Wake Forest: Can They Keep Their Star Recruits?

Wake Forest has been stellar in their basketball recruiting over the past two years, bringing in superstars James Johnson, Jeff Teague, Al Farouq-Aminu, Ty Walker and Tony Woods.

Now they add Ari Stewart, a 6'7" small forward from Wheeler High School in Marietta, Georgia. Wake fans had felt confident about landing the talented Stewart, and it came down to the Demon Deacons and the Oregon Ducks for the final decision.

Now that Wake has managed to rebuild a roster of talented players, with a couple of star recruits already committed for the Class of 2010 as well, the inevitable question arises: How long will these talented basketball players stick around campus?

Big time programs like North Carolina, Duke, UCLA and Kansas already know the balancing act that comes with top basketball recruits, where a deep run into the NCAA tournament can result in the best players jumping to the big money of the NBA.

Wake has at least two players on the 2008-2009 roster that might get the chance to turn pro after this season, and it's an uphill battle to retain these players long enough to build a deep roster of star players.

In many cases, it's a matter of winning now and worrying about tomorrow when it comes. Some players already have NBA teams looking them over before they play a minute in a college uniform, and for those players, such as Farouq-Aminu, it probably won't even require a great year for him to have pro options.

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