Analysis: Two games in, Wake Forest basketball learning ‘what type of grit you have’

The first game of the Steve Forbes era showed what can happen when everything goes right for Wake Forest — a 111-51 win against Delaware State on Wednesday, the Demon Deacons’ most-lopsided win in Joel Coliseum history.

A grinding, gut-check of a 71-60 win over Longwood on Friday night showed that this isn’t an overnight or an over-the-summer-in-a-pandemic rebuild.

Both wins serve their purpose, though the closer game provides the better glimpse at what this team will be.

“No disrespect to Delaware State, I mean, they were shorthanded man, they had eight guys,” Forbes said. “We’ve gotta play some games, man. We’ve got to get stressed, you know?”

There was some stress against the Lancers (0-1), and it reached the apex with Longwood leading 43-38 in the second half. Wake Forest responded with a 16-3 run – nine of those points coming from graduate guard Ian DuBose and six coming from graduate guard Jonah Antonio – and never led by less than five for the rest of the game.

Wake Forest’s roster of transfers

When the Demon Deacons faced their first legitimate test of the season, it was a pair of grad transfers who led the way, each with a game-high 14 points.

“I would say today we learned a lot about ourselves. I mean, this is a new team, a lot of new faces and a different group of guys,” said DuBose, a Durham native who came from Houston Baptist. “To be in a game like this and be challenged and pushed, it’s good to see what type of grit you have. You saw our guys, we have fighters and we have tough guys.”

On a larger scale, Wake Forest went about 16½ minutes of Friday night’s game with only transfers scoring. DuBose scored 12 of his 14 points in the second half, Antonio had eight and in the last six minutes, East Tennessee State transfer junior guard Daivien Williamson scored six points.

A roster cobbled together with transfers can work in college basketball; but it was a necessity for Forbes, who at one point in his first week on the job had two scholarship players on the roster.

“We’ve got to have some film that we can show them, ‘Hey, we’ve gotta fix this and that, this is what happened, this is how you got down,’” Forbes said. “But the other side of it is, ‘This is how you came back. This is how you got back in the game.’”

Antonio, the 6-5, 195-pound sharpshooter who is at his fourth school in four years, had a big part in how the Demon Deacons avoided a second embarrassing Black Friday loss in the last three years. He missed his first 3-pointer Friday night, was subbed out and upon getting to the socially distanced bench area, slapped away the mini cooler next to the chair.

Maybe that jolted his shooting hand into form: He made his next four 3s and didn’t miss until the final minutes, when the outcome was all but sealed.

“I was just a little frustrated. I messed up the play, the play before, so I got subbed out. Saw the cooler, thought I’d give it a little slap, not too serious,” Antonio said. “Yeah, it might’ve got me going a bit.”

Coronavirus protocols and basketball

This opening two-game gambit to the Forbes era saw a bit of everything that could go well and could go wrong across 80 minutes of basketball.

And befitting the global climate, it came with a COVID-19 storyline in between the games.

Delaware State and Longwood canceled their game Thursday because of COVID-19 issues, reportedly a positive test among Delaware State’s players.

Despite that, Forbes said the Demon Deacons’ game Friday night wasn’t in doubt of being played.

“I think we went through our protocols. We did the contact tracing and we have a tremendous medical staff here that looked at the film,” Forbes said. “It’s tedious to sit there and clock somebody for a whole game and see where it’s at.

“I was very comfortable with our situation about it, we tested twice since the game. Going to test right now after the game (on Friday night), my nostrils are flaming.”

NBA point guards come to watch Deacs

Each game Forbes’ games so far has featured a former Demon Deacon and current NBA point guard sitting in the stands: Chris Paul was in the building Wednesday, and Ish Smith was there Friday night.

“Chris Paul, he’s a legend. I saw him, he was working out in the Shah (Basketball Complex), he was working out in the weight room, we got to talk to him for a little bit and then we saw him at the game,” DuBose said. “And I think Ish Smith was here (Friday night).

“Just continue building that culture. I mean, those are guys that we look up to and we aspire to be, so seeing them come back and support us, that’s huge.”

Wake Forest’s program as a whole is trying to come back. The first two games provide a snapshot of an upward trajectory.