Ultimate guide to the Wake Forest basketball season. Everything you’d want to know.

Steve Forbes is the only men’s basketball coach to be hired at a Power 6 conference school this year.

He was officially named Wake Forest’s coach on April 30 and finally started meeting players in person in July – naturally, it seems, in this COVID-19 world.

So how do you build chemistry when more than half of your team is new to the school and they can’t meet each other and get on the court together until four months before the start of the season?

In the immortalized words — albeit, a different context — of Allen Iverson: Practice.

“I changed practice … after our first scrimmage. I really started doing more live action in practice,” Forbes said. “Because really, truthfully, you can do it in a drill, great. But if you can’t carry it over to live action, then it (doesn’t) matter.”

Live action has arrived and it’ll soon be seen if the new-look Demon Deacons can carry these things over.

Wake Forest moved on from Danny Manning after five of his six seasons at the helm resulted in losing records. Forbes comes from East Tennessee State, where the former assistant under Billy Gillespie (at Texas A&M), Bruce Pearl (at Tennessee) and Gregg Marshall (at Wichita State) compiled a 130-43 record across five seasons.

The task ahead of Forbes seems all-encompassing: Rebuild a once-proud Tobacco Road program that’s been mired in a 10-year fog, recruit ACC-level talent while adhering to Wake Forest’s academic standards and inject life into a fan base that has voiced its displeasure in dwindling crowd sizes for the past couple of seasons — not that attendance will be measurable in the immediate future.

He’s going to start the undertaking with a slew of fresh faces.

Forbes brought in three graduate transfers (Jonah Antonio, Ian DuBose and Jalen Johnson), two transfers who gained immediate eligibility (Isaiah Wilkins and Daivien Williamson) and two freshmen (Quadry Adams and Emmanuel Okpomo).

If you’re counting, that’s seven newcomers melded with five returning scholarship players — Tariq Ingraham, Ismael Massoud, Isaiah Mucius, Jahcobi Neath and Ody Oguama.

The past several months have been a game of catch-up in terms of learning about each others’ strengths and weaknesses — which has placed a premium on practice time.

“It definitely has been a challenge, it’s been different than any other year of my college career,” said DuBose, who played three seasons at Houston Baptist. “Usually you go do things with guys, go bowling or go get food. Everything is kind of more restricted or limited, so those opportunities to build team chemistry off the court have been a little bit … it makes the time that we have more valuable.

“It’s been an adjustment, but it’s more focused on on the court, working together and cooperating through each difficult time in practice.”

Wake Forest basketball season outlook

Wake Forest was picked to finish last in the ACC for the second straight season. The Demon Deacons don’t have much returning personnel and when you’re coming off a 6-14 season in the ACC and lost two double-digit scorers who would be seniors (Chaundee Brown and Olivier Sarr), that’s where the league’s media will pick you.

What they also don’t have is a Power 6 nonconference opponent. Wake Forest is the only ACC team not participating in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge, and the new staff has filled the nonconference schedule with winnable games — according to KenPom, Wake Forest’s toughest nonconference opponent will be Troy, which is ranked 267th of 357 teams.

Forbes’ style is to play five-out offense and fills his lineup with shooters who can space the floor. His yet-to-be-trademarked term for defense is “gritty, grimy, tough, together” — those two aspects will likely be the most-noticeable differences from the past six seasons.

The light nonconference schedule won’t prepare Wake Forest for playing Virginia twice (Dec. 16 and Jan. 5) and Duke once (Jan. 9) in the first five games of the ACC slate.

By the time they get to mid-February, if the Demon Deacons are in range of an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament, back-to-back games at Florida State (Feb. 13) and against Duke (Feb. 17) will offer resume-building chances.

Starters lost from 2019-20

▪ Brandon Childress (point guard, graduation), Torry Johnson (wing, graduation), Andrien White (wing, graduation), Chaundee Brown (wing, transfer), Olivier Sarr (forward, transfer).

Wake Forest projected starters

Daivien Williamson

▪ 2019-20 stats: 10.4 points, 2.6 assists, 2.0 rebounds (for East Tennessee State)

▪ Williamson, a Winston-Salem native, played for Forbes for two productive seasons at East Tennessee State and appears to have won the starting point guard role over sophomore Jahcobi Neath.

As the only player familiar with Forbes and the coaching staff (aside from Randolph Childress), Williamson has perhaps taken more critical coaching than any other player, Forbes said.

But that familiarity also puts Williamson in a natural leadership position.

Ian DuBose

▪ 2019-20 stats: 19.0 points, 7.3 rebounds, 3.8 assists (for Houston Baptist)

▪ DuBose committed to the program while Manning was still at the helm and remained on board through the coaching change. He quickly cemented himself as one of Wake Forest’s best perimeter defenders.

DuBose was the Southland Conference’s student-athlete of the year and ranked in the top 10 in conference games for scoring, assists, rebounds, field-goal percentage (46.4) and free-throw percentage (80.0).

The Durham native had a 44-point game last season, and Forbes said he’ll operate as the Demon Deacons’ third option at point guard behind Williamson and Neath.

Jalen Johnson

▪ 2019-20 stats: 3.5 points, 2.0 rebounds (for Tennessee)

▪ Length and versatility are the attributes here for another Durham native and grad transfer.

Johnson bulked up by 15 pounds upon his arrival to Wake Forest and provides the Demon Deacons with a long, explosive 6-6, 195-pound frame. He fits the billing of what Forbes wants defensively, and Forbes has made it clear that playing defense the way he wants will dictate who starts and who plays the most minutes.

Johnson was committed to play this season at ETSU with Forbes, but switched gears with the coaching staff.

Isaiah Mucius

▪ 2019-20 stats: 7.3 points, 4.7 rebounds

▪ The only starter who has played multiple seasons in the ACC, Mucius has come into his own as a leader and could be expected to lead the Demon Deacons in scoring — and possibly other categories.

Since he stepped on campus, part of the story with Mucius was and adding weight to compete physically. Since the new staff’s arrival, Mucius has added about 10 pounds.

The last on-court impression of Mucius was a career-high 19-point outburst (on 7-9 shooting) against Pittsburgh in the ACC tournament. He’s been microwavable offense in spots for the past two seasons; if that becomes consistent, Wake Forest will have one of the league’s top scorers.

Ismael Massoud

▪ 2019-20 stats: 4.8 points, 2.0 rebounds, 39.8% 3-pointers

▪ Massoud will likely be the smallest and lightest starting “center” in the ACC — not that it matters much to Forbes.

In the five-out offense and with Ody Oguama playing catch-up, Massoud slots in at the “5” in the Demon Deacons’ lineup.

The 6-8, 220-pound sophomore from East Harlem, N.Y., showed the most growth on the team in the past month, with Forbes saying in October that his defense, turnover rate and shooting percentages had to improve. On Tuesday, Forbes noted the marked improvement in each area and said Massoud has embraced playing up to the size required of his position.

Depth situation

Whatever size Wake Forest plays with will have to come off the bench, at least to start the season.

Oguama missed a few crucial preseason weeks because he was out with mononucleosis. The sophomore started last season and was more active than his 2.9-point, 3.9-rebound-per-game averages indicate — but he’ll be brought along slowly as he recovers from missing practices.

Neath will begin the season as the backup point guard. Pay attention to see if his momentum — all of his four double-digit scoring performances came in the last six games of last season — carries over.

Transfers Jonah Antonio (UNLV) and Isaiah Wilkins (Virginia Tech) are wing players, with Antonio serving the role of 3-point specialist and Wilkins operating in an all-around role.

Forbes said the rotation is nine and that “we don’t have a lot of separation maybe between one through nine,” so don’t bank on starters or bench players retaining their roles if some separation occurs.

In the freshman class, Forbes said guard Quadry Adams has practiced better in the past week, and that center Emmanuel Okpomo will take a bit longer to develop.

There’s intrigue here, but not until later in the season: Carter Whitt signed earlier this month and will enroll in January, and theoretically could play for the Demon Deacons in the last couple of months of the season.

Betting odds

▪ Win ACC: +10000 (100/1)

▪ Win national championship: +13000 (130/1)

▪ Reach Final Four: +2500 (25/1)

Wake Forest basketball roster

▪ Head coach: Steve Forbes, first season (130-43 overall)

Wake Forest 2020-21 basketball schedule

• Nov. 25 vs. Delaware State (Mako Medical Wake Forest Classic)

• Nov. 27 vs. Longwood (Mako Medical Wake Forest Classic)

• Dec. 2 vs. Troy

• Dec. 13 vs. Presbyterian

• Dec. 16 vs. Virginia

• Dec. 21 vs. VMI

• Dec. 30 vs. Syracuse

• Jan. 3 at Georgia Tech

• Jan. 6 at Virginia

• Jan. 9 at Duke

• Jan. 13 vs. Louisville

• Jan. 17 vs. Virginia Tech

• Jan. 20 at North Carolina

• Jan. 27 at N.C. State

• Jan. 30 vs. Miami

• Feb. 2 at Notre Dame

• Feb. 7 vs. Pittsburgh

• Feb. 10 at Boston College

• Feb. 13 at Florida State

• Feb. 17 vs. Duke

• Feb. 20 vs. N.C. State

• Feb. 24 vs. Clemson

• Feb. 27 at Virginia Tech

• March 2 at Pittsburgh

• March 5 vs. Georgia Tech

• March 9-13: ACC Tournament (Greensboro)