Wake Forest Men’s Basketball Head Coach Steve Forbes opened his media appearance following Tuesday night’s dominant win over Pitt with some words of wisdom.
“There’s a reason why the windshield of your car is bigger than your rearview mirror,” Forbes began. “It’s because what’s out in front of you is more important than what’s behind you.”
That’s the attitude that the Wake Forest Demon Deacons (17-9, 9-6) took on as they blew past the Pitt Panthers (17-9, 8-7) at home 91-58 — rallying back from Saturday’s tough loss at Virginia.
The win was visibly a team effort as all five of Wake’s starters entered double-digit scoring, while the team combined for 18 assists on the night. Sophomore guard Kevin “Boopie” Miller (18 PTS, 3 REB, 2 AST), leading the team in scoring, spoke after the game on the importance of sharing the ball to create shot opportunities — especially against Pitt.
“We worked on it in practice the past two days,” Miller said. “We looked at our film, last time we played [Pitt] those quick pitches were there.”
Heightened awareness for pass plays facilitated a great shooting night for Wake, shooting 60% from the field and 50% from range as a team. A dominant paint performance from junior center Efton Reid III (12 PTS, 5 REB, 3 AST) and senior forward Andrew Carr (10 PTS, 8 REB, 2 AST) was punctuated with many impressive dunks often assisted by teammates as the team outscored Pitt down low 38-10.
Miller also mentioned that his team was mindful of Pitt’s ability to creep back from being down by double-digits at the half as the Panthers did against Wake last month.
“We had multiple games [where] we came out first half and second half we didn’t do as much,” Miller said.
This Wake Forest team is proving that it can learn and apply lessons learned from earlier losses on the season. As Miller mentioned, the Demon Deacons are drawing on games from the first half of their season such as last month’s loss to Pitt to improve both schematically and competitively.
The Demon Deacons’ biggest test of applying these lessons is sure to come against No. 8 Duke (20-5, 11-3) at home this Saturday in perhaps the most consequential matchup of Wake’s season to date.
Tip-off against Duke is scheduled for 2 p.m. on Saturday at the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum, and will be broadcast on ESPN.
