Michigan
Wake Forest
U-M Eyes Greensboro for Challenge with Demon Deacons
11/8/2024 1:40:00 PM | Men's Basketball
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The University of Michigan men's basketball team will hit the road for the first time when it travels to Greensboro, N.C., for a match-up against Wake Forest on Sunday (Nov. 10) in the Deacon-Wolverine Challenge at the Greensboro Coliseum. Tipoff is scheduled for 1 p.m. on ESPN2. For broadcast, Dave O'Brien and Cory Alexander will be on the call.
Notes
• Michigan and Wake Forest agreed to a two-game series -- the Deacon-Wolverine Challenge, presented by the Gazelle Group. The series starts at the Greensboro Coliseum and is scheduled to be played at two neutral sites over the next two years. Next season, the second game of the series is expected to be played in Detroit.
• After a 21-14 season with a trip to the NIT second round, Wake Forest returns three key starters this season -- including 2024 ACC Newcomer of the Year, Hunter Sallis, who is projected to be in the conversation for ACC Player of the Year and a projected NCAA All-American.
• Sallis led the Deacons in points (18.0 ppg), adding 4.1 rebounds, 75 three-pointers and 37 steals. He went through the NBA Draft process before returning to Winston-Salem. The Deacons bring back two other starters: Cameron Hildreth (13.8 ppg, 4.7 rpg), who compliments Sallis in the backcourt, and Efton Reid III (9.6 ppg), a 7-foot center, who ranked ninth in the ACC in both rebounds (7.9 rpg).
• Wake Forest welcomes seven newcomers, five of which are transfers, including Davin Cosby (Alabama) and Ty-Laur Johnson (Louisville) -- who averaged 8.7 points and a team-best 109 assists and 41 steals.
• Coach Steve Forbes, the 2022 ACC Coach of the Year, enters his fifth season after earning a 71-44 record. Forbes has a history of building teams using transfer players, especially guards like Alondes Williams, who transferred to Wake Forest from Oklahoma and was named the 2022 ACC Player of the Year.
• There has been only one meeting in the all-time series between Michigan and Wake Forest -- the 2000 ACC/Big Ten Challenge at Crisler Arena. After taking a three-point lead (32-29) into halftime, U-M shot just 34 percent in the second half while Wake Forest shot 56 percent to go on for an 11-point victory (71-60).
• The Wolverines were led by Chris Young's double-double (10 points, 13 rebounds), while LaVell Blanchard had 13 points and Bernard Robinson Jr. and Josh Asselin each had 12. Robert O'Kelley's 19 points paced the Deacons, while Josh Shoemaker had a double-double (10 points, 13 rebounds).
• When Michigan faces Wake Forest, the game will feature two of the nation's top centers as U-M's Vladislav Goldin and Wake's Efton Reid were both named to the Preseason Top 20 Watch List for the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award.
• When assistant coach Kyle Church returns to his home state of North Carolina, he will be on edge to see how many tickets he will need for the game. His father Robbie -- the legendary coach of the No. 1-ranked Duke women's soccer (14-1-1) program -- could be in the ACC Championship game on Sunday (noon), dividing the family on which game to attend.
