Advertisement
basketball Edit

Jake LaRavia, Alondes Williams’ success helps Deacons’ recruiting pitch

Wake Forest will have certain hurdles in recruiting transfers, but first-round pick and ACC player of the year in same haul will help push program forward

Jake LaRavia, left, and Alondes Williams defend against Clemson this past season.
Jake LaRavia, left, and Alondes Williams defend against Clemson this past season. (Dawson Powers/USA Today Sports Images)
Advertisement

Two unheralded transfers walk into Wake Forest’s men’s basketball program: One leaves as the 19th overall pick in the NBA Draft, the other leaves as the ACC player of the year.

That certainly doesn’t hurt Wake’s future recruiting of transfers.

“It definitely doesn’t hurt and, you know, that’s something we’ll be promoting,” coach Steve Forbes said Monday afternoon in a Zoom press conference. “It’s something that … kids are looking at. And a lot of coaches approached me about that in the past couple of weeks when we’ve been out recruiting, about what a great message that’ll be.”

You know the names and their situations at this point. Jake LaRavia went from enjoying two decent seasons at Indiana State to blossoming into a second-team All-ACC player. If LaRavia’s skillset and NBA fit was a secret when Wake’s season ended, it unraveled in the past few months, culminating in being selected 19th overall in last week’s NBA Draft by Minnesota (and being dealt to Memphis in a draft-night trade).

Alondes Williams’ journey took him through junior college and a reserve role at Oklahoma before his breakout under Forbes, resulting in the ACC player of the year award and a contract with the Brooklyn Nets signed shortly after the draft (and agreed to before the draft, per Forbes).

“A year ago today, Jake and Alondes weren’t listed in the top 100 of college transfers,” Forbes said. “And they weren’t on any NBA Draft board or anybody’s mock draft.

“So it’s a credit to them and the unbelievable year they had playing here.”

Which journey was more improbable? That might be impossible to determine, not that it needs to be.

What matters for Forbes’ program moving forward is the tangible evidence for the staff to point out. And when you’re coaching at a school that’s short on transfer tolerance, it’s important to have other selling points.

“At Wake, we can’t recruit third-year transfers, guys that are going to be (in their) junior or senior year,” Forbes said, “because we don’t accept enough transfer credits for the transfers to be eligible and then graduate.”

So it was never going to be as simple as Wake Forest having the pick of the transfer portal litter based on the success of two players.

There are two commodities essential for recruiting transfers: Playing time and, quite literally, money – in the form of NIL.

LaRavia and Williams’ successes – already and whatever comes next in the NBA – will be a part of the equation, but it’s doubtful to be a deciding reason.

“It won’t be the deciding factor,” Forbes said, “but it’s definitely something that will help in the narrative, for sure.”

Advertisement