Wake Forest had a difficult weekend task by taking on No. 2 Duke.
It might look just about as challenging with Tuesday night’s visit to No. 25 Louisville for an Atlantic Coast Conference matchup.
“The games are coming at you in rapid-fire here,” Wake Forest coach Steve Forbes said. “But it’s a great opportunity, right? It’s a great opportunity to get an unbelievable road win. And so that’s how we look at it.”
Louisville (15-5, 8-1) owns a nine-game winning streak. The Cardinals didn’t play during the weekend, so they’ve been idle since last Tuesday night’s 98-73 romp at SMU.
“I love playing with this team,” Louisville guard Chucky Hepburn said. “We’re coming a long way. We still have a lot of room to grow.”
A six-game winning streak for Wake Forest (15-5, 7-2) ended with Saturday’s 63-56 home loss to Duke.
Four of Louisville’s past six victories have come by double digits. Some of the setbacks early in the season seem far in the past.
“One thing that I love about this team is we never gave up,” Hepburn said. “If we lost, it was the next day, we were practicing, and we were just getting to it.”
The Cardinals have been doing it with style points. In last Tuesday’s game, they had assists on all 14 first-half baskets.
By game’s end, Reyne Smith had made a school-record 10 baskets from 3-point range.
Hepburn, a senior transfer, had a career-high and program-record 16 assists, marking the most by any player in an ACC game in almost 14 years.
Louisville coach Pat Kelsey called Hepburn’s performance “a magical game.”
Forbes, meanwhile, said the result against Duke shouldn’t translate to any loss of confidence from his team.
“We got a good basketball team, and we could pretty much play with anybody,” he said. “I’ve never been discouraged with this group of guys because they fight and they play so hard and they’ve learned that no matter how the offense is going, the defense keeps us in the game.”
The Demon Deacons are encouraged by the offense provided by guard Juke Harris, a freshman who supplied 14 points off the bench Saturday.
“He plays without fear, good and bad sometimes,” Forbes said. “But I’d rather have to dial somebody down and dial ’em up. And he’s competitive and fearless.”
But overall, there are snags on offense that Wake Forest will need to address.
“We just didn’t execute offensively when we needed to … and that cost us,” Forbes said.
So even coming back from a 13-point deficit wasn’t enough for the Demon Deacons. They were stymied by Duke’s unusual switch to a zone defense, so Wake Forest might brush up on how to attack if it’s faced with that again.
“I just don’t think we executed the looks like we needed to do,” Forbes said. “It’s just we weren’t really crisp in what our executions should have been for the look that we should have got.”
–Field Level Media
