WINSTON-SALEM — Fifth-year coach Steve Forbes and his Wake Forest men’s basketball team entered the 2024-25 campaign with the full expectation of achieving their fourth-straight winning season together.
Barring a late-season collapse, that goal is trending towards being accomplished.
The Demon Deacons — currently sitting at a comfortable 12-4 (4-1 ACC) record — are now justified for having even loftier hopes for their future: namely, rising as a legitimate challenger for the ACC title and achieving their first NCAA tournament appearance since 2017.
Prior to the season, Forbes provided his key factor for his squad having a successful campaign.
“For us to get to where we want to be, we have to win more on the road,” the 59-year-old coach said in October. “We obviously are a really good home team. We have the second most wins in college basketball at home in the last three years, most in the ACC. But you have to win both on the road and at home.”
Wake is now 2-3 in its five road games so far this season, contrasting from its spotless 8-0 record at home under the bright lights of Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
But with recent road wins over Syracuse (8-8, 2-3 ACC) and Miami (4-12, 0-5 ACC), as well as a 18-point home win over NC State, Wake Forest has hit its stride as of late, displaying significant potential for a postseason run as former Gonzaga guard Hunter Sallis emerges as a leading force with an average of 24 points over his past five outings.
With no consecutive losses all season, the Demon Deacons are winners of five of their past six games.
Over the weekend, Wake’s offense established itself in the paint while its stout defense held the Miami Hurricanes (4-12, 0-5 ACC) in check, forcing 14 turnovers in a 88-78 victory in Coral Gables, FL, on Saturday.
“We had good ball movement and then we had a couple of guys who made plays,” Forbes said after the game. “Cameron [Hildreth] was great and Hunter [Sallis] was awesome down the stretch. I thought we did a good job of sharing it and we got it in the lane. We outscored Miami by like 50 to 20 in the lane and those are high-percent shots. We didn’t settle for any high-contested shots or threes. That was probably the biggest key.”
The Deacs’ established backcourt of Sallis (18.6 ppg) and Hildreth (13.6 ppg) has often charged Wake’s offensive firepower, while Appalachian State transfer Tre’Von Spillers (8.8 rpg) and 7-foot forward Efton Reid III (5.9 rpg) have consistently scooped up boards for the team to enable second-chance possessions.
True freshman Juke Harris has emerged at times as a legitimate weapon; the Salisbury native recently scored a career-high 17 points in Wake’s win over the Wolfpack.
“The way he [Harris] has been practicing has been great,” Forbes recently remarked of his only freshman in this class. “He defends with physicality.”
Louisville transfer guard Ty-Laur Johnson has also factored more into the offensive game plan as of late, playing a season-high 38 minutes in a contest earlier this month and improving as a passer with assist totals that are on the rise since the second half of December.
Wake’s shooting efforts haven’t always paved the way — the squad’s 70.3 ppg ranks 287th in the country — but those numbers have improved over the past month as its 45th-ranked defense (65.8 ppg) holds the team steady on a nightly basis.
Just five games into conference play at this point, the Demon Deacons will soon be put to the test as they tangle with intrastate ACC rivals North Carolina (11-6, 4-1 ACC) on Jan. 21 and third-ranked Duke (14-2, 6-0 ACC) on Jan. 25, while a home game against Pitt (12-4, 3-2 ACC) on Feb. 1 will give Wake a chance to knock off the team that took them out in the quarterfinals of last year’s ACC Tournament.
“We have really good players,” Forbes said of his roster. “They are older, which I think will help. They’ve been grizzled a little bit, been through that. So it’s a combination of having tougher possessions defensively and having really good possessions on offense and maybe turning a little clock and not shooting it quick. It’s a fine line, and that’s the way all these games are.”
Wake Forest is set to head to Blacksburg, VA, this weekend to face a shaky Virginia Tech team (7-9, 2-3 ACC) that has only recently leveled out from a six-game losing skid earlier in the season.
