Wake Forest has another chance to smooth out wrinkles before entering a more difficult stretch on the schedule.
The Demon Deacons (5-2) welcome visiting Northeastern (3-3) for Friday afternoon’s game at Winston-Salem, N.C.
This will be the second straight opponent from the Coastal Athletic Association for Wake Forest, which clobbered visiting Campbell 99-51 on Tuesday.
The numbers on offense were particularly pleasing to Demon Deacons coach Steve Forbes.
“Some things that are important to us,” he said. “We had 1.55 points per possession. We got the ball in the paint and we either shot it or played out of it. That’s important. We did a great job moving the ball. When the ball changed sides three times, we had between 1.31 points per possession and 1.39 points per possession.”
Juke Harris has led Wake Forest in scoring in five games and is averaging 20 points per outing. He’s also the leading rebounder on the team with 7.7
It was a nice follow-up effort after a couple of drama-filled games in the Bahamas last week, including a buzzer-beater to defeat Memphis.
“I thought we had a lot of confidence coming out of the Bahamas,” Forbes said. “We brought back a lot of confidence after the win over Memphis. We practiced like it.”
The Demon Deacons are looking to enhance that confidence prior to matchups next week against power-conference teams Oklahoma and West Virginia.
Northeastern, which beat Duquesne 93-86 last weekend to snap a two-game skid, will be in its fourth true road game of the season.
Northeastern coach Bill Coen said experienced backcourt players are going to be crucial to any success.
“That guard play is going to really help,” Coen said. “We’re going to need to make some 3s to stay competitive.”
Xavier Abreu has led the Huskies in scoring the past two games. The guard averaged 24.5 points off the bench in those contests and was selected as the CAA Player of the Week.
Youri Fritz is the Huskies’ leading active scorer with 14.7 points per game other. LA Pratt averaged 17 points in the season’s first three games but is out for the rest of the season with a broken foot.
