Home cooking and a veteran presence: 5 things to know about Wake Forest basketball

Wake Forest might have one of its best men’s basketball teams in recent memory.

Picked third in the preseason ACC poll, it’s the Demon Deacons highest preseason ranking in 15 years. Senior guards Hunter Sallis, Cameron Hildreth and big man Efton Reid III return to a Wake squad that won a game in the National Invitation Tournament.

The Demon Deacons enjoyed a nine-game win streak last season that was their best since 2008-09. Their 21-14 campaign included wins over Final Four-bound N.C. State and the Clemson team that made it to the Elite 8.

“N.C. State went to the Final Four, but they finished 10th in our league,” head coach Steve Forbes said at ACC Tipoff. “That just goes to show that you get playing right at the right time, and we just haven’t. We just have not done that late in the year.

“I believe this team is a little more grizzled. A little more tougher, since they’ve been through it. This team is a little bit more like my East Tennessee State teams — this is a very athletic, long, fast team. Probably the fastest team I’ve coached.”

The Demon Deacons’ season tips off at 8 p.m. Monday against Coppin State, before they host North Carolina A&T next Thursday and play Michigan inside the Greensboro Coliseum on Nov. 10.

Here are five storylines ahead of Wake Forest’s 2024-25 men’s basketball season:

An even stronger bounce-back year for Efton Reid?

Despite his early absence, Reid turned out to be one of Wake’s biggest scorers last season.

Reid, the 7-foot senior who previously played at LSU and Gonzaga, was forced to sit out the first seven games last season before his waiver for immediate eligibility was approved by the NCAA on Dec. 5.

The big man from Richmond, Virginia, who was considered a five-star recruit coming out of IMG Academy, said he was doing extra conditioning at the time. Still, it remained difficult to practice, as he knew it wasn’t necessarily in preparation of in-game reps.

Reid wound up playing in 28 games for Wake, leading the team with 7.9 rebounds per game and 46.5 percent of field goals made.

He figures to be a big part of the Demon Deacons’ game down low on both sides of the floor once again, especially as he’ll complement new forward Tre’Von Spillers.

“I was crushed, because with the whole waiver process — you weren’t here in the summertime, you weren’t here in the preseason — I was here all the way to December,” Reid said. “I didn’t know what to think. I’m just glad my lawyers and everybody on the case was working well with me. And that’s why I chose Wake Forest.”

Hunter Sallis looks to build on success in his second ACC season

Sallis is projected to be one of the best players in the conference.

Receiving three votes as a nominee for ACC Preseason Player of the Year, Sallis led Wake Forest and ranked fifth in the ACC with 18 points per game in his first season since transferring from Gonzaga. The 6-foot-5 senior combo guard knocked down 40.5 percent of his 3-pointers as he scored in double-figures nearly every game.

The Gatorade Player of the Year coming out of high school in Nebraska in 2020-21, Sallis went on to play in 69 games over two seasons at Gonzaga. That included five points and five rebounds in the Zags’ Sweet 16 win over No. 2-seeded UCLA in 2023.

Sallis, named 2024 ACC Newcomer of the Year by the Associated Press, returned to the Demon Deacons this season after working out with several NBA teams ahead of the last year’s draft.

“Hunter Sallis, he’s one of the best players in college basketball,” Forbes said. “He could’ve gotten drafted. He had a great relationship with his parents, his agent, and they made the decision to come back to college. I never once talked to Hunter about it — the first time he called me to tell me he was coming back.

“Obviously, getting him back made me a better coach.”

Dominant at home, Wake hopes that could translate all season

The Demon Deacons own the second-best home record in the ACC over the past three seasons.

With a 48-7 record inside Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum since the 2021 season, only Duke’s 46-6 mark at Cameron Indoor ranks higher. Wake won its first 15 home games last season — including wins over the Blue Devils, Florida and Miami — and even dispatched N.C. State, which reached the Final Four as a No. 11 seed.

But the Deacs struggled on the road, posting a 2-9 record despite leading at halftime in many of those games.

Forbes explained how Wake’s success as an on-the-bubble team allowed pressure to build, and he just tried to keep all the players positive. The fifth-year coach encouraged the players to simply cherish the idea of getting to play alongside one another, and let their success happen naturally.

“But they’re kids, and they get on (the internet), they read all the stuff, and then I blast away once in a while,” Forbes said, “I got grumpy. I could tell the pressure was getting to them. We had some huge wins, but you love a couple of road games you should probably win, and that costs you when you’re on that cut line.

“We didn’t win on the road last year. We’ve got the second-best home record our last three years, but you got to win on the road.”

Newcomers could be key for the Demon Deacons this season

Spillers, who hails from Charleston, S.C., and previously played at Appalachian State, is among the newcomers on Wake’s roster this season.

The 6-foot-7 forward led the Mountaineers in scoring, rebounding, field goal percentage and minutes played last season, and his team-best 12 double-doubles marked the most by an App State player since 1980-81. He started his career at University of South Carolina Salkehatchie and became an All-American at Moberly Area Community College in Missouri.

Forbes saw Spillers play against the Demon Deacons in last season’s NIT, when Wake knocked out App State. But Spillers looked “pretty darn good,” Forbes said, and knew he wanted to bring the athletic forward to his school through the portal.

“I didn’t know who (Spillers) was until we played him in the NIT,” Forbes said, “and then he went in the portal, so I figured, ‘I better go get him.’ He’s pretty darn good, First Team All-Sun Belt player.

”These guys will tell you: He’s athletic. He plays hard, and he runs. Him and Omaha (Biliew) is great competition at the four, the most athletic fours I’ve had since I’ve been coaching.”

Biliew, a sophomore forward, joins Wake after appearing in 20 games last season in the Big 12 at Iowa State. A consensus five-star recruit coming out of high school, the Iowa Gatorade Player of the Year in 2022-23 ranked among the Top 15 players nationally and played in the McDonald’s All-American Game.

Sophomore guard Davin Cosby transferred in following a trip to the Final Four with Alabama last season, as did Ty-Laur Johnson after a strong freshman season at Louisville.

Center Churchill Abass, a native of Nigeria who attended the NBA Africa Academy growing up, also transferred to Wake after starting 13 games last season at DePaul.

They’re alongside incoming freshman Juke Harris, named a First Team All-District player by The Charlotte Observer in March, who scored more than 2,000 points at Salisbury High School.

Wake Forest is preseason No. 3 in another talented ACC

Wake ranks third in preseason ACC poll, receiving one vote to win the conference.

That’s the team’s highest preseason ranking since 2009, when future NBA players Ish Smith and Al-Farouq Aminu were suiting up for the Demon Deacons.

Duke is the preseason favorite, with UNC also ahead of Wake at No. 2, while Clemson ranks fourth. N.C. State, coming off its improbable run to the Final Four, is picked eighth of the now 18 teams in the ACC.

With programs like the Wolfpack and Tigers — who reached the Elite Eight — enjoying deep runs in the NCAA tournament, this strong Wake team is confident.

“I played at Gonzaga a couple years prior, so I was able to see that firsthand, seeing different teams,” Sallis said. “I feel like that’s just how March is: A team can peak at the right time, and those are the teams that win national championships.”

This story was originally published October 30, 2024 at 5:30 AM with the headline "Home cooking and a veteran presence: 5 things to know about Wake Forest basketball."

Shane Connuck

The Charlotte Observer

Shane Connuck is a former journalist for The Charlotte Observer