Wake Forest coach stops taking live questions during radio show after callers lectured him

In his first year as head coach at Wake Forest, Jeff Bzdelik oversaw a team that had the most losses in ACC history, became the first school to ever lose 15 conference games and finished with an RPI more than 100 spots lower than the previous ACC low-water mark. Considering how the rest of the Bzdelik era has gone, you can forgive Demon Deacon fans for referring to that season as "the good ol' days."

Things have only gotten worse. Bzdelik has five ACC wins in two seasons as head coach. Eight players have transferred from the program. This season, the Deacs are 4-5 with losses to Iona and Richmond. In an ACC/Big 10 Challenge game that was relegated to ESPNU, Wake suffered a 16-point home beat down at the hands of lowly Nebraska. At a recent home game, students from nearby High Point appeared to outnumber the Wake student section.

After that loss to Nebraska, which came on a Tuesday night, Bzdelik defended his players.

"I'm not going to make any excuses," Bzdelik said, indicating that an excuse was imminent. "Tuesday is their toughest day academically."

The fanbase is getting restless and the coach is getting defensive. After an awkward call-in session during last week's radio show, it was announced that Bzdelik will no longer be accepting live questions during his weekly radio program.

Dan Collins reports in the Winston-Salem Journal:

"Starting tonight, for the first time in the 17 years Stan Cotten has served as host of the Deacons' radio show for coaches, questions must be recorded or submitted through electronic messaging. [...]

[The] format of taking direct questions was changed after a particularly contentious show last Thursday, when several callers were especially pointed in their criticism or long-winded, or both."

If recent attendance for Wake Forest home games is any indication of the audience for Bzdelik's show, tens of listeners will be disappointed by the news.

Collins says the decision was made by Cotten and others at IMG College, not Bzdelik.

While the call censorship has given rise to complaints of arrogance and cowardice from Wake fans, I'm more amazed that Bzdelik has been taking calls for this long. It speaks well of the fanbase that the contentious show didn't come in the middle of the first or second disastrous season, but in the third. That's patience.

How long do you think Billy Gillispie would have been taking calls at Kentucky? Four minutes into his first show? Collins says Roy Williams doesn't accept calls on his UNC radio show and he has two national championships!