Danny Manning says he expects to remain Wake Forest’s basketball coach
Danny Manning is moving forward as the coach of Wake Forest’s men’s basketball program while Athletics Director John Currie is still reviewing his program.
“We’re still going through it, to be honest with you, from the standpoint of this is the first time I’ve ever gone through something like this with John,” Manning said of the season-end review of his program. “And this is a very unique situation. He’s got a lot of other things he’s got going on, as well, with being the leader of our athletic department in this challenging situation.”
Speaking this morning, nearly one month after an 81-72 loss to Pittsburgh in the first round of the ACC Tournament ended Wake Forest’s season, Manning reiterated what he said in the aftermath of that game: That he expects to be the Deacons’ coach next season.
“I spoke after the game and I told you I expect to be back, and that’s my mindset,” Manning said. “Not only me but my staff, we’re moving forward on getting prepared for the upcoming season through this tough and challenging situation.
“That’s always going to be my mindset until I’m told differently.”
Currie has been unavailable for comment since the end of the season, both in regards to requests to discuss the basketball program or how the athletics department is handling adjustments pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic.
After last year’s 11-20 slog, outgoing Athletics Director Ron Wellman and Manning met with journalists roughly 10 days after another first-round loss in the ACC Tournament to explain why Manning would return for his sixth season in Winston-Salem.
Manning said there’s a shared goal that’s been discussed in the review process during the past month.
“Everything that we talk about, we’re sharing the same common goal, which is to have Wake Forest basketball be prominent, to have Wake Forest basketball be successful and have Wake Forest basketball ultimately cut down nets,” Manning said. “That’s always going to be the thought process.”
Wake Forest finished the season 13-18 — a slight uptick from back-to-back 11-20 seasons — and was 6-14 in ACC games, finishing in a tie with North Carolina and Pittsburgh for last place in the league.
The Deacons are 78-111 and 30-80 in the ACC in Manning’s six seasons at Wake Forest. Their best finish in the ACC was a 10th-place showing in 2017, which is the only season in the last 10 that featured a postseason berth — and that was short-lived with a First Four loss to Kansas State.
The ACC ended the season ranked as the fourth-best league in the country, per KenPom.com. That’s the worst ranking for the league since the 2012-13 season, which was the one before Syracuse, Notre Dame and Pitt were added.
Manning didn’t see this past season as a down year for the ACC, though, meaning not a missed opportunity for Wake Forest to work its way into the top or middle of the league standings.
“When you lose the type of one-name athletes that we had in college last year, when you talk about Zion (Williamson) and some of the different players that we had, yeah, you lose something in that regard,” Manning said. “But ball-wise, it was good. We had great parity in our league throughout the course of it, if you look from top to bottom.”
Manning cited losing forwards Tariq Ingraham and Sunday Okeke to season-ending injuries early in the season (Ingraham before it started, Okeke in the second game) as unforeseen hurdles that limited the Deacons.
“This season was unique in a sense of how we started out, in regards to not (having) the team that we envisioned in terms of injuries are a part of it, and that’s something that happens and you’ve got to navigate it,” Manning said. “But coming out of the gate and losing two of your most physical bigs and that presence, we weren’t anticipating when we put our team together on paper.”
Wake Forest has had two departures and one addition since the season ended. Seldom-used sophomore guards Sharone Wright Jr. and Michael Wynn entered the transfer portal, while the Deacons added grad transfer Ian DuBose from Houston Baptist.
The program has one remaining scholarship open for next season, and Manning said it could be filled with either another grad transfer or a late addition from the class of 2020.
“We’re looking at grad kids, we’re looking at 2020 kids,” he said. “The transfer portal is alive and kicking, so to speak, with a lot of names out there. We just go through the process with figuring out what is the best fit for us at this time.
“We are actively recruiting for one more spot.”
This story was originally published April 9, 2020 at 2:29 PM with the headline "Danny Manning says he expects to remain Wake Forest’s basketball coach."