Wake Blocks UNCG Upset Attempt

UNCG 60 - Wake Forest 75

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Wake Forest ended the game on a 16-4 run to turn back the Spartan upset bid. Wake was lead by Al-farouq Aminu's 23 points and 17 rebounds. The Demon Deacons finished the game with 16 blocked shots.

Positives
- Turnovers --- UNCG has been hampered this season by turnovers. Against Wake Forest, the guards took much better care of the ball. Kyle Randall, Montel Smith and all of the other Spartans that primarily handled the ball did a fine job of navigating through Wake's tall players and trapping press.
- Big men battle --- I thought that the undersized UNCG big men did a very solid job battling (what seemed like) an endless stream of Wake big men. After Brian Cole's 3 pointer, it was fun to watch Deacs have to follow him out to the perimeter. Cole, Elhanan Bone and Ben Stywall did a tremendous job of fighting for position and tapping balls around that they couldn't coral until other Spartans could pull the ball in.
- Ben Stywall --- After a couple of "off" games for Ben, he stepped up big time to help with rebounding (UNCG 44-Wake 42) and second chance points (UNCG 23-Wake 9). Ben finished the game with 13 points and 14 rebounds.

Negatives
Block party --- Wake finished the game with 16 blocks. Some of that is a product of being the tallest team in college basketball. However, some of it was UNCG players penetrating too far and not having an idea of what they were going to do when they got to the basket. Hopefully, the guys had a chance to look at the film and come up with a better idea of what they want to do the next time they are in these situations.

All-in-all it was a fun atmosphere and the Spartans brought fire to the floor Monday night. Hopefully they can recreate this energy on Thursday night to give Spartan fans something more to celebrate.