After years of struggle, Wake Forest contending for March Madness bid

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Wake Forest coach Danny Manning wants his Demon Deacons focused on nothing more than the game plan for each of their last two regular-season games. He also knows that’s not easy with the program flirting with their first NCAA Tournament invitation in seven years.

The Demon Deacons (16-12, 7-9 Atlantic Coast Conference) are hovering on the bubble — good enough to play tough games with just about anybody, yet still searching for the kind of top-shelf win to push them over the line in what has already been a huge leap forward in Manning’s third year. They’ll get another chance Wednesday night against No. 8 Louisville in their regular-season home finale.

“Right now, we’re still in the heat of the battle and there’s still a lot of basketball left, regardless of what the [NCAA] conversation is right now,” Manning said Tuesday in an interview with The Associated Press. “But it’s conversation that you can’t avoid.

“It’s conversation that you pick up your phone and it’s on your phone. You turn your TV on and it’s on the TV. It’s there. We understand that, we acknowledge that. But we’ve got to continue to do what we need to do get prepared and stay focused.”

Wake Forest passes the eye test as a tournament team. Sophomore big man John Collins has made himself an ACC player of the year contender by averaging 19.1 points and 9.8 rebounds while bringing an 11-game run of 20-point games — the longest in the ACC since the 2013-14 season — into Wednesday’s visit from the Cardinals (23-6, 11-5).