What happened to Wake Forest Basketball?

If you were a fan of college basketball in the late 90’s you remember those great Wake Forest basketball teams.

Tim Duncan and Randolph Childress made a run in 1995 to the Sweet 16. The next year, 1996, it was Tim Duncan, Tony Rutland, and Rusty LaRue taking Wake back to the Sweet 16. Between 1991 and 2010 a span of 20 years, Wake Forest missed the NCAA tournament 7 times. Since 2010 Wake Forest has made the NCAA tournament only once.

So, what happened to a program that was consistently in the tournament to what it is today? I have my own theory and it has to do with the coach. Between 1991 and 2010 Wake Forest had 3 coaches, Dave Odom, Skip Prosser, and Dino Guido. Dave Odom went 240-132 and won 2 ACC Championships in his 12 years at Wake Forest. Then there was Skip Prosser, who went 126-68 and won an ACC Championship in his 6 seasons in Winston-Salem. Now, truth be told, Prosser’s last two seasons weren’t all that special. We will never know if Skip would have turned them around because he passed away in 2007. Dino Guido who amassed a 61-31 record at Wake and made back to back NCAA tournaments.

After these three coaches, the hires that Wake Forest has made are, suspect, to say the least. Guido, while nothing special, turns out to be way better than what Wake Forest has replaced him with. Jeff Bzdelik did not live up to what Guido was and had an overall record of 51-76 at Wake. In 2014 Bzdelik was fired and Wake hired Danny Manning. Manning had all the boxes checked as a coach. National Championship winner at Kansas. Manning worked under Bill Self for 9 years. Manning had a successful 2 year run at Tulsa. In the 6 years as the head coach, Manning has a 78-111 record.

I am not sure what Wake Forest is going to do in terms of its head coach. As a private institution, it is not required to release the terms of its coaching contracts. However, if you believe reports, Manning’s buyout is the remaining money left on the contract, which means around $15 million. If new AD John Currie is able to get the money to move on from Manning, he needs to be very careful and make the right hire for Wake Forest because it’s a shame to see how far that program has fallen.