WINSTON-SALEM – Jeff Bzdelik won’t face quite the rebuilding job at Wake Forest he did upon taking the University of Colorado head coaching job three years ago.
He still has work ahead of him.
He won’t have to worry about facilities and his staff is in place with the retention of assistant coaches Rusty LaRue and Jeff Battle, plus director of basketball operations Walt Corbean. When it comes to talent to put on the court, it is a different matter as the Deacons lack numbers and experience,
With the graduation of four seniors and the defection of Al-Farouq Aminu to the NBA, the Deacons have five scholarship players, one of them a transfer from Georgetown who won’t be game-eligible until January. Among the returnees is one starter, guard C.J. Harris, who will be a sophomore next season. Two others – forward Arie Stewart and center and center Tony Woods – regularly got into games. The other, center Ty Walker, was rarely used.
“Anyone have any eligibility?” Bzdelik joked as he talked to the media on Wednesday.
The lack of talent leaves Bzdelik hoping five highly-regarded players recruited by former coach Dino Gaudio will honor their commitments to play for Wake Forest.
“I have a relatively young team and youth in the ACC or Big 12 is challenging in itself,” Bzdelik said. “The freshmen are going to have a lot on their plate. We’ll have our challenges.”
Bzdelik planned to get in touch with the recruits later Wednesday. He met with the retuning players as a group after he was hired on Tuesday night and was to meet with them individually on Wednesday and start working with them on the court today.
“The style of play I want is simple – tough defense, culminated with defensive rebounds, get out and go, attack the rim quickly in transition,” he said. “I think if you investigate my background, my teams have always shot well and scored a lot of points.”
His team at Colorado last season averaged 74.6 points per game and gave up 74.2 ppg. The Buffaloes were held under 60 points just twice.
“I like creating offense off defense and getting deflections,” Bzdelik said. “You’ve got to be really sound. College players average hitting 45-46 percent of their shots when they are open, and in the 20s with a hand in their face. You’ve got to be rock solid and make people take contested shots.
“I have an idea how I want us to play. But I also know that we need to take the talent we have and put them out there in situations where they will have the most success possible. We’ve got kids who haven’t played and the new kids, so we’ll have to make adjustments.”
gsmith@hpe.com | 888-3519
Post a Comment
