It’s been a week now since Steve Forbes was announced as Wake Forest’s newest basketball coach, which I believe means we’re all done processing this:
Personally, my favorite part of the video is how much more confident he was about graduating players than winning conference titles. Smart to hedge on that one—first sign he gets it.
Now, the real question:
Can Steve Forbes win an NIT at Wake Forest?
The Deacs, you’ll remember, have won an NIT before. Wake was where Dave Odom started his own personal run of NIT dominance, bringing the 2000 title to Winston-Salem before winning two down the Piedmont at South Carolina (I know Columbia isn’t actually on the Piedmont, but it’s close, so give this one to me). They know the taste of victory. It’s happened in most of their fans’ lifetimes. North Carolina’s other other other men’s basketball program is ready to feel that thrill again.
By this standard, Steve Forbes is a good hire. Over his five years at the East Tennessee State helm, he never lost more than four in conference play, proving consistently that his teams can take care of winnable games, something necessary for a bottom-of-the-ACC team looking to stay in the NIT mix (can’t lose buy games when you’re going 6-14 in your league). By the end of his tenure in Johnson City, his Bucs were good enough to compete for an NIT title, and would have been labeled a contender had they lost to Western Carolina in the SoCon Semi’s and, you know, the whole pandemic thing hadn’t happened. Presumably, at Wake Forest, recruiting will be at least a little bit easier than it was at ETSU, unless ETSU’s been rampantly cheating, which could actually be the case now that I think about it. There’s no way Wake Forest is cheating. Watch that video again. Those guys’ version of cheating is making a “mistake” in mancala and allowing recruits to win so they have more fun on their official visit.
In short, yes, Steve Forbes can win an NIT at Wake Forest.
But will he?
This is where it gets trickier. Only one team can win the NIT each season, and sometimes (this year, for example) nobody wins it. A coach can put a team in position to take home sports’ greatest prize, but there are no guarantees. Just making the field often takes a degree of luck, given how narrow each bubble is, and Wake has the added hurdle of getting completely embarrassed roughly four times a season—thrice understandably and once by someone like Pitt (that’s a typecast—could also be Boston College, Clemson, Notre Dame some years, etc.). It’s hard out here for a low-tier high-major.
At the very least, though, Wake Forest has given themselves a shot with this hire. The ceiling isn’t too high. The floor couldn’t be much lower. We’ll see where they land.
