Jim Boeheim knows many fans and media members are already looking ahead to the Duke game on Saturday.

College GameDay visiting Syracuse. The two best teams in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Tyler Ennis and Jabari Parker on the same court. Excitement is inevitable.

But Boeheim insists that his team isn’t looking ahead to Duke. He said his players recognize that every game poses different challenges. No. 2 Syracuse’s (19-0, 6-0 ACC) matchup against Wake Forest (14-6, 4-3) Wednesday night isn’t nearly as notable as the Duke game, but it’s just as important for SU, Boeheim said.

“We know that going to Wake Forest is obviously very difficult,” Boeheim said in the Atlantic Coast Conference coaches’ teleconference Monday. “They’re very tough in their place. They haven’t lost at home and are obviously a very good basketball team.”

The Demon Deacons won just 36 percent of their games the past three years and have been stuck near the bottom of the ACC standings since 2010.

But this year’s team is different, Boeheim insists. Wake Forest is 12-0 at home and has beaten North Carolina, North Carolina State and Notre Dame. Jeff Bzdelik’s team has outscored its opponents by 4.4 points per game this season and has limited the opposition to just 40.3 percent shooting.

Travis McKie was named ACC Player of the Week on Monday, and Codi Miller-McIntyre has emerged as one of the conference’s premier scorers.

Last year, Wake Forest had the fourth best attendance in the ACC, and Saturday’s win over the Fighting Irish nearly drew 12,000. Bzdelik, Wake’s head coach, knows his team is young, which is part of the reason it’s been so successful at home, he said.

“They feed off the energy,” Bzdelik said in the teleconference.

This team is legitimate and is especially lethal at home. Boeheim believes it has a chance to knock off Syracuse, just like any team in the conference. That’s why all of his and Syracuse’s focus is on Wednesday’s game.

He said this year’s team has been very good at not looking ahead, so he expects nothing different this week.

“There’ll be no thought that we weren’t thinking about Wake Forest,” Boeheim said. “We will be thinking about Wake Forest until that game is over with.”

Published on January 27, 2014 at 6:48 pm

Contact Trevor: tbhass@syr.edu | @TrevorHass