5 takeaways from Wake coach Steve Forbes at ACC men’s basketball media day
The biggest strength for Wake Forest men’s basketball’s is its numbers.
Head coach Steve Forbes feels the Demon Deacons have accomplished their offseason priorities of needing to improve on 3-point shooting, passing and getting more assisted baskets, as well as rebounding on both sides of the ball and their movement and cutting on offense.
“I’ve always been a coach who’s really liked it when we had balance,” Forbes said. “We’re always going to have a ‘leading scorer,’ but when you get four, five, six guys in double figures, just a lot harder to play against. Because I know as a coach, preparing for teams like that is really hard. And so I’ve just seen a lot of joy and passion from these guys sharing the ball. When you do that, there’s energy, and the ball will find the open shot.
“It won’t just stick in somebody’s hands, and now it’s your turn to go do it. Sometimes you’ve got to have that and make plays late, man. But these guys have shown the ability to have tremendous joy sharing the ball and finding each other.”
New ACC slate has fewer conference matchups
Schools are only playing 18 games against ACC opponents, down from 20.
Wake’s season opener is set for 8 p.m. Nov. 3 against American. The Deacs play Michigan at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit on Nov. 11 in the Wolverine-Deacon Challenge — in which the two schools met in Greensboro last year — and travel to the Bahamas to face Texas Tech, Memphis or Purdue in the Baha Mar Championship the weekend before Thanksgiving.
Oklahoma comes to LVJM Coliseum for this year’s installment of the ACC/SEC Challenge on Dec. 2. Wake hosts Queens for the North Carolina programs’ first matchup Dec. 16, and the Deacs also have added non-conference meetings Dec. 6 against West Virginia on the road and a home game against Vanderbilt on Dec. 21.
“One of the games we lost was Duke, because we usually play them twice,” Forbes said. “We’re only playing them once, so we went out and got a neutral-site game with West Virginia, and a home-and-home with Vanderbilt. We’ve got the Big 12/SEC team on top of the fact we play Michigan, Texas Tech … and we play Oklahoma, so we’re not backing down because we’re not going to get the chance.
“We’re not going to get to March and somebody says, ‘We’re not playing a tough enough league schedule.’ That’s (BS). We played one last year, and we’re going to play one this year. That’s my philosophy on it — to schedule up. Twenty league games historically has not worked for us. I don’t know if it’s the exact reason, but we’ve gotten less and less teams in the league. We still got to win games no matter what, but maybe, hopefully, we’ll see the 18 is maybe a better way to go. I was a proponent of it, and we’ll see.”
As sports betting grows, so do concerns on campus
Forbes has had many conversations with Wake players about gambling.
He says the most negative feedback any player gets is after a loss — or a win.
“That’s the sad part,” Forbes said. “I don’t care about me; I’ve got big shoulders. But my players getting blasted on social media or ‘DM,’ whatever they call it, I don’t know, that trust me, they know. And they come to me. … It’s just something we never had to deal with, a lot of things like that since I started, this is Year 37 for me. I talk to them about it all the time, because it’s scary.
“Think about this: On any campus in the country, who are (players’) friends? The students. What are they doing? They’re gambling. And they don’t even know it. They could ask one of my players a question about practice, they don’t even know what they’re saying. Like, ‘How did Connor practice?’ ‘He blew his knee out.’ It’s information, really. Tell them all the time, you get hurt, you can’t go out on Instagram, you can’t do that. It’s a different world.
“Can’t put your head in the sand as a head coach. You’ve gotta talk about real-life issues, so I talk to them a lot about gambling, what that means, how that looks and what can happen. Go and rent ‘The Godfather.’ Watch ‘Peaky Blinders,’ watch ‘The Sopranos.’”
Coach’s challenge comes to college basketball
Forbes, the ACC’s most experienced head coach, spoke about the new challenges in college basketball.
Coaches will now have the ability to challenge — at any point in the game — out-of-bounds calls, basket interference, goaltending and whether a secondary defender was in the restricted-area arc. Teams must have a timeout to request a review, and if the challenge is successful, teams get one additional replay challenge for the rest of the game.
Forbes’ son, Chris, is Wake’s video coordinator. He records every play on an iPad from behind the bench, and there have been many times the elder Forbes is enraged during the game. “Was that a foul?!” His son will confirm it was indeed a foul — and then Forbes may take it out on his son the next day.
“There’s probably a strategy to it,” Forbes said of the new coach’s challenge. “You’ve still got to have a timeout, too, lose your timeout. I think (Nick Friedman, new assistant coach), having Nick will help, because Nick’s done it in Chile and in the NBA. A little more pressure for the coaches, more second-guessing if you did or didn’t win the challenge, or did you challenge that or didn’t challenge it.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve turned around in the game, and we all know who the video coordinator is at my school — my child — and I’ll turn around. … I’ll be like, ‘That’s not a foul!’’ So I’ve gotta watch that. Because I’ve done that so many times when I get mad at him the next day, I’m like, ‘That wasn’t a foul!’’”
Forbes on possible NCAA Tournament expansion
The NCAA Tournament reportedly could expand to 72 or 76 teams.
Forbes was recently in Indianapolis with the men’s basketball oversight committee, and should they vote it in and approve it, it goes off to the administrative committee.
“I’m for it,” Forbes said. “People are going to say, ‘Oh, Wake Forest is for it,’ because they’ve been under the bubble. One thousand percent wrong. I’m gonna tell you what I’m for, and I’m very passionate, and that’s why I don’t understand the kickback here from certain people. Have you ever seen the joy on a kid’s face on Selection Sunday? It’s unbelievable. It’s their shining moment. Know what it’s like for those kids to go to open practice the day before the game?
“They never forget it. So who in their right mind would deny 40 or 50 kids that opportunity? Because that’s all it is. … I don’t think it can devalue the tournament when the tournament’s about the players, and the players are getting the joy out of being in it. To me, that’s what expansion is.”
Former Hornets assistant joins the Deacs’ staff
Friedman spent four seasons on the Charlotte Hornets’ staff.
Wake’s new assistant coach served under coaches Steve Clifford and James Borrego from 2019-24, leading on-court activity for the NBA Draft process, overseeing defensive planning under Clifford and serving as an offensive coordinator under Borrego after starting as a player development coach.
Friedman also has experience with several G League teams and coaching internationally.
“(Friedman) is a very positive person,” Forbes said. “He’s outstanding at what he does, but he’s got a real positive outlook on the game and how it works with the players. It’s just more spacing, some conceptual ideas, maybe with passing, these are some things that we did in ‘22 and ‘23, it just got a little bit more sticky the last couple years.
“We adapt to the strength of our players, and that’s why we’ve been a consistently winning team. I do believe with this team, the ball zings. … We’re so far ahead in attempted field goals this year in practice than when we were a year ago, because we played more, and I think that’s really helped us. With Nick, it’s more conceptual things, what we’re doing offensively that I’m not going to really get into (Wednesday), but he’s done a really good job giving the guys confidence.”
This story was originally published October 8, 2025 at 6:37 PM.
