Wake Forest basketball is at a crossroads. Steve Forbes enters his seventh season in Winston-Salem still chasing the program's first NCAA tournament bid since 2017, and the national preseason projections are unsparing: somewhere between 14 and 18 wins, an ACC finish in the bottom half, no Dance. The lifeline is a total roster reboot headlined by the most decorated mid-major transfer in America — and a bet that a bigger, deeper, more balanced team can finally end the drought.
The 2025-26 season told the story of the Forbes era in miniature. The Demon Deacons went 18-17 with a 7-11 ACC record, flickered on the edge of relevance, and lost in the second round of the NIT. Then the roster got hit: Juke Harris, the team's best shot-maker, transferred to Tennessee, and Forbes was left with almost nothing coming back. Sophomore Isaac Carr — 2.2 points per game, 26 appearances, four late-season starts in ACC play — is the team's top returning scorer. That's how thorough this rebuild is: the Deacs essentially started over.
The centerpiece of the rebuild is Kevair Kennedy, and he might be the most fascinating transfer in the ACC. At Merrimack last season, Kennedy became the first player in MAAC history to win Player of the Year and Rookie of the Year in the same season, averaging 18.4 points and 4.2 assists per game. He scored 20 or more 16 times, hung a 32-point season high on Siena, and collected two MAAC Player of the Week and seven Rookie of the Week honors. Forbes didn't just need a point guard — he needed a star, and Kennedy arrives as the rare mid-major import with genuine All-ACC upside. The question is how his game translates from the MAAC to the nation's toughest nightly grind.
Around Kennedy, Forbes assembled a roster that finally has the thing Wake has lacked: size and shooting. Jamari McDowell comes from Kansas, where he appeared in 66 games over three seasons — a versatile, defense-first guard who can play all three perimeter spots and once scored 10 points in a win over No. 1 Arizona. Justin Ray arrives from Monmouth as a pure sharpshooter: 11.3 points per game last season, a team-best 66 three-pointers, a career 40.8 percent from deep, and a 25-point outburst at Syracuse. And for the first time in years, Wake can look opponents in the eye up front: 7-footer Antonio Dorn, 6-foot-11 Xander Pintelon, 6-foot-11 freshman Gavin Placide, 6-foot-9 twin Gallagher Placide — both top-100 recruits — and 6-foot-8 Ring Nyeri. Forbes himself noted this is the longest, deepest frontcourt he's had since the Dallas Walton-Jake LaRavia-Khadim Sy days.
The international flavor is real, too. Slovenian guard Lukas Bojovic signed late after starring for Partizan's U19 team — 22.8 points, 5.6 assists and 3.2 rebounds per game, an Adidas NextGen Euroleague All-Tournament nod, and a starring turn for Slovenia at the 2026 U18 European Championship. He'll back up Kennedy and give Forbes a second ball-handler with real pick-and-roll craft.
Forbes, 60, knows exactly what's at stake. He won 30 games in his final season at East Tennessee State before arriving in 2020, and his Wake teams have won plenty — including one of the nation's best home records. Since 2021, the Deacons are 74-17 at Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum, tied for the seventh-most home wins in the country over that span. But the tournament drought — nine years and counting — is the only number that matters in Winston-Salem, and another losing ACC season could end his run on Tobacco Road. The preseason consensus has Wake missing the NCAAs again; Forbes's entire season is a rebuttal.
The history here is why the drought stings. Wake Forest is the program of Tim Duncan — the two-time ACC Player of the Year who spent four years in Winston-Salem before becoming the No. 1 pick and a first-ballot Hall of Famer. It's the program of Chris Paul and Muggsy Bogues, of Randolph Childress's 37-point masterpiece to win the 1995 ACC tournament, of the 1962 Final Four team led by Len Chappell. Under Skip Prosser in the 2000s, the Deacons were a fixture in the polls and reached No. 1 in the nation. The "Demon Deacon" nickname itself dates to the school's Baptist roots — a 1920s sportswriter's nod to the deacons of the church, dressed up with a top hat, tails and a devilish grin. This is a proud basketball school, and proud basketball schools don't miss nine straight tournaments.
The schedule offers both opportunity and punishment. The ACC slate brings Duke, North Carolina and NC State to the Joel — the Tobacco Road dates that make or break a season's identity — and Wake's home dominance gives every one of those games real upset potential. The non-conference schedule, announced over the summer, was built for resume purposes: enough winnable home games to stack wins, enough road tests to matter. The math is simple in a league this deep: win 10-plus ACC games, and the conversation changes. Win seven, and it's the NIT again.
What defines the 2026-27 Demon Deacons is that this is the referendum season. Forbes has the point guard (Kennedy), the shooter (Ray), the Kansas-tested veteran (McDowell), the size (Dorn, Pintelon, the Placides) and the home fortress (74-17 since 2021). What he doesn't have is margin for error — not with the roster this new, the league this brutal, and the seat this warm. If Kennedy is as good as the MAAC numbers suggest and the frontcourt holds up, Wake can play its way onto the bubble. If not, Winston-Salem will be having a different conversation in March. Either way, the Deacons will be one of the most fascinating watches in the ACC — because for the first time in years, nobody knows what they are.
