offense. Wake Forest hit 10 of their first 11 shots and was 80% from long range through the first eight minutes of the game, holding a five-point lead at the second media timeout. However, after both teams came back to Earth, Wake got sloppy with the ball and NC State began to take control on both ends, going into halftime with a 52-46 lead.

“I think especially in the first half, a lot of things were rolling for us,” Andrew Carr said. “But when you give up 52 points in a half, that’s not the recipe for success. We knew we were going to have to try to get some stops, and we weren’t able to do that well enough to win the game.”

Disaster struck right before halftime for Wake Forest — Damari Monsanto went down with a non-contact leg injury and did not return the rest of the night. There is no other available information on his condition, but his absence from the lineup was noticeable in a second half where the Deacs scored just 28 points and went 3/15 from three.

With the loss, Wake Forest’s chances of an at-large March Madness bid have all but disappeared. It will take a Cinderella ACC Tournament run and a flawless end to the regular season to get the Deacs back to the big dance. It’s a harsh reality, and Forbes and his team aren’t sugarcoating anything.

“I’m going to be the same coach tomorrow that I was yesterday and on June 14,” Forbes said. “And they know I’m not playing. I’m coming with it. And so they’re going to come with it, or they’re going to be miserable, or they’re not going to play. They have good spirit. We gotta win these next couple at home. We gotta go to Syracuse. We go play in the tournament and see what happens. You have to play for the best seed in the [ACC] Tournament that you can get.”

Wake Forest will commence the final stretch of the regular season, with sights set on the ACC Tournament, Saturday night with a return home to the Joel against Notre Dame. Tip off is set for 7pm ET on ACC Network. 

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