Silver lining for Wake?

The NCAA Tournament is always seen as one of sports’ great events because of the upsets and Cinderella stories that come to the fore every March.
On the other side of those underdog victors, however, is a power-conference giant that has been slain.
The biggest name to fall in this year’s first round was Wake Forest, who suffered an 84-69 loss to Cleveland State in the first round on Saturday.
While the loss is undoubtedly disappointing for the Demon Deacons, there may be a silver lining to the early exit.
Wake features three key players in Jeff Teague, James Johnson and Al-Farouq Aminu who have the talent to be first round NBA draft choices this June.
However, just as Final Four runs have traditionally inflated the professional stocks of college players, early upsets have often leant themselves to an extra year on campus for many players with bright NBA futures. Blake Griffin at Oklahoma, the Lopez twins at Stanford and Adam Morrison at Gonzaga are three recent examples of players who decided to come back to school to attempt to inflate their draft stock while chasing a national title.
This is good news for the Deacs, even if only one of the talented trio decides to forgo the NBA for another season in Winston-Salem.
Wake Forest was one of the 64th youngest team in college basketball in 2008-09, and would likely enter next season in the top five nationally if Teague, Johnson and Aminu were to return to join center Chase McFarland, point guard Ismael Smith, wing L.D. Williams and developing big man Tony Woods.
With the addition of freshmen Ari Stewart and C.J. Harris, the Demon Deacons would not only be senior-laden, but exceptionally talented, making for an exceptional slate of games with Duke, North Carolina and Florida State in the ACC and Xavier in the non-conference.
So Demon Deacons fans are undoubtedly crossing their fingers after a devastating loss, hoping to find a silver lining on an otherwise gloomy Sunday.

Note: Xavier and Wake Forest are slated to begin a 10 year contract with a game in the early stages of the 2009-10 season.