The Starters Who Will Get it Started

Barring any unexpected development at practice this afternoon, Wake Forest will start Ish Smith, L.D. Williams, Al-Farouq Aminu, Tony Woods and Chas McFarland in tomorrow night’s basketball opener against Oral Roberts at 8 p.m. at Joel Coliseum. David Weaver started the exhibition game against Indiana, Pa., last week because McFarland had missed three practices with a concussion. Coach Dino Gaudio said he was impressed not just with McFarland’s performance against IUP, but the manner in which he handled his role of coming off the bench.

McFarland told me after the game that starting didn’t matter, and that the only thing he cared about was winning games. I’ve been told that countless times by countless different athletes, but the way he said it made me feel he has come miles and miles from the at-times immature and often misunderstood player from his previous seasons at Wake. Gaudio saw it the same way.

“I think he took a real mature approach to the situation,’’ Gaudio said.

Gaudio said that the only reason Weaver is not starting is because the rules of basketball allow no more than five teammates on the court at a time.

“This is not Coachspeak,’’ Gaudio said. “I huddled up the four seniors (Smith, Williams, McFarland and Weaver) and said `In my opinion, right now, we have six starters.’ And they knew I was talking about the three post guys.’‘

Based on what I was hearing from the earliest days of practice, I half-expected Ari Stewart, a 6-7 freshman from Marietta, Ga., to begin his college career in the starting lineup. He’s the athletic wing with the ability to slash to the basket and help on both backboards that most college teams deploy.

Gaudio said that the more Stewart progresses, the harder it will be to keep him on the bench.

“He’s right on the fringe,’’ Gaudio said. “We are just really excited about his raw talent. When he starts to figure out defensive positioning—we have a battery of sets and stuff that he’s still trying to get a grip on. When he does that, there’s no question he’ll be playing a lot of minutes for us.’‘

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By Dan Collins on 11/12/2009 (3:10 pm)

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I can’t wait for the season to get started!

I think it is universally accepted that this year’s team will be based primarily on defense.  But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how good our defense is if we are stagnant on offense. 

Expecting an improvement on offense after losing two players to the NBA and 33% of our points production may seem a little ridiculous, but I did not consider Wake Forest to be a good offensive team last year.  While our transition game was excellent, our half-court offense never seemed in sync.  Without Johnson and Teague on the court, I really do expect to see more ball movement, and I expect to see better shots taken (rather than the best players taking the shots whether they are good or not).  I don’t expect the so-called Princeton offense with our personnel, but I still expect our players to move without the ball more than last year.

I wonder to what extent (if any) our new assistant coaches have impacted our offense in this regard.

DC on 11/13/2009 (9:23 am)

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