Men’s basketball dropped a crucial home matchup on Saturday to Wake Forest, 77-66. The Mustangs were without leading scorer Boopie Miller (13.8 PPG), who was scratched late due to a foot bruise.
The Mustangs rode a five-game win streak into the matchup during which they shot 48.9% and averaged 77.6 points per game. The offense suffered without Miller, connecting on 36.1% from the field and only 22.9% from three. Coach Andy Enfield noted a lack of speed and shot-making on offense with Miller on the bench.
“It certainly hurts when you lose your leading scoring guy and leading assist guy,” Enfield said. “Certainly with his quickness and penetration to set guys up, we missed a little bit of that tonight.”
In Miller’s absence, guards B.J. Edwards and Chuck Harris spent more time on the court. The pair scored 12 and 15, respectively, but both struggled from beyond the arc as Edwards missed all six of his three-point tries and Harris was 3-10. Harris complimented the Demon Deacons’ defense for slowing down the SMU offense.
“The 1-3-1 gave us a lot of trouble,” Harris said. “But we were getting pretty clean looks that we usually make, but they just weren’t falling today. Credit to Wake and their defense but those are shots we see go in every day.”
Despite getting out to a 13-3 lead in the first four minutes of the game, SMU could only scrounge a 34-32 lead entering half. Wake Forest head coach Steve Forbes credited his team’s resiliency in overcoming the deficit.
“I thought we got off to a really bad start,” Forbes said. “We were turning it over, we weren’t getting good shots, we got out in transition a bit, the crowd was into it. Called a timeout and I think we settled down pretty good.”
The wheels fell off for the Mustangs in the second half. Wake Forest shot 50% while holding SMU to just nine makes from the field. The Demon Deacons succeeded particularly in stifling Mustang seven-footer Samet Yiğitoğlu, who netted only one basket the whole game.
“I thought we had really good pressure on him, high hands,” Forbes said. “We had a good triangle behind him and rotated out of it. He got us once early but they didn’t get us much after that.”
Senior Kario Oquendo and junior AJ George displayed strong efforts for the Mustangs. Oquendo scored 13 points and collected nine rebounds, and George put up six in limited minutes. Coach Enfield had high praise for George and his poise entering late in the game.
“I thought [George] was really good. He gave us really good minutes in the second half,” Enfield said. “AJ really helped us get back in the game and have a chance.”
With the loss, the Mustangs dropped to 19-6 overall and 10-4 in ACC play. SMU will need a crucial win at home against Clemson or an impressive showing in the ACC tournament should they wish to compete in the NCAA DI Tournament in March.
