Wednesday, March 28, 2012

No Getting Away From Offensive Line

For every 10 words I’ve written on football this spring, it seems like eight have been about the offensive line. I wrote about that again Saturday in my piece on the scrimmage at BB&T Field that you may or may not have seen. If not, here’s your chance Wake Forest Offensive Line a Work in Progress.

In talking to coach Jim Grobe before yesterday’s practice, he had several interesting things to say. He mentioned that Zachary Allen has returned from his broken wrist with a vengeance and is now playing so well that he’s in a dead-heat with incumbent Joey Ehrmann at the outside linebacker spot opposite Justin Jackson—who was moved from inside after last season. I’m writing a piece on new coach Derrick Jackson and the scenario at outside linebacker for tomorrow’s Journal, and I hope you check it out.

But the information that most caught my attention yesterday was Grobe’s take on what he has seen out of the offensive line through about half of spring ball. He said he feels good about four, but is still looking for a fifth to start and a few others to fill backup roles. I recognize it’s more on the offensive line, but I’m firmly convinced that the performance there will tell the tale of the Deacons 2012 season.

“I think right now we probably feel like we’ve got four pretty solid offensive linemen,’’ Grobe said. “I think Garrick Williams is doing fine. I think he’s a really good center for us. I think Colin Summers is a kid who is battling hard and doing a good job for us. I think Antonio Ford, we thought the first few days that he practiced that he maybe has improved as much as anybody on our football team right now. Looking at him, I think he’s a guy that can really help us. And we’ve got to get some of the guys just flat-out playing better.

“A guy who has really done great things for us at left tackle is Dylan Heartsill. He looks like a starter right now. He’s playing good. He’s smart. He’s heady. He’s a kid we would have played as a true freshman until he hurt his back. And so I like those four guys. I think those four guys are flat-out starter type guys. I think it’s the competition.

“We need to get Daniel Blitch to play better at guard. He’s not playing as physical as we need him to play right now. Devin Bolling has done better. I don’t mean to say he’s there, but he’s shown a spark – as has Gabe Irby. Gabe Irby is a guy that’s really pushing and trying to get playing time and really working hard. We’re going to have to see Whit Barnes come on. We really need to find a back up center. Right now Whit’s not playing well enough so far as a backup. And he’s still a young guy, but we’ve really got to see some more out of him.

“We’ve got some guys I think in (Dylan) Intemann and (Cody) Preble, all those guys are going to be in the mix. I think right now those first four I talked about are guys who we feel pretty solid about. We’ve just got to find a fifth guy and hopefully we find a couple of more we feel good about by the end of spring.’‘

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Mum’s the Word for Desrosiers

Most days I love my job. Today is not one of those days.

For if there’s anything I weary of really fast it’s sitting around waiting for the phone to ring. Our dog Gracie hates it too because I’m half-afraid to take her for a walk for fear that my call will finally come while I’m out. So I have to chain her up out back, while I remained chained to the phone by messages that have yet to be returned.

For the past two days now, every time the phone rang I was hoping beyond hope it was Carson Desrosiers on the line returning my call. So far, I’ve been disappointed. I really want to ask him why he has decided to leave the Wake basketball program. I understand for the most part why Tony Chennault and Anthony Fields are leaving. Chennault’s high school coach Carl Arrigale confirmed that Tony felt a strong need to be closer to home and his ailing mother. And from watching Fields for a full year I have to admit I didn’t see a player who I thought was going to have much impact on an ACC program. Maybe he could have developed into an ACC player. His wrist injury that sidelined him for months obviously held him back. But my sense was he would be better suited for a conference less demanding than the one Wake plays in. So if there’s anyone to blame there, it would have to be Bzdelik for recruiting him.

But losing Desrosiers is a blow to Jeff Bzdelik’s efforts to get the program back up and running, no matter how you slice it. Desrosiers wasn’t/isn’t the second coming of Tim Duncan by any stretch, but he was the experienced front-court player that his leaving leaves Wake without. And he was by all accounts a good, solid citizen without any of the baggage that was others no longer in black and gold. He would have started as a junior and probably played around 30 minutes. He had an opportunity many developing high school centers would jump all over. But something convinced him he needed to leave, and I’d love to find out what it was. And you, as supporters of the program, deserve to know. I hate I haven’t been able to tell you.

It didn’t make it any easier to see that Desrosiers has talked with another reporter, Hector Longo of the Eagle-Tribune back in North Hanover, Mass. But in reading the article Desrosiers Not Happy at Wake I still didn’t get the answer. Desrosiers said he wasn’t happy at Wake, but didn’t elaborate. In the absence of an explanation, speculation will run rampant. One obvious possibility is that he didn’t along with Bzdelik, who, by the way, was the one person who has called me back over these past two days. When I asked Bzdelik why Desrosiers was leaving, he said he didn’t know. He said he asked that question more than once and was never given an answer.

I do know the coaching staff wanted Desrosiers to be more physical and tougher inside, especially on defense and on the boards. But I also know that Wake’s Open Post Motion offense allowed Desrosiers the freedom he apparently wanted to play on the perimeter, make passes and take 3-pointers.

Any other guesses would be conjecture. As fans, you have a license for that. As a sportswriter I don’t.

I do regret I haven’t gotten to know Desrosiers better, and that’s probably one reason he hasn’t called back. But I also need to add that of all the players on the roster, he was the least forthcoming and comfortable to interview. I don’t mean that as a knock. Not everybody is gregarious and more than willing to talk with paunchy, bearded sportswriters they don’t know. He has always been courteous and cooperative, so I never had any reason not to like him. I just have never really gotten to know him.

Maybe he’ll call. I’m still holding out hope. And if he does I’ll report what he has to say posthaste. But if it’s not before 4:15, I’m out of here. Wake’s practicing football this afternoon at 4:45 and I’m headed over to see Jim Grobe.

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Ventilator Ground Rules

If you’re one of those out there in the Macadamia Nut gallery who have submitted a comment, only to never see it posted, you deserve an explanation. You’ve actually deserved an explanation for some time, but what with our trip to Texas and back and the firestorm I walked back into upon return, I just haven’t had the time to collect my thoughts enough to give one.

So now that I have a pot of chili cooking on the stove and—courtesy of my good friend Billy Armour—a John Prine concert to listen to from my exhaustive musical library, I’m ready to give one as I kill time until this afternoon’s Final Eight games.

I love passion. Without it, life wouldn’t be nearly as much fun. But I also prefer at least a modicum of civility. Obviously the two don’t always mix well, and what so often happens is the former sweeps away the latter. Washes right down the curb and down the drain of decency.

Those comments that didn’t see the light of day might have engaged in character assassination. Or maybe they indulged in name calling. Or maybe they didn’t show the least bit of respect for any opinion that dissented from their own. In my mind, which is the only mind that matters in this instance, seeing’s how it’s My Take on Wake, those comments crossed the line of civil discourse and I chose not to have anything to do with them. So I deleted them. It was my decision and anyone who has a problem with my decision has that problem with me and nobody else. Like I’ve mentioned before, I’m the judge and the jury on this blog and there is no court of appeal.

Lest you consider this position too arbitrary or too draconian, take a look at the comments that I have authorized. Most are expressed quite strongly, and I have to say that at this particular juncture of Wake Forest athletics history, most of them are not necessarily shared by me. But one thing I despise more than incivility is mindless conformity and unanimity. The fastest way to have the the comments section—re-dubbed recently as The Ventilator—shut down for good is for everyone to write in telling me how right, how brilliant, how astute I am on everything I write. See I know better, and sure as Hades don’t want to be the captain of any Good Ship Lollipop. Sorry Skip, but Kumbaya was never one of my favorite songs.

Just this morning I authorized an opinion that Ron Wellman and Jeff Bzdelik are prideful, stubborn men. That’s a sentiment shared by many, and I had no problem passing it along. If the person had lowered themselves and the discussion to invective, then it would have been deleted. Again, no name calling by anybody about anybody. So to a large extent it’s not what you say but how you say it. And when you cross the line, you know if before anyone else.

One particular problem I have is when motives are assigned to another’s opinion. Unless you know someone really, really well, then I don’t think you’re showing another’s opinion the proper respect. Tell me I’m wrong about something, anything, and that’s fine. You might well be right. But tell me why I feel the way I do, and that, to me, is uncalled for. I’ve been married for almost 30 years now and half the time my blushing bride doesn’t even know why I do what I do.

Another point I’d like to make is when people have requested, or in some cases, demanded my opinion on a particular subject, I don’t really think they always want my opinion. I have to believe that what they, at times, really want is for me to give their opinion. Nothing else will satisfy them.

I recognize that in many ways, being a sportswriter feeling my way through the first two decades of the 21st century, I’m an anachronism. The order of the day is to spout your opinion on any and every subject as loudly, as vehemently as it can be spouted. I see all these guys on pregame shows telling everybody what’s going to happen and it, to me, it comes off more as an expression of ego than intellect. The game, after all, is going to be played and we’re all going to find out what happens. I don’t have to be the first to tell everyone what they’re about to see.

A favorite quote is from Thomas Alva Edison and it goes like this—“It’s obvious that we don’t know one-millionth of one percent about anything.’’ I think of the famous sportswriter from Boston named Dave Egan who, upon the announcement that Casey Stengel had just been named manager of the New York Yankees sat down to his typewriter and offered up ``Well, sirs and ladies, the Yankees have now been mathematically eliminated from the 1949 pennant race. They eliminated themselves when they engaged Perfesser Casey Stengel to mismanage them for the next two years and you may be sure that the perfesser will oblige them to the best of his unique ability.’’ Stengel was an easy target, given that in his two previous stints with the Boston Braves and Brooklyn Dodgers he had never piloted a team into the first division. And Stengel’s well-earned reputation as a gadfly made the bulls eye even larger. But I can’t help but wonder what was going through Egan’s mind watching Stengel’s Yankees win five straight world championships and dominate the league over the next dozen seasons like never before or since.

Sometimes it’s more valuable to know what we don’t know that what we know. I don’t know that Jeff Bzdelik will prove to be the right guy to coach Wake basketball, but I still don’t know that he won’t. It’s my opinion that until he has a chance to coach his first real on-schedule recruiting class, then nobody will know. Many, actually I would say most, reading this disagree. Many disagree quite stringently. And I can understand completely why they—you—feel that way.

I’ve written of the two mistakes that Ron Wellman clearly made in the transition from Dino Gaudio to Jeff Bzdelik, how he botched the rollout by giving a cover story that didn’t wash and how he, going into what he had to suspect was going to be rough days ahead, hired a man with limited, at best, public relations abilities. If I were a Wake fan who had seen what the program has endured these past two years I would probably feel that way as well. As a fan I would have that license, whether I needed it or not. As a sportswriter I don’t give myself that license.

I’m also big on history, in that I feel it provides a necessary context. And as I’ve also written a time or two before, only four coaches in the 59-year history of the ACC didn’t get a third year and two (Jackie Murdock and Neil McGeachy) were clearly interims and a third (Press Maravich) left on his own. I know life is moving faster all the time, but I don’t think it’s sped up to the extent that a person should be denied a chance to do what he had been hired to do.

But again, that’s opinion, and it doesn’t threaten me, or even bother me, if it’s one you can’t share. Maybe there will other issues on which we can agree.

And as for those whose comments are deleted, I hope there’s no hard feelings. There’s certainly none on my end. There are other outlets that allow much more latitude on form, tenor and strength of expression. I’m glad there are, because we all need to vent from time to time about things that mean much to us.

I’m not into bans. If you pose a comment that’s not shared, you’re not marked off any list. Feel free to swing by anytime you want and if you have something else to say that doesn’t, in my mind, cross the line then I’ll be more than happy to share it.

Now see what you’ve made me do. I’ve missed the first 10 minutes of the Kentucky-Baylor game. But John Prine is in good voice and the chili smells great.

Friday, March 23, 2012

Revolving Door Spinning at Wake

What I know about the rumored departure of two more Wake basketball players, and when I knew it.

What I know is it’s no longer a rumor. Carson Desrosiers and Anthony Fields are leaving Wake to seek greener, if as of yet unidentified, pastures to continue their college careers. And I know it’s no small thing, especially with the news coming just three days after Tony Chennault told us all he’s leaving in hopes of playing closer to his home in Philadelphia. Just like that, the roster is down to four players who have ever played a game of college basketball and one, forward Daniel Green, was a bit player at best as a freshman.

When I knew Desrosiers and Fields were transferring was the same time as most of you reading this, which was yesterday afternoon. That’s when I started getting phone calls and comments to my blog and started perusing the message boards. Only I didn’t know it for sure, and after a hectic hour or two of calling anyone who might know, I learned that there was still hope, slender as it was, that Desrosiers and Fields could be talked out of leaving. I knew both were scheduled to meet with coach Jeff Bzdelik this afternoon and that until they did no release was formally requested or granted.

About an hour ago, the phone rang and Bzdelik was on the line to tell me the news. A short time later we had the bulletin up on our website Fields, Desrosiers Also Leave Wake Forest

So often in my line of work, inaction is a tougher deal than action. A part of me, a big part of me, wanted to write what I knew and attribute it to unnamed sources I would have had no trouble finding. A case could be made that’s what I should have done. That is, after all, how it is usually done in today’s world of instant information, and I’m not being judgmental here as to why. It is, after all, a goal of any journalist to be first.

But it’s a greater goal to be right, and I couldn’t discount the possibility that two young men making a decision that will affect the rest of their lives might have a change of heart. And I kept getting reassured that no release had been requested or granted. So I hung in there until I knew for sure and got it out as fast as my fat flying fingers can type.

There are other rumors floating around that, at least to date, remain unfounded, such as Travis McKie was planning to transfer as well and that Bzdelik was either getting fired or had decided to resign. I made no mention of it at the time because I didn’t want to plant any seeds in toxic soil, but I did make a special trip through the Wake locker room after the loss to Maryland at the ACC Tournament just to make sure McKie wasn’t going anywhere. He told me he wasn’t.

That truly would be cataclysmic, but just the attrition of Chennault, Desrosiers and Fields is bad enough. None ever had much chance of having his jersey hang in the rafters at Joel Coliseum, but Chennault could have provided backcourt depth and Desrosiers, at 7-0, is the experienced big man the program no longer has. It’s a tough blow for Bzdelik, one that will provide even more ammunition for those convinced he’s not the right man for the job and much less for those still willing to waiting longer before closing their minds on the subject altogether.

One benefit from waiting until the meeting was over was the opportunity to talk with Bzdelik on the record about what has gone down. I was certainly interested in what he had in mind for depth at point guard, now that Chennault and Fields have left the program. I already counted on incoming freshman Codi Miller-McIntyre to be the starter by next season, but no one can expect him to play 40 minutes every night.

“From a point-guard standpoint you have Codi Miller-McIntyre, who as we speak, I was just watching on the internet and he was playing in an all-star game representing Team USA versus Team Florida,’’ Bzdelik said. “And right now I would have to say C.J. Harris would be our backup point guard. But again, recruiting is constant and always changing.’‘

But the question I most needed to ask was about the negative light the departures have put the program in. When three players leave in such a short span, hard on the heels of the five who had already left or been expelled since Bzdelik became head coach before the 2010-11 season, there’s going to be, if nothing else, a perception of a program in disarray. And, right or wrong, perceptions matter.

“Obviously you never want to see anyone leave your program,’’ Bzdelik said. “But over the last couple of years we’ve had some players leave because of off-the-court problems. We have had others leave seeking more playing time. Some simply wished to be closer to home. Each one had their own reason, and you can ask them, and actually they’ve made statements.

“I can see where some people might see it that way, but I certainly don’t see it that way. We are continuing to build this program. We’ve made great strides from Year One to Year Two and we are, I feel, in the proper position to continue to make program from Year Two to Year Three.’‘

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Back in the Saddle Again

Since Saturday, with my bride by my side and our daughter in the back seat, I’ve driven 2,200 miles to Dallas, Tex., and back, spending around 35 hours hunched over the steering wheel of the car. And I have the Texas-sized pain in my lower back to prove it.

But it was worth every mile, and every throb, for us to see our first born perform his Master’s recital at Southern Methodist University Nathaniel Terry Collins Master Recital. Nate performed superbly as we knew he would.

It was while driving out of Dallas on I-635 in a torrential Texas thunderstorm Tuesday morning that I got word that Tony Chennault had decided to leave Wake. I made a couple of calls and my compadre John Dell was able to pinch-hit and get a piece in the paper.

We got back last night, so this morning I was able to get Carl Arrigale, Chennault’s coach at Neumann-Goretti High School, on the phone and find out more. We’ll have a piece in Friday’s Journal. I’ve got a call in to Jeff Bzdelik, but thus far have not heard back.

I hope he calls in the next hour or so because by 4 I’m headed over to campus to finally get a chance to see coach Jim Grobe put his football team through its spring paces. Need to get some information on what he expects in the first scrimmage, scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday at BB&T Field. I knew I’d be picking things up on the run when I returned from Texas, and I was right.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Wake Sets Up ACC Run

While we were consuming an adult beverage or two at the ACC Tournament’s hospitality suite last week in Atlanta, my buddy Al Featherston reached way back in the stacks of the ACC library and pulled out a story from days long since passed that I had known about but had largely forgotten.

Featherston, who knows more about the history of ACC hoops than anyone I’ve ever met, got to revisiting Wake’s victory over UCLA in the consolation game of the 1962 Final Four, and its ramifications for the league. By beating the Bruins, the Deacons secured a first-round bye for the ACC, setting up Duke’s run to the Final Four over three of the next four seasons. By the time North Carolina followed with trips in 1967, 1968 and 1969, the conference was an established power that would never have to worry about such indignities as having to win a play-in game on Monday or Tuesday to even reach the East Regional.

In that this month marks the 50th anniversary of that watershed win, Al said I really needed to write that story. And he was right.

So finally yesterday I was able to clear the decks enough to do it, and I have to say I had a ball. My first call was to Billy Packer, who has always been as cooperative, helpful and generous with his time as he could be. My next was to one of my favorite all-time people at Wake, Dr. Richard Carmichael, a professor of mathematics who was a sophomore on the 1962 team. And along the way I exchanged emails with Featherston to check some facts and details. It was Al who caught a mistake I had in my original draft. Many, including yours truly, always thought the loss was John Wooden’s last in NCAA Tournament play until N.C. State beat the Bruins in 1974. Not so, Al pointed out. UCLA lost in the 1963 West Regional to Arizona State 93-79, and then lost to San Francisco 76-75 in the consolation game.

It was the next season, 1964, that Walt Hazzard, Gail Goodrich and company beat Duke 98-83 to start the run of 10 titles over the next dozen seasons.

The ACC would be smart to make Al Featherston it’s official historian. He’d be priceless in that capacity for anyone who still cares about the league’s lore.

Anyway, I was able to pull together the piece for this morning’s Journal that you can read here Wake Win Great Assist For ACC The story really have a triple byline of Dan Collins, Al Featherston and Owen Davis, the crack copy editor who caught a couple of critical mistakes on dates and sites.

Hope you have as much fun reading it as we did putting it together.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Mistakes Were Made

Regardless of which side one takes in the very subject that has the Wake fan base aflame—the firing of Dino Gaudio and hiring a week later of Jeff Bzdelik—I don’t see how anyone can refute that Ron Wellman made two glaring mistakes.

The first was when he explained the basis of Gaudio’s dismissal as lack of post-season success only to replace him with a coach who had never won an NCAA Tournament game.

The second was when he turned a program he had to know was facing tough days ahead over to a man with limited—to say the least—public relations abilities.

The first mistake at least suggested that Wellman’s motives weren’t on the up-and-up, thus confusing those who care and fueling all kinds of alternative theories. My own sense is that Wellman insisted on taking the high road by not trashing Gaudio. However noble that might be, he still needed to explain the move far better than he did to those supporters of the program still wondering to this day how you get rid of a coach who was 61-31 and coming off an NCAA Tournament victory over Texas.

The second mistake was putting Bzdelik in a position he was, and remains, unequipped to handle. If Wellman had thought this thing through, he would have had to recognize the possibility that the next couple of teams at Wake were going to struggle. A coach who better connected with the media and fan base could have helped smooth the ruffled feathers with wit, warmth and charm. It wouldn’t have taken a Skip Prosser, whose true genius was not his coaching ability but his promotional acumen. Even someone like a Mark Gottfried, or say Tony Bennett, would have been far better received by a fan base trying to get a grip on what has happened to its program.

At this point, I offer a disclosure. I personally like Jeff Bzdelik. He has been been decent and forthcoming with me from the day he arrived and provided the kind of access that other beat writers covering other programs would sacrifice a toe or two to have. In my dealings with him, I’ve gotten to know a man of character who knows basketball, who cares for his players and assistant coaches, who likes to laugh and tell often off-beat jokes on himself as well as others. What I haven’t seen is any pettiness, hatred or spite.

But in talking with other members of the media, and with fans and long-time supporters of the program, I’ve come to realize that most people really don’t know Jeff Bzdelik. He’s coached Wake for two years and so many of my sportswriting buddies were pumping me at the ACC Tournament, wondering what’s he like? His personality doesn’t project. Even those who have been around Wake basketball forever, going all the way back to Tacy, or even McCloskey, Murdock and McKinney, say they’re still trying to figure Jeff Bzdelik out.

The case could be made that Wake needs to wage a charm offensive to win over those whose minds are still open. The problem there is, if it’s not natural for Bzdelik to engage the students, alumni and rank-and-file reporters, then how effective could such a gambit be?

Winning, as has been said countless times, cures all ills. To that end, allow me to lay a scenario on you that’s been bouncing around in my head.

What if Codi Miller-McIntyre, the all-important point guard from Hargraves, has the same kind of impact that Jeff Teague had as a freshman in 2008? Sounds plausible to me, given that Miller-McIntyre is ranked as high, if not higher. And say Devin Thomas, the backboard-shattering forward from Harrisburg, turns out to be as good as James Johnson was as a freshman in 2008. Again, Thomas has all the high school credentials Johnson enjoyed. C.J. Harris will be a senior next season, and Travis McKie a junior, which means the freshmen (other than Miller-McIntyre) won’t have to be the team leaders next year, but can instead play complementary roles.

Now let’s leave ourselves open to the possibility that Chase Fischer’s jumper starts landing, that Tony Chennault and Carson Desrosiers prove capable of giving the Deacons 12 to 15 solid minutes and that one or two of the other freshmen, say a Arnaud Moto or a Tyler Cavanaugh, can provide depth and occasional flashes of something to start getting excited about.

Obviously that’s a lot of ifs, but no one is predicting Wake will resemble the 1974 N.C. State Wolfpack. It’s entirely within the realm of possibilities the Deacons could go 8-8 in the ACC next year, and maybe even shoot the moon, win nine games and be in the discussion for an NCAA Tournament berth.

All of a sudden, Bzdelik’s personality, or the car he drives, or the ties he wears, won’t be something to rant about. I doubt he’ll ever be loved, but not all successful college coaches are deft with a song or a dance.

I’ve said time and again I don’t feel it’s my job to hire and/or fire coaches. That’s the job of Ron Wellman who, in this case, made at least two mistakes in a move that may well define his legacy as Wake’s director of athletics.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Keep It Simple Stupid

Wouldn’t you just know it? Now that the ball has stopped bouncing for the Wake Forest basketball season, I was all fired up to catch up with Jim Grobe and find out what kind of start the football team is off to this spring. Then Steve Shutt, the assistant director of athletics for media relations, reminds me that Wake is on spring break this week, so there’s no practices. Being buried down the bowels of the Philips Center in Atlanta at the ACC Tournament, I had forgotten.

So the next best thing is to dust off some observations Grobe had two weeks ago before practices began. One I found interesting is that with the three new coaches on the staff, and a bevy of untested players looking to crack either the starting lineup or rotation, the acronym of the day is K.I.S.S. That will be particularly important on offense, where the Deacons will replace eight starters.

“One thing we’re going to try to do is be careful about the amount of offense and defense we put in this spring,’’ Grobe said. “We don’t want to have kids not developing or performing because they don’t know what to do. So what we want to do is try to be as simple as we possibly can.

“Defensively we want to see can a guy get off a block and go make a play.That’s what we’re looking for more than anything else. Not does he have the best mastery of a multitude of defensive calls? But does he have the ability to whip the guy in front of him and go make a play. And offensively the exact same thing. We don’t want a guy being a starter simply because he’s got more knowledge than the backup.

“We want to find the guy who’s got the best ability, so we want to limit what we do offensively, especially early in the spring so that we’re just working on plain ol’ blocking and tackling – find out who the best physically are, and then we’ve got to teach them the offense and the defense. That’s our biggest challenge this spring.

“Last year we could throw anything at that offensive line early and it didn’t faze them. But I think that’s one of the things we’ve got to be really careful about. And typically your offensive line stuff is not really rocket science. But when you mix in all the different protections and all the different fronts that they could see, it can get to be a little murky over there. So we want to try to make it as clear as possible both offensively and defensively so we can just go play football.’‘

One of the younger players who will get a good long look this spring is Desmond Floyd, a 6-5, 235-pound defensive end from Jonesville, S.C. who redshirted last season in his first fall at Wake.

“He’s got everything that you want,’’ Grobe said. “He’s got the attitude. He’s a tough guy. He runs really, really well. He’s got good foot speed.

“The biggest thing is he’s just been a scout team guy. Potentially yeah, he’s a real, for real guy. And we think that down the road he’s going to be a heck of a player for us. We’ll find out here in a few days if it’s going to be this year. We hope it will because he’s certainly got the good height and he’s a hard worker, just really a guy who brings everything. We’ll just see if he’s developed physically enough to step in there and play with the big boys.’’

Thursday, March 08, 2012

Another Season Down the Drain

Wake’s season was gone today in 60 seconds.

Actually it only took 57, long enough for Terrell Stoglin to score the nine points that put Wake away.

The Deacons were hanging with Maryland in the first round of the ACC Tournament, trailing by seven with more than 18 minutes remaining. In the blink of an eye, Stoglin drilled a 3-pointer, got fouled by Chase Fischer beyond the arc and hit all three 3-pointers and then drained another 3-pointer. The resulting 20-2 deluge swept Wake right out of Philips Arena as the Terps rolled up a lead of 29 points (79-50), their greatest of the season. Previously Maryland hadn’‘t led any team by more than 23 or any ACC team by more than 19.

“It’s the same kind of thing,’’ sophomore Travis McKie said after the 82-60 drilling. “You never want to go out the way we just went out.’‘

The Wake zone was clearly a sitting duck for the Terps, who shot 58 percent for the second half and scored on 20 of 29 possessions before coach Mark Turgeon reached far enough down his bench to start sending in the walk-ons.

The question I had for McKie, junior C.J. Harris and coach Jeff Bzdelik was whether effort or exeuction was to blame.

The answers varied.

“It was effort pretty much,’’ McKie said. “There wasn’t any Xs and Os.

“We made some bad shots and they got down the court and bad things happened.’‘

Sitting on the podium in front of the assembled media, Harris and Bzdelik had a differing opinion.

“I think the effort was there,’’ Harris said. “They did a good job of getting the ball into the middle of the zone and hitting shooters on the opposite end. It was a combination of late close-outs and defensive rebounding that hurt us.’‘

Bzdelik said that if the Deacons didn’t always look like they giving their all, then there were certainly mitigating factors. The attrition that began before last season and continued through last week’s dismissal of senior center Ty Walker for a violation of an unspecified athletics department policy has left Wake with only eight scholarship players. And of the eight, only sophomore center Carson Desrosiers and raw freshman forward Daniel Green are taller than 6-7.

“I think both (Harris and McKie) have logged over a thousand minutes,’’ Bzdelik said. “I think C.J. has logged over a thousand minutes and he played one less game because he was out (against Wofford) with a groin. It just takes its toll, it really does.

“It’s hard to get anything down low, so we have to work so hard on offense, and we are undersized. We are playing C.J.at the small forward a lot. All the constant wear and the physicality of the game, it takes its toll. It was like that in the Miami game (a 74-56 loss) a few weeks ago. We were down one midway through the second half and we just get worn down.

“It’s not effort. Their intentions are good. It’s just that you get a step slowere when you get tired.’‘

A point that Bzdelik kept returning to today was that next year, after the influx of a six-man recruiting class, will be different.

“We are just looking forward to next year when we have six new bodies coming in and that gives us the depth that is going to help us tremendously,’’  Bzdelik said. “But right now, with stuff that has happened over the last couple of years, our depth is very thin.’‘

Eyes forward is a good strategy for Wake. There’s certainly nothing behind worth seeing.

Tuesday, March 06, 2012

Willing to Wait

Back where I came from, way back in the mountains and way back in time, if you gave a man a job you gave him time to do it. After all, it’s the decent thing to do. And it always seemed to make sense, in that if that man doesn’t get the necessary time then you’ll never know if he could have gotten it done.

In the 59-year history of the ACC, there have been four basketball coaches not to last past his second season as head coach. Two, Jackie Murdock at Wake Forest and Neil McGeachy at Duke, were clearly interims promoted at the 11th hour. A third, Press Maravich of N.C. State, left on his own for LSU to coach his son Pete, who failed to make the requisite SAT score of 800 to play in the conference in those days.

That leaves Frank Fellows, who preceded Lefty Driesell at Maryland, as the only coach hired straight up who was dismissed for performance.

There have been instances where a coach was given more time than he probably deserved. Larry Shyatt got five seasons at Clemson, Les Robinson six at N.C. State and back before anyone knew Virginia fielded a basketball team, Billy McCann got six in Charlottesville.

But there have also been those cases that if the plug had been pulled after two or three years then the school would have never reaped the reward that followed. I referenced earlier the time Mike Krzyzewski, a Hall of Fame coach with four national championships, needed to get his program up and running at Duke. A better example may be the man he succeeded. Bill Foster was 120-75 at Rutgers and 43-39 at Utah, and had never coached a team to the NCAA Tournament, when he was hired by Duke before the 1975 season. Three years into his stint in Durham he was 40-40 overall and 7-29 in ACC play. His Blue Devils had tied for sixth, finished seventh, and tied for sixth. Which means, given there were only seven teams in those days, he never finished ahead of anybody.

In his fourth season, Duke won 27 games, finished second in the ACC and stormed all the way to the National Championship before running into Goose Givens and Kentucky.

So you really think Duke fans with a megaphone as loud as the internet would have been any easier on Bill Foster in 1977 than Wake fans are on Jeff Bzdelik today? What they would have been is wrong.

Sometimes it takes time.

Bzdelik hasn’t done enough in his two years as head coach to please all that many fans of Wake Forest basketball. The Deacons have followed up last season’s 8-24 face plant with a 13-17 campaign during which they managed to beat the fellow bottom feeders, but—outside of about 10 breathless minutes of an 79-71 home loss to No. 4 Duke—really weren’t competitive against the rest of the conference. And some of the poundings they took were gruesome to watch.

Based on what I’m reading in the Ventilator, the comments section of MTOW, and from seeing in all the empty seats at Joel Coliseum, it’s obvious many remain firmly convinced that Jeff Bzdelik is not the right man to be head coach at Wake Forest. You’re bothered by the exodus of five players over Bzdelik’s two years, and many of you remain uncertain in your minds why Jeff Bzdelik is head coach in the first place. His predecessor, Dino Gaudio, was 61-31 in his three years as head coach and Athletics Director Ron Wellman never really sufficiently explained why a change ever had to be made.

So I understand the sentiment, if not always the vehemence and even rancor with which it is expressed. But then, as I’ve said many times, I’m not a fan.

My own take is that I have seen progress, but not enough to predict that Bzdelik will succeed at Wake. The progress hasn’t been so much in the product on the court, but in the general cohesion and attitude I see from the players. That wasn’t a team Bzdelik coached his first season, rather a collection of players. This year Wake has a team. It’s not a good team, and at times it’s a pretty pitiful team, but I see it as a group of individuals at least trying to pull in one direction. But that, in itself, is not enough. Bzdelik will have to win more games against better teams to, at least in my mind, close the sale.

Where I differ from many of Bzdelik’s legion of detractors is in assigning blame for the five players no longer in the fold. All were already at Wake, or had at least committed to play for the Deacons, before Bzdelik got the job in April of 2010. Attrition is pretty much unavoidable whenever there is a coaching change, especially one that resulted in as much upheaval as the dismissal of Gaudio. And lest we forget, of the five who left, only two—Melvin Tabb and Ty Walker—had the door shut behind him. Tony Woods pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor assault of the mother of his child and J.T. Terrell  was charged with driving while intoxicated, but neither was expelled from school. They would have understandably had to earn their way back on the roster but instead both considered it a better idea to strike out for greener pastures.

Ari Stewart is a bone in the craw for many, in that he was a talented athlete who landed in Bzdelik’s doghouse, found himself behind walk-on Ryan Keenan in the rotation and decided to transfer to Southern Cal. As much as I enjoyed Stewart during his time at Wake, I can’t say that he ever bought into the team concept. He could leap and he could shoot, but that was it. And down the stretch, while he was falling out of favor, he pretty much packed it in. Who could forget the game against N.C. State when Scott Wood drug him past a double baseline pick in one direction and drug him back over the same double pick in the other. On Wood’s third pass baseline, Stewart was done. Wood caught the ball, turned and nailed a wide-open jumper. When Stewart quit, he quit on more than Bzdelik. He quit on his team.

Already I’m hearing that the six-man class Bzdelik has recruited for next year won’t be enough to turn the program around. Those saying that are basing their opinion, for the most part, on a recruiting ranking below that of N.C. State, North Carolina, Maryland and Georgia Tech. Personally I have no problem with waiting to see what Codi Miller-McIntyre, Devin Thomas, Arnaud Moto, Tyler Cavanaugh, Aaron Rountree and Andre Washington can do before I pass judgment. I don’t see the rush. They can’t help until next season anyway. I’m willing to be surprised, and if nothing else the class will give the Deacons the depth they so sorely lacked this season.

The point is, I’m not sure Ron Wellman made the right call by hiring Jeff Bzdelik, but my mind is still open to the possibility. And I do know that to can Bzdelik after two years and before his first on-schedule class arrives would be the most impetuous move the league has ever known.

And to those whose minds are closed, it really doesn’t matter what anyone in disagreement has to write or say.