Team Deak is on a winning streak! After trailing by nine points in the second half, Wake Forest fought back to take down the Cardinals for its first home victory since January 3. The win gave Wake its second straight win and improved their record to 4-8 in the ACC, within striking distance of the six teams that have finished with five or six wins in the conference round.
The game was fairly even for much of the first half until the final 2:39 when the Dicks went cold off the floor. That allowed Stanford to end the first half on an 11-0 run and lead by nine points at halftime. The biggest difference between the two teams in the first half was three-point shooting – the Cardinals shot 8-for-18 (44%) from three-point range in the first half, while Wake shot 3-for-11 (27%).
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The second half was a bit of a rollercoaster for Deco. Whenever Wake made a big push to cut the lead to five points, Stanford would immediately counterattack and extend the advantage to eight or nine points. Stanford freshman Ebuka Okorie lived up to the hype, scoring 16 of his 26 points on 6-of-13 shooting in the second half to prevent Wake from tying the game.
Just when it looked like the Deaks might not be able to get over the hump, Wake locked down the defense. In the final six minutes of the game, the Dickies limited Stanford to 2-10 shooting and a total of just five points. This allowed Wake to go on a 17-5 spurt in the last 6 minutes and 42 seconds, falling behind by 7 points and winning the game with a 5-point advantage. The defensive effort cannot be underestimated – the Cardinals shot 9-for-25 from the field in the second half and 2-for-11 from 3-point range. Cardinals players other than Okolie scored just eight points on 3-of-12 shooting. Stanford barely outscored Zucker Harris in the second half, scoring just 24 points to Zucker’s 18 in the game’s final 20 minutes.
It might not be the biggest game Wake has ever won, nor the most important, but it feels good to finally win again at home. For the first time ever, the atmosphere at the end of a Joel game was incredible – everyone was on their feet cheering and trying their best to help De’Ak win. Despite such a poor start to the season, with Wake just 2 ACC games away from catching 6 teams and 5-6 conference wins, Wake still has a chance to make some progress in the standings and finish the season around 10th.
Hopefully this win will give the Deacs a little momentum as No. 20 Clemson comes to town next Wednesday.
Go to Deax!