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Feb 11, 2026; Atlanta, Georgia, USA; Wake Forest Demon Deacons head coach Steve Forbes on the sideline against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in the first quarter at McCamish Pavilion. Mandatory Credit: Brett Davis-Imagn Images | Brett Davis-Imagn Images
St. Louis, Missouri guard Quentin Coleman, who committed and signed with Wake Forest last year, has been granted his release from Wake Forest.
The 6-4 guard is a 4-star prospect and was originally rated as the 92nd best player in the 2026 when he committed to Wake Forest. In his senior season, Coleman averaged 22.6 points, 6.0 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 2.5 steals per game while shooting 63.5 percent from the field and an impressive 49% from the 3-point line, which caused him to shoot up the rankings all the way to #34 on 247Sports and #30 on ESPN. He led Principia to a 26-2 record and was named a Max Preps National Player of the Year finalist.
Unfortunately, when a player shoots up the recruiting rankings like that, other teams are bound to notice, and that means the price of doing business is going up. In today’s era of college sports, it is seemingly never too late for a program with more alumni, a bigger fanbase, or richer donors (or all 3) to swoop in and offer a recruit a massive payday to change his mind and flip his commitment. For teams that have deep pockets, that’s not an issue. For schools like Wake Forest, that most likely means having to make a decision on whether or not to pay a large percentage of the allotted NIL funds to an unproven 18 year old who has never played a single college basketball game at the expense of the remainder of the roster—it appears that the Deacs decided against it.
This certainly takes a ton of wind out of the sails of the 2026 recruiting class, which ranked as high #10 in the nation by ESPN. Without Coleman, the Deacs have just 2 incoming high school recruits in 4-stars Gallagher and Gavin Placide, who rank 75th and 69th respectively on 247Sports.
Wake getting priced out of high school seniors should be a big wake up call to the administration—if the Deacs don’t find some way to increase their NIL spending on basketball, this is going to be a far more common occurrence. Wake Forest has not made a replacement to their Roll the Quad NIL collective after SANIL went out of business in 2025, and it has been more or less radio silence from the administration on what their plans are for staying competitive in the future. The price of players is continuing to rise every year, and Wake is in serious danger of falling farther and farther behind their peers.
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