Wake Forest lost 87-71 to UNC tonight (Jan. 21). Here are five quick takeaways and interesting soundbites from Danny Manning.
Timothy Valshtein/Old Gold & Black
“Guard your damn man”
UNC had their way in the paint tonight, scoring the overwhelming majority of their buckets from within 10 feet. Kennedy Meeks and Brice Johnson, the two North Carolina bruisers, owned the Wake Forest interior, bulldozing Dinos Mitoglou, Devin Thomas and Codi Miller-McIntyre. Backing down and shimmying around the Wake Forest bigs with a variety of moves, North Carolina put on a clinic around the basket tonight as they shot 60 percent with only 3 three-pointers. The shot selection was excellent from North Carolina, as they had 50 points in the paint. Head coach Danny Manning had this to say about the Deacon’s defensive effort tonight: “guard your damn man.”
Charity stroke struggles
Wake Forest struggled from the free throw line tonight, making only 16-of-26 of their foul shots, shooting 62%. Considering the majority of Wake’s offense comes from the slashing of Codi Miller-McIntyre or the low post play of Devin Thomas, North Carolina felt comfortable tonight stopping the easy buckets those two normally make and replacing them with low-percentage takes from the charity stripe. Clearly, this strategy worked in nulling Wake’s recent outstanding rebounding numbers, and expect to see it replicated in the future if the Deacons cannot improve from the line.
Rebounding
Wake Forest was out-rebounded by 36-34 tonight, which is unusual. They held a five rebound advantage on the offensive glass, but it had no noticeable effect on the score, because Wake chose to settle for outside jumpers due to Carolina’s zone defense. As Roy Williams said, North Carolina “played more zone tonight than they had the entire season put together”, which drained the clock and didn’t allow Wake to get in their usual rhythm on the glass. Although Coach Danny Manning was pleased with the shot selection against Carolina’s zone, the execution was not there for Wake.
“We did alright”
Wake Forest did do alright on Marcus Paige tonight, said freshman guard Mitchell Wilbekin, limiting Carolina’s most prominent offensive threat to a relatively quiet, yet productive 12 points, eight assists and three steals. Wilbekin spoke on the defensive effort put forth tonight, stating that it’s “a team effort, containing a guy like that. He’s a good player, and at times we guarded him well … but we didn’t compete tonight the way we should have and the way we have been.” While limiting Paige definitely hindered the flow of the UNC offense, the massive effort put forth by the trio of Meeks, Johnson and freshman Justin Jackson was too much for the weak interior defense of Wake Forest to handle.
“Being pissed off”
Wake Forest will look to get their first ACC road win of the season Saturday against Clemson, but according to head coach Danny Manning, the key to achieving that goal will be to “not let this game affect us in a negative way.” Wake hung with the Tar Heels for the entire first half of tonight’s matchup, and there’s no reason why the Deacs cannot sustain a strong effort for 40 minutes against a team with much less offensive firepower than UNC. “Being pissed off from this game” will be crucial to improvement as the season wears on and the deacons look to secure a decent ACC record.