NIT preview: Georgia at Wake Forest

WINSTON-SALEM – The season’s second edition of Georgia-Wake Forest is set for 4 p.m. Sunday at Joel Coliseum.

This one — in the NIT’s second round — comes more than four months after the first get-together.

So much has happened since Georgia beat the Deacons 80-77 on Nov. 10 in the second game of the season.

“The next day, Ole Miss played Georgia in football,” Wake Forest coach Steve Forbes said. “That’s how long ago that game was.”

Wake Forest fended off Appalachian State 87-76 in Wednesday night’s first round in front of a largely frenzied crowd that — though Forbes didn’t offer the comparison during his mention of Southeastern Conference football — an old-time Auburn-Alabama football matchup.

So, the Deacons should get the fuller feel of their homecourt advantage back unless Georgia backers suddenly turn their attention to hoops instead of spring football.

Wake Forest is eyeing more this basketball season and Forbes likes the focus of moving to the next task. He said motivation doesn’t appear to be an issue despite being left out of the NCAA tournament field.

“I didn’t have to do anything,” he said. “These guys want to play. We want to coach.”

The Deacons aren’t talking about March Madness.

“We want to play basketball in April,” Forbes said.

In this matchup, Wake will have center Efton Reid III, who’s coming off a career-best 17-point outing in the App State game. He didn’t play in November at Georgia as he was awaiting NCAA clearance to participate.

“We didn’t have Efton Reid,” teammate Kevin Miller said. “We wasn’t that team that we are now. They probably got better, too, but we definitely want that payback.”

Forbes said he recalled parts of that game without reviewing it in detail. Cameron Hildreth missed a late potential tying 3-pointer.

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Here’s what to know ahead of Sunday’s game:

Time: 4 p.m.

Location: Joel Coliseum.

TV: ESPN.

Announcers: Wes Durham (play-by-play) and Cory Alexander (analyst).

What’s on deck: The winner will play the winner of Saturday night’s game between Virginia Tech and Ohio State. If Wake Forest wins, it will be home against an ACC foe it split with this season or a Big Ten team it hasn’t played since 1969, and the one that beat the Deacons in the 1962 Final Four (Ohio State won 84-68).

Series; last meeting: Georgia leads 5-3; Georgia won 80-77 in the second game of this season in Athens, Ga.

Records: Georgia 18-16; Wake Forest 21-13.

Stat to watch: 1.07.

That was Wake’s points per possession in the November matchup.

That’s the 21st-best of the season for the Deacons, out of 34 games. Rather pedestrian, right? Of Wake’s 13 losses, that was the second-most efficient offensive performance of the season.

Where this gets interesting is how that was Georgia’s worst defensive performance of its first 15 games. The Bulldogs played strong defense and in early January, they looked like a dark horse team in the SEC, capable of outplaying their pick of 12th in the preseason media poll.

Georgia finished … tied for 11th in the SEC.

After a Jan. 10 win over Arkansas, Georgia was 12-3. It alternated wins and losses for a couple of weeks, notching a win at South Carolina, before the wheels came off and the Bulldogs lost 11 of their last 14 games through the SEC tournament (and two of the wins were against Vanderbilt and Missouri, which both fired their coaches).

Specifically, the wheels came off defensively. Georgia had 11 games after Jan. 10 in which its defensive efficiency was worse than the 1.07 it gave up against Wake Forest, including two games of giving up triple-digit points (to Kentucky and Florida) and two others giving up point totals in the 90s (both to Auburn).

Bulldog to watch: Guard Silas Demary Jr. (No. 4).

Go figure, a freshman guard has had an up-and-down season and is leveling off after starting 30-plus games.

Demary was the No. 56 player in the Rivals150. He’s from Raleigh, spending his first three seasons at Millbrook High School before transferring to Combine Academy. He committed to and signed with USC before decommitting last spring and heading to Georgia.

The 6-5, 190-pounder had 10 points, five rebounds and two assists against Wake Forest in the first matchup. He’s coming off a 16-point game against Xavier earlier this week, in which he also had three rebounds, four assists and only one turnover.

Deacon to watch: Guard Kevin Miller (No. 0).

Teams in the NIT can be both building toward next season and closing out their seasons strong.

Same goes for players.

Miller is the best example of that with Wake Forest. The third-year guard — remember, he played all of four games as a sophomore at Central Michigan — had a career-high 31 points against App State on Wednesday night.

It’s fair to call this an up-and-down season for Miller, right? Wake’s point guard has played too fast at times, over-dribbled himself into trouble at others. But he’s also had some dynamite performances when the Deacons have needed him, like Wednesday night, like a 17-point game against Notre Dame in the ACC tournament, like the 20-plus-point games against Miami and Syracuse.

KenPom prediction: Wake Forest wins 82-72.

Deacons Illustrated prognosis: If you can’t tell, I’m fascinated by Georgia’s plight this season.

The Bulldogs had something of a, “they are who we thought they were” last two months of their season. As it says above, they looked like a surprise team of the SEC halfway through the season. It seems a lot of that had to do with schedule strength — or lack thereof — and defensive lapses.

As we know of Wake Forest, the Deacons will take advantage of a team that doesn’t defend well. Throw in the revenge factors and this looking like a team motivated to keep playing, Wake Forest should be on fire early and often in this one.