Big is beautiful...at least as it pertains to the incoming class of stud recruits second year coach Dino Gaudio brought in.
The Demon Deacon recruiting class ranks near the top of the country and includes the ACC's best freshman, Al-Farouq Aminu. The 6'8'' Aminu joins highly touted freshman centers seven footer Ty Walker and 6'10'' Tony Woods as the next wave of players to don the black and gold.
The three big men will provide Coach Gaudio with tremendous depth as he returns his nine top scorers from a year ago. Wake Forest has improved its conference win total by two wins in each of the last two years, but is primed to make a bigger jump in 2009.
WF should be the deepest team in the entire ACC if not the country with 12 players capable of giving Dino Gaudio a productive ten plus minutes per game. Gaudio's biggest challenge in 2009 will be keeping all his players happy, but also dealing with some youth and inexperience.
The Demon Deacons should pull things together to make a postseason appearance, but none of Gaudio's players have graced the floor in a postseason tournament other than the conference tournament.
But sometimes the talent can be so good that it trumps experience. Wake Forest may be that exception.
From top to bottom, WF is oozing with players that will haunt the dreams of ACC teams.
The Demon Deacons' best player from 2008, James Johnson is also the conference's second leading returning rebounder at 8.1 boards per game. The forward did that as a freshman. The super sophomore also dropped 14.6 points per game.
Johnson emerged on the radar early to ACC teams in the non-conference slate last year, but it wasn't until a nasty stretch in conference play when the Wyoming native torched the terrific trio of North Carolina, Duke, and Maryland for 71 points over three consecutive games.
Johnson's classmate also had a pretty special freshman campaign. Like Johnson, combo guard Jeff Teague continued to improve in conference play instead of fading away to obscurity. The sophomore entered conference play scoring a modest 10.6 points per game, but improved to score an astounding 16.4 points per game in ACC play.
Teague lit it up from beyond draining 44-percent of his attempts from distance during conference play as opposed to 32-percent out of conference.
Teague's partner of crime in the backcourt Ishmael Smith may be the weakest part of the starting lineup, but if a junior point guard who average about nine points per game and five assists is your biggest weakness, you are doing pretty good.
The knack on Smith--too many turnovers and one of the most abysmal free throw percentages in the game. According to Ken Pomeroy statistics, a quarter of the offensive possessions that Smith finished ended in a turnover. In 2008, Smith hit just 16 free throws out of 55. That's a smooth 29-percent from the charity strip.
Coach Dino Gaudio used Teague and Smith as well as guard L.D. Williams in the starting line-up, but in 2009, Gaudio might move away from the three guard offense with the addition of his three five-star recruits that are all forwards.
2 comments Last one added 9 months ago — Leave a Comment
Marcus Shockley 9 months ago
James Johnson looked amazing over the summer. He, Teague and Aminu are set to have a big year.
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Jameson Fleming 9 months ago
Yeah the threesome Wake Forest has going on should be pretty darn good this year. If they all stick around for a second year together I would think they would be a legitimate Final Four contender.
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