Wake Forest is heading into Tuesday night with one clear mission: clean up the glass.
The Demon Deacons will host Charleston Southern in Winston-Salem, N.C., and rebounding has already become the early-season problem that keeps showing up for Steve Forbes’ team. Wake Forest is 1-1, but it has been outrebounded in both games, including a 48-33 beating on the boards in Thursday’s 74-51 road loss to then-No. 24 Vanderbilt.
“They were manhandling us on the glass,” Forbes said after that defeat.
That kind of issue has been simmering for a while. Over the last two seasons, Wake Forest finished 15th in the 18-team Atlantic Coast Conference in rebounding margin each time.
Last season, the Demon Deacons were outrebounded by 1.6 per game. This season, that number is 2.2.
The good news for Wake Forest is that it has size to work with. The Demon Deacons start two 6-foot-11 players in Gavin Placide and Xander Pintelon.
Placide is averaging 15 points and 7.5 rebounds per game, while Pintelon is putting up 2.5 points and 4.5 rebounds. Kevair Kennedy leads the team in scoring at 17 points per game and ranks second on the roster in rebounding at seven per game.
“We need to go home, watch this film and learn from it,” Forbes said after the Vanderbilt game.
Charleston Southern arrives at 1-1 after a much easier night Thursday, when it rolled past NAIA school Columbia International 86-49. Anthony Ruffolo powered that win with 31 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists.
The Buccaneers also had a strong performance from 6-foot-11 Lase Olalere, who finished with 14 points and 16 rebounds. Even so, coach Saah Nimley pointed to the same issue Forbes did.
“We gave up too many offensive rebounds,” Nimley said. “That’s something as a team and a program we’re going through right now.”
Charleston Southern was picked to finish seventh in the nine-team Big South Conference in the preseason coaches poll.
In Other News...
Iowa State Loss Looks Different If Memphis Passes This Next Test
Memphis and Vanderbilt meet in Nashville with both teams still unbeaten, a tidy early-season measuring stick for two programs trying to prove their strong starts are real. The Tigers have already banked quality wins, including a road result against Iowa State, while Vanderbilt has built its own case with defense, giving up only 49 points per game and sitting among the national leaders in scoring defense.
Memorial Gymnasium should provide a revealing backdrop for a game that will say plenty about how far each team has come in November, especially with the SEC Network+ stream making it easy to keep tabs on. For Memphis, another win over a ranked-caliber opponent would add more weight to that Iowa State result, while Vanderbilt gets a chance to show its early defensive numbers can travel against a team that has already handled pressure situations. [Read more 🡒]
Wake Forests Playoff Push Now Comes Down To One Big Test
Wake Forest rolled past Merrimack 77-0 and still finds itself in a spot where every week matters, with SMU up next as the kind of matchup that can either reinforce the Deacons playoff case or complicate it. The rankings have them at No. 11 in both the AP and Coaches Polls, and the broader profile remains strong enough to keep them in the national conversation as one of the more complete teams in the country.
The analytics are backing up what the eye test has suggested for much of the season, with Wake Forest grading well across both offense and defense in the major performance metrics. Now the challenge shifts from piling up lopsided wins to handling a game that carries more weight, because the margin for error gets thinner when a ranked team is trying to turn a strong rsum into something the selection committee cant ignore. [Read more 🡒]