Moving forward means leaving the past in the past – and for Wake Forest’s basketball team, that means leaving Wednesday’s loss in Louisville in Louisville.

And that’s how the Deacons can move forward with another road trip, this time to Miami.

Wake Forest takes on a suddenly hot Miami team that’s won six straight games on Saturday night.

Though it’s early, the Deacons can’t afford to let too many winnable ACC road games slip through their grasp.

“We have to close this game out. This is a winnable road game and to go to the NCAA tournament and to have a chance to win the ACC, you’ve got to win on the road,” coach Steve Forbes said Wednesday night. “It’s a tough environment, great crowd, great fans.

“You knew they were going to come out and play hard.”

You could assume at least a couple of those things about a Hurricanes team that’s one of two ACC teams at 2-0 – the other being Louisville. Miami was 4-3 before rolling through a 6-0 month of December, including wins against Penn State, Clemson and N.C. State.

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Here’s what to know ahead of Saturday night’s game:

Time: 6 p.m.

TV: ESPNU

Announcers: Derek Jones (play-by-play), Cory Alexander (analyst).

Series; last meeting: Wake Forest leads 13-12; Wake Forest won 66-54 last season.

Records: Wake Forest 11-2, 1-1 ACC; Miami 10-3, 2-0.

Stat to watch: Miami’s free-throw attempts.

Simple one to track here.

Wake Forest, as coach Steve Forbes noted, committed too many fouls in Wednesday night’s loss at Louisville. The Cardinals entered that game in the bottom 100 of the country in free-throw attempts/field-goal attempts ratio, yet shot 34 free throws against the Deacons.

Miami, on the other hand, is a team that can get to the free-throw line – the Hurricanes’ 35% ratio of free throws to field goals is 59th in the country.

Hurricane(s) to watch: Kameron McGusty and Isaiah Wong.

Couldn’t pick just one and the editor didn’t mind splitting the vote.

McGusty and Wong are as good a duo in the ACC other than Duke’s Wendell Moore Jr. and Paolo Banchero, and when they’re clicking together the Hurricanes can beat anybody in the ACC.

McGusty (6-5, 190) has a little more size than Wong (6-3, 185), and McGusty in the elder statesman (he’s a fifth-year senior, Wong is a junior) – otherwise, they’re fairly similar in play styles, both of them slashing wings who can also heat up from beyond the arc.

McGusty has been on fire lately – he’s 8 of 11 on 3-pointers in the last two games. In three of the last four games, he’s scored more than 20 points; his 18.5 points per game is fifth in the ACC.

Deacon to watch: Isaiah Mucius.

It’s a safe bet that Mucius is going to be guarding one of the two Miami standouts listed above, and this feels like the first matchup that the Deacons truly need Mucius to show that he’s an All-ACC defensive player.

At 6-8 and with his footspeed, Mucius should be a lockdown defender. And he’s shown that more consistently this season than in his first three seasons as a Deacon.

This one, though, calls for an elevated level from Wake Forest’s most-experienced player when it comes to ACC action.

KenPom prediction: Miami wins 77-76.

Deacons Illustrated predictions: This game is being played on the first day of 2022 and so I’ll try not to overstate the importance here …

But this feels like a game Wake Forest needs to win if the Deacons are going to reach the heights they’ve set for themselves entering these next two-plus months.

In past seasons, it might’ve been more palatable to lose the way Wake Forest did at Louisville. Just didn’t come up with enough stops late, were on the wrong end of a controversial clock issue, ho-hum, move on.

This Deacons team, though, wants to give itself a chance to win the ACC. If that’s not going to be in the cards, the program’s second NCAA tournament berth in the last 12 seasons is the goal.

To get there, Wake Forest – given the state of the ACC and the uninspired non-conference slate – needs to rack up league wins. Getting to .500 in the league isn’t going to cut it.

So, all of that to say: Road ACC wins are going to be valuable for this team, and the Deacons can’t let them slip away, as was the case earlier this week.