Wake Forest HC Steve Forbes Interview (1-9-23)

Wake Forest Basketball, a winner on the road Louisville on Saturday.

The ACC Big Four all winners over the weekend, but focusing on the Deacs, Steve Forbes joins us now. Steve, going into the season, you spoke a lot about the youth of this group relative to last year and how there's a little bit of randomness that comes and uncertainty that comes when your team is younger. As you came off a game where you very well could have won in Chapel Hill and you win at Louisville, you're three and two in the league, you won at Wisconsin, you've beaten Duke, you've beaten Virginia Tech. Have your guys even exceeded your expectations of what you could do in the first couple months of a season? Well, Josh, thanks for having me.

I don't think so, Josh. I mean, we're always very confident going into every game that we play. Now, that was a gauntlet of games, no question, and I knew it would be a really tough portion of our schedule. I was very excited about the win at Wisconsin.

That's a really hard place for any team to go in. We had a quick turnaround at Clemson. We did have the lead at halftime, and I kept telling everybody after the game when they beat us that they had a really good team. I don't know, again, kind of like last year when I said Miami was really good.

I don't think a lot of people listened. I think Clemson is really, really good. They can defend, they're tough, and they can really score. So that was a tough loss. Then we tricked off a big lead against LSU. We go and come home and have to win at the buzzer to beat App. Then we go get basically pummeled by Rutgers, but a lot of teams go in there and get beat. But then again last night, Iowa goes in there and beats them. Then we had a nice win against Duke. Before we went home, another one against Virginia Tech. Go down to Carolina and we're playing well.

Then they turn up the heat. We turn it over a little too much, and they win the game. Then we bounce back and get us a nice win over the weekend at Louisville.

All tough places to play. I don't want to say I'm surprised. I'm pleased with our team, but we've got to continue to get better. Last year, and those who followed you, like we have, know that Damari was a guy that you had as a player of the year in the Southern Conference, or a rookie of the year in the Southern Conference, as a great three-point shooter at East Tennessee State that you had. Only two players in the ACC currently have more three-point attempts than Damari has right now. How much freedom are you comfortable giving a shooter like Damari?

What's that relationship like? I just want him to take good shots. You get one or two, maybe a game that are contested, just depending on how you're being guarded.

Maybe you've made a couple in a row. I'm not worried about him catching and shooting the ball. He's got unlimited range catch and shoot. Where it gets a little tricky and dicey for him is when he starts to try to do too much off the bounce. Last couple of games against Carolina and Louisville, he shot fake and got to the paint and used his length and scored.

He wasn't trying to do a lot of between the legs and spinning. We work on this every day. Shot fake, play off of shot fake, one-two dribble, play off two feet, jump up, score. When he does that, he's very efficient. But Damari's going to take the shots. I want Damari to take threes because that's what he's good at. Players should play to their strengths and stay away from their weaknesses.

Steve Forbes with us here on WSJS. I don't want to get you worked up on this Monday after a win. I don't want to get you fist fighting me through the telephone here.

Tell me if I got this right. The net is supposed to be viewed as a tool the NCAA uses as a pseudo-kinpom. Analytics, working it into ranking teams in an effort to improve the metric. In your case, in an effort to improve the metric from last year, you were told you needed to have a better non-conference. And you play Georgia, you play LSU, you go on the road with the ACC Big Ten Challenge, you go to Wisconsin, and you add some quad one wins against Virginia Tech and against Duke. However, you're still ranked at 81 right now.

You have more connections than I do. What explanations have you been given about where you sit in the net? Utah Valley is ahead of us. They were another team that we played. I just go back to last year when we had our ACC Spring meetings and Dan Gatt was there. We went 10-1 in a non-conference and we didn't have enough meat on the bone in the non-conference schedule, even though we won them. Our efficiency numbers were off the charts last year. Really good offensively, really good defensively. Early on, a lot of that had to do with our schedule because we were able to beat those teams by a lot of points. We weren't going to be able to do that this year with a new team plus a lot harder schedule. I don't have an explanation for it. I'm sure people will say efficiency or how much we've won by.

I think that's ridiculous. I'm trying to win by one point. You asked me that the other day.

Give me something as we go into the game against Virginia Tech. Are we supposed to be worried about the spread now? I don't know. Why are we playing games if Ken Palm just says this is what our record is or this is what the score is supposed to be?

There's a human element to the deal. I'm not worried about it right now because it doesn't matter. It'll matter at the end. Again, I go back to last year. On selection Sunday, our win over Carolina and our win over Virginia were not quad one wins on the road against Virginia and home against Carolina. Carolina goes to the national championship. Then they redo the net after the tournament when we had three quad one wins because now we had Virginia moves up above 75 to cut line and Carolina moved up above 30.

It's very wishy-washy. I'm sure there's teams that try to trick the numbers. I don't know. I'm just trying to win the next game and then we'll worry about it at the end. Steve Forbes with us here. In just a few hours, you coached in the SEC at Tennessee. You coached in the Big 12, albeit before TCU joined the league. It's Georgia, TCU tonight. Can you give me a pick?

What do you think happened? Well, my brain would say Georgia, but my heart's going to say TCU because Sonny Dykes coached at La Tech. I coached at La Tech. We didn't coach at the same time. In fact, football coach at La Tech when I was there was Jack Bicknell Jr., who snapped the ball to Doug Flutie on his great ball. But the starting quarterback for TCU is from Iowa, from Council Bluffs, Iowa. I can't remember his name. Max Duggan. That guy. So we're going with TCU.

We're going with the La Tech Iowa ties to beat the Georgia Bulldogs. I was thinking about you on Wednesday night when I was at the Smith Center. Did you notice who was sitting courtside? Iowa sports legend Marcus Page? Yeah, you know, I didn't see him. I heard that after the game. I saw Joe Holiday. I shook his hand. I saw a coach up there in the tunnel. Coach Fogler came to shoot around for a little bit, but I didn't see Marcus. I actually went to Cedar Rapids to see Marcus his sophomore year when I was at Tennessee and went to practice at his high school and hung out with him. Great guy. Really good player, obviously. I didn't know he was there.

I heard about it later. Steve Forbes, last thing we got to get to. W.D., we haven't had your input on this yet. Our producer, Will, here has seen none of the good movies.

None of them. And we have a segment every week where we make him watch something else. Like he watched The Dark Knight for the first time last week. We made him watch Shawshank a few weeks ago. I think he's set to watch Heat this week. He'd never seen Heat. In terms of rewatchability for Coach Forbes, what's at the top of the list of movies that you just watch more than anything else?

People don't get scared. I watch Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List all the time. The first movie I think Christian Bale was in Empire and the Sun. I like that one a whole lot. I do like The Color Purple. I'd say just random. I got right off the top of my head.

Those are going to be ones that if they're on, I'm probably going to watch them. Let's put W.D. to the test. Color Purple. Never heard of it. Saving Private Ryan. I've seen that one.

Yeah, how about it? Schindler's List. Bits and Pieces.

That doesn't count. Don't ever say Bits and Pieces. You can't say Bits and Pieces on a movie where people are getting blown up on the beach. Come on, it's not good.

You can't do that. We need to make him watch Schindler's List. He hasn't seen Schindler's List. He doesn't even know what that is. I know what it is. Glad you know what it is. You need to watch it. I'll tell you another one I love.

The Penis. Adrian Brody. That's a fabulous movie. No chance that W.D. has seen it. It's a Roman Polanski movie. No.

You haven't seen that either. Okay. These are good suggestions, Steve. We're going to try and culture W.D.

here. Get him up on some history. Last night I had my son. My son plays guitar.

He's really good. I was making him listen to instrumental music by John Williams. Movie themes. Because there was a guy on 60 Minutes they were showing last night that did movie themes.

Songs from movies. Disney, right? John Williams does all the Disney stuff?

He does a lot of that. Star Wars. He does Spielberg.

A lot of Spielberg. Anyway, I had my son listen to that last night before he went upstairs to play Hotel California all night on his guitar. Excellent. Maybe we can hook you up. The Eagles with Vince Gill performing in Greensboro in April. Yeah, my wife's going to go. I think she's going to Knoxville.

I saw him before Glenn Fry passed in Wichita. I actually have tickets to see The Boss. Oh, in March?

Coming up. Unless we're planning to go to the Elite Eight. Hopefully we are. Then you can have my tickets. My wife got me those for Christmas just in case. I'm going to hold you to that. If you're in the Elite Eight, I've got your Bruce Springsteen tickets.

You just said it publicly. Alright. No problem.

I want to be in the Elite Eight. Don't worry. I'll be very happy.

Steve, thanks so much for doing this. Best of luck Wednesday night. We've given away some tickets to this game already. Florida State, Wake Forest. We plan to give away some more as well. Hope it's a good crowd Wednesday night. Yep. Come out and see us. Thanks.