How Steve Forbes brought in the transfers who keyed Wake Forest’s nine-game win streak

In Spokane, Washington, Steve Forbes sat down with Hunter Sallis and started showing him Wake Forest’s game film.

The Demon Deacons’ men’s basketball head coach was at Gonzaga last year to see Sallis, a 6-foot-5 combo guard who was a young backup on the national power. As they watched tape, Forbes explained how he envisioned Sallis fitting into his system.

Sallis, one of Wake’s top scorers this season with 17.8 points per game, remembered that meeting when he entered the transfer portal and ultimately chose the Demon Deacons. He played a key role in their recent nine-game win streak — the program’s best since 2008-09 — that included victories over Miami, Florida and Virginia Tech.

“I wanted to come and be that piece that could help us get us there, and help get us where we want to be,” Sallis told The Charlotte Observer in a phone interview. “Wake was one of the first schools that actually came to Spokane to see me when I was still in school, so that meant a lot to me.”

Sallis has played the most minutes this year for Wake (11-4, 3-1 ACC), which is set to play host Virginia at 2 p.m. Saturday. Kevin Miller, a redshirt sophomore who transferred from Central Michigan, currently boasts 17.9 points per game. Returning players Cameron Hildreth (16.9) and Andrew Carr (13.3) are also averaging in double-digit scoring.

Just over a week after Sallis committed last April, center Efton Reid decided to follow his former Gonzaga teammate to Winston-Salem. Reid, a five-star recruit in the 2021 class, had averaged 6.3 points and 4.3 rebounds per game for LSU as a freshman before transferring amid coach Will Wade’s departure.

When Reid entered the transfer portal again after struggling to crack the regular rotation last season at Gonzaga, he’d only had one phone call with Forbes, a brief conversation when he was in high school during the pandemic. Forbes didn’t even know much about Reid when he was in Spokane visiting Sallis.

Then, one of Reid’s previous coaches from when he was growing up in Richmond, Virginia, called Forbes.

“I just knew this was the right place for him,” Forbes told reporters on Monday on a video call. “After talking to him and his mother — I talked to his mother, Maria, probably for an hour on the phone one night, and I don’t usually do that — I was like, wow. And then they came on campus, and I knew this was the right place.”

But the Demon Deacons had to begin their season without their new 7-foot captain.

Reid was forced to miss the first seven games before the NCAA approved his waiver for immediate eligibility on Dec. 5. He led Wake Forest with 12 points and a career-high 14 rebounds in his debut.

“Shocking how well he handled it,” Forbes said. “Nobody could’ve handled it better than they did. There was no whining, no ‘poor me,’ none of that. He just went about his business.

”Obviously, I wanted him to play, but once the season started, I had to keep moving — and convince myself I was probably going to maybe have to coach the year without him. He handled it like a champion, and that’s a reflection back on the type of person that he is.”

Reid’s debut, which came in a 19-point victory over Rutgers, was the third of Wake’s nine-game win streak.

Sallis noticed his teammates’ maturity and energy at a particularly high level during that win streak. There’s not one leader or star on this Wake team, rather, it has a variety of players who serve different roles and boast their own skill sets.

But the Demon Deacons’ winning ways did accelerate when Reid joined them on the floor.

“He provides grown-man energy for us,” Sallis said of Reid. “He’s kinda like the older brother, to all of us. He’s the one that gets all of us in check when we’re joking around or something like that.

“He does a lot of things that doesn’t show up on the stat book, and he does a lot of things that does show up on the stat book. He’s a really good player who’s helped us a ton since he’s came back.”