The streak continues! With a nearly wire-to-wire win over a very good Clemson Tiger team, the Deacs have now won 3 straight games in ACC play. After starting the season just 2-8 in the conference, Wake is now 5-8 and is potentially 1 win away from jumping all the way up to 9th place in the conference. It seems like maybe the team is starting to figure out how to play together and win gamesābetter late than never.
The first half was maybe the best half of basketball the Deacs have played all seasonāfor a minute there it looked like Wake was going to blow the Tigers out of the gym. Clemson scored the first basket of the game and led for all of 47 seconds before Wake just started pouring it on. In the first 10 minutes of the game, the Deacs went on a 24-6 run to take a commanding 26-10 lead that they would hold for the remainder of the game. The basket must have looked like the size of an ocean out there for Wake, because they simply could not miss.
By the end of the first half, 7 of the 9 players that entered the game for the Deacs had scored, and 6 of those 7 were shooting 50% or better from the floor. Myles Colvin led the way with 14 first half points on a perfect 5-5 shooting (4-4 from 3). The hot shooting allowed the Wake lead to grow as high as 20 points before Clemson answered with a 7-0 run in the final 2 minutes to end the half. Despite the 2 minute lapse, Wake put up 45 points on 67% shooting from the floor against the 15th best defense in the country to take 45-32 lead at the break.
Advertisement
That 7-0 Clemson run continued into the 2nd half, with the Tigers scoring 9 of the first 10 points of the half to cut the lead down to just 5 points by the 16 minute timeout. In what would become a theme for the 2nd half, the Deacs answered back with a 5-0 run of their own to push the lead back to double digits.
Clemson got back within 6 points several times throughout the half, but Wake did a phenomenal job of always answering back and keeping the Tigers at armās length. At times, it felt like Clemson was just 1 big momentum changing basket away from being able to catch up and vault into the lead, but the Deacs never let them get it.
Perhaps the biggest shot of the night came from Sophomore Sebastian Akins. With a little over 2 minutes remaining, the Tigers cut the lead back down to 6, and it definitely felt like they were making their final push to get back in the game. We have seen Wake stumble at the end of games several times this season, so I canāt be the only one that started to worry that we were about to see the same thing again. Akins was having none of it.
With his 1st 3-pointer since the Longwood game in December, Akins stopped the Tiger run and put the Deacs back ahead by 9 points, effectively ending Clemsonās chances at winning the game. Akins would go on to make 5 free throws down the stretch to finish with 16 points on 4-7 shooting and help the Deacs win their 3rd straight conference game 85-77.
Advertisement
This is clearly a team that has not quit yet. The Deacs proved again tonight that they have the talent to not just play with, but beat, the top teams of the ACC. We are maybe starting to see the depth that was promised at the beginning of the season come into realityāled by Juke Harrisās 20 points, the Deacs had 5 players finish in double figures, and while Isaac Carr did not score in this game, he added 5 assists with just 1 turnover. Omaha Biliew, who finished with 8 points, probably would have finished in double figures as well if he didnāt foul out with 3 minutes remaining in the game. Juke has proven game in and game out that he is going to be able to score the ball, but if Wake can get more games like this from the supporting cast, they can turn into a pretty dangerous team to close out the season. I just wish it hadnāt taken them so long to figure it out.
With the win, Wake is now 5-8 in the ACC, and the chances of the Deacs finishing 8-10 or better have improved significantly. Obviously finishing in the middle of the pack was not the goal when the season started, but just a couple of weeks ago we were wondering if this team was even going to make the ACC tournament. Now, they have a realistic path to finishing at 0.500 in conference play. They could even be getting Nate Calmese back from injury before the start of the ACC Tournament (I remain skeptical on that but I guess weāll see). There are still plenty of games left to played, but credit the Deacs for continuing to fight to turn the season around.
Hopefully, Wake can extend this winning streak for a couple of more weeks.
Go Deacs!
