Mike Hopkins quickly associated Wake Forest’s Devin Thomas to a fresh wound.

The Syracuse assistant coach scratched the side of his head while thinking about the Demon Deacons go-to forward after the Orange’s win over Florida State on Sunday night, then looked back at the game that had just transpired.

“I mean I look at what (Boris) Bojanovsky just did to us out there,” Hopkins said, beckoning to the Carrier Dome court from the Syracuse locker room. “Devin Thomas is a great player and Bojanovsky just really hurt us inside. I hope that wasn’t a foreshadow.”

Bojanovsky, a 7-foot-3 backup center for the Seminoles, scored 10 points, made all five of his shots and blocked four of SU’s in the loss. Thomas isn’t as physically imposing as Bojanovsky, but the Wake Forest junior forward is averaging 20.5 points and 8.8 rebounds in the Demon Deacons first four Atlantic Coast Conference games, and has the offensive skill set to expose the Orange’s zone in the high post and paint.

Wake Forest (9-8, 1-3 ACC) will square off with Syracuse (12-4, 3-0) in the Carrier Dome at 8 p.m. on Tuesday night, and containing Thomas with a rundown frontcourt — which has now lost Chris McCullough and DaJuan Coleman for the season — will be the biggest key for SU if it wants to stay perfect in conference play.

“I think Devin’s going to have to find some seams and cracks into that zone and go make attacking plays,” WFU head coach Danny Manning said. “You can’t really settle against that zone just because (head) coach (Jim) Boeheim’s been doing that forever and they have great length and (they’re) very athletic.”

The Orange has done an adequate job defending the 3-point line in its last two games, but opposing big men have kept the games close in the second half.

Georgia Tech’s Charles Mitchell scored 17 points and 11 rebounds in Syracuse’s 46-45 win over the Yellow Jackets on Jan. 7, and Bojanovsky was the Seminoles’ second-leading scorer on Sunday.

Mitchell is averaging 11.1 points and 7.8 rebounds this season, and Bojanovky’s a meek 5.3 and 3.5 off the bench. Thomas scored 31 points and grabbed 11 rebounds in a narrow loss to then-No. 5 Louisville, and went for 24 and five in an eight-point loss to then-No. 2 Duke a game later.

“Since we just had Florida State we haven’t had a chance to look at him much. But I’ve watched him and he’s really, really good,” SU forward Michael Gbinije said after beating the Seminoles. “We just have to make sure to always know where he is and guard him well around the rim.”

And the Orange will look to stop Thomas with a frontcourt that recently lost Coleman and McCullough, who was pronounced out for the season with a torn right ACL in an SU Athletics press release Monday afternoon.

That leaves senior Rakeem Christmas and sophomore Chinonso Obokoh to man the middle of SU’s 2-3 zone and Gbinije and sophomore Tyler Roberson on the wings. On the ACC coaches teleconference on Monday, Boeheim said Obokoh will be the backup center after picking up four fouls in five minutes against Florida State.

Christmas also had four fouls and with Thomas often looking to put the ball on the floor out of the high post and draw contact inside, it will be paramount for Christmas to stay out of foul trouble and on the court.

If he can’t, there will be two feasible options for the Orange: Let Christmas play tentatively against the nation’s hottest post scorer, or throw Obokoh to the wolves.

“He’s a tremendous, tremendous player. Just a tremendous player,” Boeheim said of Thomas on the teleconference. “He’s one of the best inside scorers in the country.

“… I don’t think there’s anyone better at scoring the ball down there in the post than he is.”

As for facing him with a thinned frontcourt, Boeheim is only focused on the cards he has in his hand.

Said Boeheim: “You can’t worry about something you can’t do anything about.”

Published on January 13, 2015 at 12:15 am

Contact Jesse: jcdoug01@syr.edu | @dougherty_jesse