Wake Forest HC Steve Forbes: "It's inexcusable not to close out the game"
Wake Forest men’s basketball lost in the championship game of the Jersey Mike's Jamaica Classic on Sunday afternoon, falling in heartbreaking fashion to Loyola-Marymount in overtime 77-75. Wake Forest held an eight-point lead with 82 seconds left in the game and squandered it — a three-pointer from Cam Shelton with under two seconds remaining sent the game to OT. After a back-and-forth overtime period, a Chance Stephens three-pointer with under a minute to go put the Lions up for good.
READ: Key Stats from Wake Forest's 77-75 loss to Loyola Marymount
“It’s inexcusable for us not to close out the game in regulation,” Forbes said. “It’s our fault and my fault. My job is to get our team ready to play the right way at the end of the game. Obviously, I didn’t do that. I'm going to have to go back and look and see what we can fix. It's very disappointing.”
The Deacs were haunted by mistakes down the stretch. Tyree Appleby turned the ball over twice in the final 1:20 of regulation, and Matthew Marsh went 0/2 from the free throw line with a chance to put Wake up by two possessions. In OT, Cameron Hildreth committed a costly turnover after getting trapped in a corner by two LMU defenders. On the last play of the game, Marsh had an open layup that would have sent the game to a second OT but couldn’t convert. As a team, the Deacs went just 12/19 from the free throw line and finished with 18 turnovers. The loss was the culmination of a multitude of small errors adding up.
“The little things are big things,” Forbes said. “They bite you and they end up getting you. That’s what happened tonight. We didn’t shoot free throws well. Our turnovers killed our defense. Can’t do that. Somehow we’re going to have to fix those.”
Wake Forest also chose not to intentionally foul Loyola Marymount near the end of regulation when the Deacs led by three points. Marsh missed two free throws with 13 seconds to go, giving the Lions the ball with a chance to tie. Fouling would have sent LMU to the free-throw line for a 1-and-1 and may have gotten the Deacs the ball back. However, no foul was committed and Wake played to get the final stop straight-up. The Lions then drilled a three to tie the game. Forbes spoke on the decision after the game.
“Hindsight is always the easiest,” he said. “Matt misses the second [free throw] and they go down and I’m not sure what they’re going to do. I can’t call timeout. Hindsight being what it is, you might [choose to foul] late but we had him right where we wanted him. He’s [Cam Shelton] not a great three-point shooter.”
“I’ll beat myself up over that," Forbes continued. “[But] they didn't have anything. They just threw up a shot and there’s no way he should’ve been able to get that off. He [Cameron Hildreth] should have been up there tighter on him so he had to drive it around.”
Despite the disappointing outcome, there are plenty of positives from Sunday’s game. The Deacs overcame a 10-point halftime deficit and clawed their way back in the second period. Appleby shined again, finishing with 19 points, eight rebounds, eight assists and three steals. Marsh had his best game of the season, going 6/7 from the field and posting 14 points and six rebounds in 27 minutes off the bench. Wake also did a lot of good things on the defensive end, forcing 18 LMU turnovers.
“To our credit, we came back in the second half and popped them good,” Forbes said. “We stayed resilient. I didn’t really have any problem with the way we defended. They made a couple tough threes, and I’m mad that we didn’t make them drive it. The reality is that the offense was terrible when it comes to handling the ball.”
Wake Forest must now bounce back — they face South Carolina State on Wednesday in the Joel. With ACC play looming on the horizon, the Deacs must learn and grow from this game in order to move forward.
“Obviously we have a lot of things we need to clean up, because the schedule’s only going to get harder.”
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Ben is a managing editor and lead contributing writer for Deacons Daily. Ben has a year of experience as the Sports Editor for the Old Gold & Black, and a year of experience as the publication’s print managing editor. He has a journalistic profile of over 40 published news and sports pieces for the Dayton Daily News.