Wake Forest and Stanford will tip at 6:30 pm (EST) in what will be the Deacs’ first home game since students returned from winter break. Wake is now 12-4 on the season and 4-1 in ACC play. Stanford is 11-5 (3-2) in its inaugural ACC season and inaugural season for Coach Kyle Smith.
The two schools are within 9 KenPom ranks of each other, and the site’s model projects a 5-point victory for Wake. Tonight’s match projects to be a tightly contested one, but here are three keys to hopefully ensure a Wake Forest victory:
1. Three Point Shooting
Three-point shooting has been inconsistent for Wake thus far, to say the least. Some games have seen the ceiling of Wake Forest when it hits from deep, far too many have seen missed open looks and poor shot selection from outside. Stanford gives up three-point attempts at the 44th-highest rate in college basketball; taking advantage of this will be huge for the Deacs.
Additionally, Stanford gives up assisted buckets at the 7th highest rate in the country. When Wake’s on, their style of heavy ball movement and finding open shooters could pair perfectly against this Stanford defense. Cam Hildreth in particular, coming off a 6 for 8 performance from 3 against Miami, must continue his sharp shooting. Ty-Laur Johnson must also dig further into his role against Miami, where he notched 6 assists to just 1 turnover, and found Hildreth from deep plenty of times.
Also noteworthy is the disparity in rebounding ability between these two schools. Stanford is 86th in offensive rebound rate and 42nd in defensive rebound rate, while Wake is 225th and 227th in each, respectively. Simply put, the more shots the Deacons make, the less that disparity comes into play.
2. Don’t Send Stanford to the Line
This season, the Cardinal have shot 77% from the free throw line as a team, which is 41st in the country. Guards Jaylen Blakes and Oziyah Sellers have shot well from the line this year, as has 7’1 center Maxime Raynaud.
This year, Wake has held opponents to the 93rd-lowest rate of free throw attempts in the country. But in their past three matchups, they gave up 20+ free throws to each opponent, including their game at Syracuse, where the Orange had 32 attempts from the line. Given Stanford’s ability to sink shots at the stripe, Wake must be disciplined defensively in tonight’s affair.
3. Defend the Paint
With the aforementioned disparity in rebounding, one may wonder how Wake Forest fares in the paint tonight. Wake has the 70th tallest roster in the country by average height, but Stanford’s is 27th in that metric. Raynaud leads the charge for Stanford, taking 31.1% of his team’s shots. He hits at a 57.1% mark from two and 35.1% from three, along with that ability to hit from the line.
He will be the Deacs’ main focus tonight, as no other player on Stanford shoots 23% or higher of the team’s attempts. Wake has had a stellar interior defense this year, ranking 20th in opponent 2-PT% and 22nd in block rate. Trevon Spillers and Efton Reid are in the top 10% of the nation in block rate. Wake is certainly up to the task of defending Raynaud, but it is far from an easy one.
Final Thoughts:
Wake Forest has the talent to win tonight, and convincingly at that. But they must know the challenge they face to do so. With home games against North Carolina and Duke both next week, it’d be easy for the Deacs to lose focus on the task at hand. In the ACC, no game is taken lightly, and tonight, Forbes’ squad must reflect that.
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