Revitalized Wake Forest visits NC State on Wednesday night

Wake Forest is one of the most impressive turnaround stories of the season, going from 6-16 (3-15) last year to 19-5 (9-4) in 2022, putting the Deacs in position to make the NCAAs for the first time since 2017.

Improvement like that is tough to author without a Kentucky-esque recruiting class, which at this point stands a little beyond Steve Forbes’ capacity. So he hit the transfer portal hard last offseason, and that has paid huge dividends. Three of this team’s starters, and its top two scorers, were playing elsewhere last season.

Of course, it also helps to be lucky. After a couple of modest seasons at Oklahoma, Alondes Williams has leveled up his production at Wake in a huge way. I rather…