Roster continues to dissolve and evolve for Wake Forest basketball team
Wake Forest, in conjunction with the First Horizon Coliseum in Greensboro, made the announcement last week about its two-year neutral site series with West Virginia.
That's a big deal for the two programs, with the first game scheduled for Dec. 19 at First Horizon, the former Greensboro Coliseum.
Just who might be in uniform for the Demon Deacons and Coach Steve Forbes is a wild guess these days.
Of the players left on Forbes' roster after exhausted eligibility, only one player has not entered the transfer portal as of Monday. That means the only returning player next season could be sophomore guard Isaac Carr.
After an initial surge into the portal, Omaha Biliew and guard Myles Colvin were the final two dominos to fall last week. According to David Glenn of the North Carolina Sports Network, the Demon Deacons have eight players in the portal.
Adding intrigue was star player Juke Harris, who declared for the NBA Draft but also entered the portal. And there's been some social media chatter that Harris is talking with North Carolina among other schools.
While Forbes hasn't said anything publicly about what his roster might or might not look like for his seventh season this fall, Athletics Director John Currie did.
In Currie's newsletter to alumni and fans, he assured them that Wake Forest did offer an NIL deal to Harris, who will be a junior if he doesn't go to the NBA.
"The most painful of the portal moments for Deacon fans was when Juke Harris informed Coach Forbes last week that, while continuing his preparations for the 2026 NBA Draft, he would be entering the transfer portal to further assess his options if he decides to return to school," Currie wrote in his 'From the Quad' newsletter. "Coach Forbes provided Juke a very competitive revenue sharing offer, and we made every effort possible to encourage Juke to remain a Demon Deacon."
Currie said the program is committed to creating NIL deals for athletes in all sports.
"Wake Forest is fully committed to maximum revenue sharing and NIL opportunities for student-athletes under the House case settlement, and we're grateful to our Board of Trustees, President (Susan) Wente, and Deacon Club members everywhere for their support as we navigate college athletics' rapid changes," Currie wrote. "Our overall financial investment in men's basketball success is greater than ever before – and each day the gifts of all sizes from Deacon Club members are helping make it so."
Still, it's hard to believe that Harris would consider going to North Carolina or NC State, which also may be in the mix since it also has a new head coach.
The roster shakeup of a team that went 18-17 and reached the NIT for the third time in Forbes' six season is most likely the largest changeover in program history. It would be hard to find any coach in Wake Forest history who had just one player returning from a season before.
"Massive roster fluidity is an unpleasant fact of life in college basketball in 2026," Currie wrote in his newsletter, "and Coach Steve Forbes, our General Manager, Steve Weinman, and our men's basketball staff are hard at work rebuilding our roster."
Joining Carr next season will be incoming freshmen Gavin and Gallagher Placide, twin power forwards from Dallas. Gavin is listed at 6-foot-9 and 220 pounds, and Gallagher is listed at 6-foot-8 and 205 pounds.
Also, the Demon Deacons have commitments from point guard Kevair Kennedy from Merrimack and 7-foot center Antonio Dorn, who played at Virginia Tech. The 22-year-old rising sophomore from Hamburg, Germany, averaged 8.5 minutes per game for the Hokies along with 2.6 points per game and 1.8 rebounds per game.
Kennedy will likely come in and run the offense for the Demon Deacons. He's 6-foot-2 and averaged 18.4 points, 4.6 rebounds and 4.2 assists this past season.
After the loss to Illinois State to end their season, Forbes said he'll build a roster just like he's had to do every season he's been in Winston-Salem.
"I'm not going to be that guy that sits up here and pounds the table and says, ‘I don't have this or I don't have that,'" Forbes said, referring to NIL. "I've heard a lot of that crying going on over the last few weeks. I'll do the very best with what we have and what the school gives us."
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