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Posted: Friday October 18, 2002 2:26 PM Updated: Monday October 28, 2002 11:33 AM Wake Forest Demon Deacons
The following preview is provided by Blue Ribbon. For the most thorough preview available of the upcoming season, order the 2002-03 Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook, on sale now at 1-800-775-2518. Team Preview | Blue Ribbon Analysis TEAM PREVIEW
Wake Forest coach Skip Prosser doesn't believe in "rebuilding." "It's never been part of my lexicon, and I don't intend for it to be now," the Demon Deacons' second-year coach said. But the truth of the matter is that few teams lost as much productivity as Prosser's Deacons, who said goodbye to five seniors, four of whom were starters. That amounts to 62 percent of the team's scoring and 48 percent of its rebounds. "It's disconcerting," Prosser said. "We are going to be relying on a lot of freshmen and sophomores. We know from the experience at North Carolina last year that that can be a formula for disaster. "We are hopeful that our young kids can grow up in a hurry and we can be competitive." The Deacons were competitive last year, Prosser's first in taking over the program left behind when Dave Odom bolted for South Carolina, after Wake Forest refused to give him a contract extension.
Odom built a solid program at Wake, thanks to proven recruits like Rodney Rogers and Randolph Childress and a few surprises such as Tim Duncan. He won three ACC Coach of the Year Awards and back-to-back ACC Tournament titles during Duncan's career, but was never able to advance further than a regional semifinal in the NCAA tournament. Even a title in the 2000 National Invitation Tournament was a hollow victory. Fans were more interested in getting into the NCAA tournament than the late run the Deacons used to win the NIT. So not everyone was shocked, surprised or even all that sad when Odom left for South Carolina. There were plenty, however, who were surprised that Wake Forest athletics director Ron Wellman chose Prosser, a veteran coach from Xavier, as Odom's successor. Prosser had a more wide-open game and a shut-tight mouth, the diametric opposite of Odom. Fans were eager to see if he could succeed with the leftover talent, which included Lithuanian star Darius Songaila, as well as seniors Craig Dawson, Broderick Hicks, Antwan Scott and Ervin Murray. What Prosser had was a bridge team. He changed styles, but let them adapt to his system slowly. It was a good bridge team, mind you, one that finished tied for third in the ACC standings and was eighth in the nation in scoring at 81.8 points a game. But it was not a team that felt comfortable running Prosser's pressing defense or one that could make things happen in the open court. "They weren't used to playing my style,'' he said. "They were willing to listen, and they made the transition from a halfcourt team to a running team. They did a great job of running and playing the way we like to play.'' The roster is thin of players coming back. Prosser has only one returning upperclassman that has contributed much, senior forward Josh Howard. Granted, most coaches wouldn't mind building a program around the 6-foot-6 Howard (13.9 ppg, 7.7 rpg, 1.6 spg), a versatile swingman who will be the centerpiece of Prosser's second team at Wake. Howard was a second-team All-ACC selection who was well on his way to being a first-team pick until he suffered a high ankle sprain in February. He missed three games -- including losses to Cincinnati and Duke -- and was never really the same when he returned. His injury was a contributing factor to the Deacons' tepid 4-7 finish over the last five weeks of the season. "I wouldn't trade any returning player in the league for Josh Howard,'' Prosser said. "He scores in a variety of ways, he has the chance to be an excellent defender, he can rebound the ball, both offensively and defensively. "But we can't rely solely on him. We saw with Clemson a couple of years ago, they had Will Solomon and he led the league in scoring, but they were 2-14 as a team. We have to guard against that." The only other two upperclassmen are 6-foot-5 senior shooting guard Steve Lepore (4.5 ppg, 2.5 rpg), who is coming back from a major knee surgery, and 7-foot junior center Dshamal Schoetz, who has yet to see action in two years at the school. Lepore, a two-year starter at Northwestern before he transferred to Wake two years ago, is a threat as an outside shooter. He tied for third on the team with 29 3-pointers even though he averaged only 13.4 minutes a game. But he likely won't be available to the Deacons until December, as he continues to rehabilitate the ruptured tendon he suffered in his knee in the first round of the ACC Tournament. Schoetz red-shirted his first year on campus, then tore ligaments in his knee in the first week of practice last year. So Prosser doesn't know if he will be a factor for the coming season. What the coach does know is that his three sophomores -- 6-foot-8 forward Vytas Danelius (6.6 ppg, 4.2 rpg), 6-foot-2 point guard Taron Downey (4.7 ppg, 1.9 apg) and 6-foot-9 forward Jamaal Levy (2.7 ppg, 2.0 rpg) -- will be the foundation of his team, with Howard as the centerpiece. The coach got to see them all play last year as freshmen, as he gradually worked them in with his experienced players. "I think those three guys are really going to be a fulcrum for our team,'' Prosser said. "I think they will, in large part, determine our fate.'' Daneluis got the most experience, playing 16.8 minutes a game in the frontcourt with Songaila. Both are from Lithuania, and Songaila played the role of mentor well for Danelius. "Vytas is ready on his own to play very well for us,'' Prosser said. "He has become much more comfortable at Wake and in the States with his teammates. He has really come into his own as a person, as a student and as a basketball player. "From the beginning of practice to the end of the season, he improved more than any other player on the team. I think he can play with a little more confidence this year because of what he did last year. I think he can become a productive scorer as well as rebounder.'' The left-handed Downey turned out to be a pleasant surprise for Prosser, winning a spot in the lineup late in the season. He started 10 games at the point. But, like every other point guard Wake has had in recent memory, he was an inconsistent ball-handler. Still, he played strong defense and showed that he has the ability to run the kind of system Prosser wants to use. "He played particularly well in the NCAA tournament game against Oregon [with 11 points and seven assists],'' Prosser said. "Again, he needs to become a little more vocal as a point guard. He is probably not a natural point guard. But he will have to play a lot of that position for us.'' Levy played sparingly as a freshman, mainly because he was behind Howard most of the year. He averaged only 9.3 minutes a game, but he did put up some interesting numbers in a handful of games. In his first ACC game, he scored 15 points and had seven rebounds against Florida State. At Cameron Indoor Stadium against Duke, he had 10 points and five rebounds in a career-high 22 minutes. And in the NCAA Tournament against Oregon, he again played 22 minutes, grabbing four rebounds and scoring 10 points. "He is long and talented and not physical enough yet,'' Prosser said. "The Oregon game showed that given the opportunity, he can be productive.'' Perhaps the most impressive thing about Prosser's short tenure at Wake Forest has been his ability to recruit in the state of North Carolina, which has been deep with basketball talent in recent years. Four of Prosser's five talented freshmen are from North Carolina, and all the newcomers will have a chance to play quickly, if only because of the Deacons' lack of experienced veterans. Prosser's best catch was 6-foot-9, 285-pound center Eric Williams (28.0 ppg, 14.0 rpg, 6.0 apg, and 3.0 bpg as a high school senior), a burly guy from the real town of Wake Forest, N.C., just outside of Raleigh. Prosser convinced Williams -- who was considered to be a solid prospect, but too hefty to be dominating -- to sign early last year, before Prosser had coached at game at Wake Forest. Williams got into better shape for his senior season and had a breakout year, finishing his career in the McDonald's All-America game and winding up ranked among the 20 best players in the nation according to one analyst. Williams still needs to lose a little weight to play the kind of full-court game Prosser prefers, but he's one of the Deacons' few options inside. Prosser did sign another inside player, 6-foot-9 forward Chris Ellis, from Marietta, Ga. He is the son of long-time NBA player Dale Ellis. Prosser doesn't see him as that kind of shooter, but he does have a good shooting touch, a great basketball pedigree and a lot of potential. "With the loss of Darius and Antwan, we are thin up front,'' Prosser said. "So Eric Williams and Chris Ellis will have to play a lot of minutes for us up front.'' Prosser signed three backcourt players, all from the state of North Carolina. Swingman Richard Joyce, who played his senior season at Oak Hill Academy in Virginia, had been recruited under Odom, and Prosser wanted to keep him in the fold. He was hampered by injury at Oak Hill, where he hooked up with future Demon Deacon teammate Justin Gray, another North Carolina native who went to the prep school for his final season before college. Joyce is more of a wing player, while Gray is a lights-out shooter. They will play behind Howard and Lepore (when healthy), along with another freshman shooting guard, Trent Strickland, an East Flat Rock, N.C., native who spent his final season before college at Hargrave (Va.) Military Academy. "We hope Justin Gray can be an outstanding 3-point shooter for us,'' Prosser said. "He also has the ability to play point guard because he can create and get into the lane.'' The Demon Deacons will be young, but Prosser isn't giving them much of a free pass. He has a demanding but not overwhelming schedule that includes trips to Wisconsin for the ACC-Big 10 Shootout and Marquette, as well as home games against Temple and St. Johns. Prosser realizes this will be a challenging year, with eight players on the roster who are sophomores or freshmen. He does have one of the league's best players in Howard, who will have to shoulder much of the leadership responsibility. "This is a big year for Josh,'' Prosser said. "He won't have the luxury of a Darius or Broderick or those other upperclassmen. This team's leadership falls squarely on his shoulders. "This will be the next phase in the development as a basketball player for Josh Howard. He has to be a leader as well as a player. How well he responds to that will determine how well we will do.'' Prosser learned an important but surprising (to him) lesson in his first year at Wake Forest: It's hard to survive in the ACC. Like most coaches who spent most of their careers outside looking in, the ACC seemed to be about hype and marketing. During Prosser's years at Xavier, he never thought that his team was much below the same level as the best teams in the ACC. That opinion changed last year. "When I was in the Atlantic 10, I thought the ACC was about hype and overkill by the media, but I have become a believer,'' Prosser said. "It's an unforgiving league. You can be playing well and still lose two or three in a row. You're so beat up for the season that you can be flat at the end. "I think I have a much better appreciation for how difficult a league it is. The talent level of the players was even better than I expected. I knew the coaches would be exceptional. Winning on the road in certain venues was much more difficult than I expected.'' So now he gets to go do it all again, this time with mostly freshmen and sophomores instead of mostly seniors.
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