Nijel Pack has some experience against Wake Forest.
Oklahoma doesn’t.
Pack and the Sooners will travel to take on the Demon Deacons on Tuesday in Winston-Salem, N.C. as part of the ACC/SEC Challenge. It will be the first meeting between the programs.
Pack played against Wake Forest three times during his stint at Miami before transferring to Oklahoma in the offseason.
Pack’s best game against the Demon Deacons came in 2023, when he scored 24 points in a Miami victory. Pack averages 16 points per game against Wake Forest.
Pack has been a sparkplug for the Sooners (5-2), averaging 19.3 points, 3.0 assists and 2.7 rebounds so far. He’s hit five 3-pointers in each of the last two games and reached that mark in four of the last five.
That included a critical 3-pointer late in the Sooners’ most recent game, a 75-74 win over Marquette on Friday in Chicago.
“I love having the threat,” Oklahoma coach Porter Moser said of Pack’s range. “He’s such a threat. When you have shooters like that, it opens up driving lanes for others, because people aren’t really packing off him, no pun intended. You love having a threat on the floor that can knock down a shot from anywhere.”
The Sooners come into Tuesday’s matchup averaging just 9.1 turnovers per game, in the top 15 nationally. Wake Forest is forcing 17 turnovers per game, in the top 20 nationally.
“They don’t stop moving,” Moser said of the Demon Deacons. “They’ve got a lot of different guys that could shoot it and score it.”
It’ll be another reunion of sorts for Demon Deacons coach Steve Forbes, who was an assistant under Moser from 2003-04 at Illinois State.
Both teams come into the game on three-game winning streaks. Wake Forest is coming off an 86-73 home win over Northeastern on Friday.
The Demon Deacons (6-2) have four players averaging at least 10 points per game, led by 6-foot-7 forward Juke Harris, who is averaging 19.6 points and 7.1 rebounds.
Tre’Von Spillers is averaging 15.0 points and 6.5 rebounds.
“We just didn’t come ready to play,” Spillers said after allowing the Huskies to score a season-high 44 first-half points. “We’ve got to have a different approach when it comes to games like this.”
