Explaining the WFU – Duke Game in Three Words

I guess Buzz Bruggeman was mighty happy on Sunday when his boy J.J. Reddick got to experience winning a game at Wake Forest for the first time ever. This loss won’t do much to increase the WFU hat quotient.

I’m going to explain that loss in three words. It’s about recruiting.

I’m not trashing Wake’s players. Wake has some great players that compare well to most other teams in the country. Teams that actually have to recruit players, that is.

If you follow college basketball recruiting you know that Duke can generally select the recruits it signs. Take a look at the recruting databases on Scout.Com or any major college sports network and you’ll see blue chip prospects with offers from tons of schools with a notation that the kid has “medium interest” in those schools. Then there’s Duke with a “no offer” notation and an indication that the player has “high interest” in the Blue Devils. Usually this means these kids are waiting to see if Duke will “select” them. Duke doesn’t recruit, it selects.

So think about it this way. Let’s say we decide to play basketball or soccer or croquet or red rover or whatever. And let’s say that rather than take turns picking our team, I get to pick my entire team first. In that case, I should win almost every game, right? In fact, if I don’t it’s the result of either a failure on my part to pick the right people or a tremendous effort on the part of you or your team.

When you think about it that way, it says a lot about Skip Prosser and the WFU team that J.J. Reddick took 4 years to win at Wake.