Jeff Teague's exit hurts the Wake Forest basketball team, but it doesn't condemn the Deacons to bottom feeding.
The doomsday scenario, evident in media reports and alumni chatter, hardly squares with proven theories of ACC relativity. For Wake Forest to sink from the league's third rung to the bottom third, a whole lot of teams must rise.
Georgia Tech could jump from worst to somewhere near first with Gani Lawal backing out of the NBA pool, guard Iman Shumpert returning, 6-9 Derrick Favors arriving as one of the nation's top freshmen and defender D'Andre Bell coming back from serious injury. If Coach Paul Hewitt can find a point guard -- a big if -- Tech fits the rocket-ship profile. Nobody else does.
Florida State lost guard Toney Douglas, second in voting for player of the year. Miami lost its best player, all-conference guard Jack McClinton. The other three All-ACC players also departed -- senior Tyler Hansbrough and junior Ty Lawson of national champion North Carolina and junior Gerald Henderson of ACC Tournament winner Duke.
Ten of the top 14 scorers will not return. Only nine of the top 24 will come back. The No. 25 scorer, Al-Farouq Aminu, should emerge as Wake Forest's rock.
Teague's shining star dimmed as the season headed toward the finish line, his descent roughly matching the Deacons' slide from AP No. 1 to the most glaring checkout of the NCAA Tournament. Cleveland State, a 13th seed, buried the moribund Deacons 84-69 in the first round, one week after seventh-seeded Maryland evicted them from the ACC Tournament 75-64.
There was plenty of blame to go around. James Johnson's concentration wavered as he prepared for the NBA leap. Coach Dino Gaudio yanked volatile center Chas McFarland out of the starting lineup for the final game. Outsiders detected other signs of internal turmoil when assistant coach Pat Kelsey left for Xavier and Gaudio shuffled his staff.
After Wake Forest went 8-7 down the stretch, style analysts still wondered if the team fared better when Teague controlled the ball instead of point guard Ish Smith. The unresolved issue evolved into a moot question when Teague opted for the NBA.
The Deacons (24-7) finished 12th in the AP rankings because the poll closed before the NCAA Tournament opened. Gaudio lost his top two scorers and senior Harvey Hale, which means that players who scored 53 percent of the points will return.
The core begins with starters Aminu, McFarland and L.D. Williams. Smith didn't start but played extensively, especially at crunch time. Big men Tony Woods and David Weaver know the ropes. Returnees Ty Walker and Gary Clark will get their chances. So will newcomers Ari Stewart, C.J. Harris and Konner Tucker.
Only Carolina incurred greater personnel losses: the past two ACC players of the year (Hansbrough, Lawson), the Final Four's outstanding player (junior Wayne Ellington) and starter Danny Green. Even with Teague and Johnson gone, Wake Forest ranks third in a common measure of ACC experience, career starts. Only Maryland (274) and Duke (257) have more than Wake's 237.
Senior Greivis Vasquez, the Terps' mercurial point guard, has scored more points, delivered more assists and played more minutes than any returning player. Duke's Jon Scheyer is No. 2 in points (just ahead of Clemson's Trevor Booker) and minutes (ahead of Maryland's Eric Hayes).
The superior quality of older Blue Devils probably will make them the fall favorite, putting a dismissive curl in Coach Mike Krzyzewski's lip. He argues -- correctly, it seems -- that preseason predictions are based on outrageous assumptions about unseen incoming players and the development rates of veterans.
Duke returns four starters and adds two celebrated recruits: 6-10 Ryan Kelly of Raleigh, N.C. and 6-11 Mason Plumlee of Asheville, N.C. By reputation, neither of these 210-pounders qualifies as an enforcer, the glaring shortcoming on a remarkable Duke team that won 30 games, ranked sixth and advanced to the regional semifinals. Kyle Singler (14.9 points a game, tops among ACC vets) will succeed Henderson as the go-to guy.
Roy Williams lost more talent from his 2005 title team than from the recent championship roster, but he earned coaching awards for turning David Noel and a bunch of Carolina freshmen into a 23-win NCAA qualifier the next season. Can he do it again?
Carolina already has a strong front line (Deon Thompson, Ed Davis, Tyler Zeller). Can ace defender Marcus Ginyard, back from the medical-redshirt list, flourish as a Noel replica? Possibly. Can freshman John Henson, augmented by four other rookies, provide immediate help like Hansbrough did in 2006? That's a load to heap on anyone. The crucial issue: Can Larry Drew, freshman Dexter Strickland or Mr. X run the show?
Virginia Tech returns two of the ACC's finest talents, point guard Malcolm Delaney and postman Jeff Allen. Coach Al Skinner usually squeezes the most out of a funky Boston College menagerie. He gets four starters back from a team that made the NCAA Tournament despite senior Tyrese Rice's inconsistency.
Maryland lacked inside power but streaked into the tournament and won a game. If there's anything to the notion that cooler heads sometimes prevail, well, the Vasquez-Gary Williams mixture still smells like gasoline.
Clemson's Oliver Purnell will build around Booker, but he might need to reconsider his formula. The Tigers press effectively when the games matter less and recede late in the season. Maybe the ACC should schedule a Clemson-Wake Forest game every Jan. 31, when both teams usually peak, and hand a trophy to January's champ.
Virginia hired Tony Bennett to coach five returning starters from an abysmal 10-18 team. N.C. State, which finished 10th without a convincing point guard, has the least amount of starting experience and the most riding on a huge freshman class.
Wake Forest might take a dip, but it's hard to envision the Deacons scraping the bottom of this barrel.
E-mail Lenox Rawlings at lrawlings(at)wsjournal.com.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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