YouTube Gold: Wake Forest’s Finest

A solid, if imperfect, list of Wake’s best basketball players

Wake Forest has an under appreciated basketball tradition. The other members of the Big Four - Duke, UNC and NC State - have all won more than one national championships.

Wake has none and only got to the Final Four once, in 1962.

But Wake Forest has been competitive as hell, which is not bad considering what a tiny school it is.

They’ve had excellent coaches too, like the wild and crazy Bones McKinney, Dave Odom, the enigmatic Carl Tacey and Skip Prosser. They also had the spectacular Dancing Deacon, the amazing Jeff Dobbs, who was almost certainly the greatest ACC basketball presence who wasn’t a coach, player or broadcaster.

Players are the heart of it though and Wake has had some great ones. In this video, which is unfortunately not well produced but nonetheless useful, the Carolina Sports Guy lists his Top 15 Demon Deacons.

Obviously Tim Duncan is #1 and some of the others you might have tweaked. For instance, we would have a hard time not moving Muggsy Bogues up and, for that matter, Rod Griffin, who was spectacular in Winston-Salem.

Your mileage may vary, etc.

It was a fun idea, but clumsily executed. For instance, he got a Deac mixed up with Glenn Robinson from Purdue. He also got Frank Johnson’s NBA career wrong - it was pretty solid. And he either over or underestimated some others. And stumbling over Vic Bubas? C’mon, man. You call yourself The Carolina Sports Guy. Bubas was a big deal!

But in general, Wake deserves more attention for a great basketball tradition, so we’re glad he did this.

Here’s his ranking of the bestest Demon Deacons.

1. Tim Duncan
2. Chris Paul
3. Len Chappell
4. Randolph Childress
5. Charlie Davis
6. Muggsy Bogues
7. Rodney Rogers
8. Josh Howard
9. John Collins
10. Jeff Teague
11. Frank Johnson
12. Rod Griffin
13. Anthony Teachey
14. Delaney Rudd
15. Dickie Hemrick