Gameday Items
In the last meeting, Wake Forest shot the ball better than we did, but we topped them in the other three factors, with our huge FTA advantage being particularly important. We posted our fourth-lowest TO%, second-highest OR%, and third-highest FTR in conference play, making it one of our best overall efforts this season.
Lowe stalled the Wake Forest offense for long periods and limited Jeff Teague's production by hurling a bunch of junk at the Deacs, including the box-and-one and a "1-3 and a chaser." Coincidentally, 1 beer, 3 shots, and a chaser is my first half drinking strategy tonight.
Wake Forest says they're prepared to handle those different looks, but they practiced against the box-and-one prior to the last game, too, and that didn't appear to help a whole lot.
Can we win the turnover battle, out-rebound them, and slow Teague again? I can't say that sounds likely. But I hope nonetheless.
Brief notes/links:
-- Here's a take on the game from a Wake Forest blog.
-- Ben McCauley is relishing his final college season and says he's going to "put it all out there" in his last few games. Which hopefully translates into an improvement on his 46% shooting in conference play.
-- The Pomeroy Predictor likes Wake by 13; however, when I plug just the in-conference stats into my Predict-O-Meter, it says the Deacs have a 7 point edge. That doesn't include home court advantage, though, so let's call it 10.
-- A little more of this action here wouldn't hurt: