“It’s better to win than lose. A lot of teams lose these kinds of games,” Wake coach Steve Forbes said after his team’s 71-68 win, which came down to a missed three by Lancers forward Redd Thompson Jr. at the buzzer.
“We definitely need to play a hell of a lot better than what we did tonight to beat Vanderbilt on Sunday. But when I go to bed tonight, it’ll still be a win when we wake up in the morning. We’ll take it, we’ll learn from it, and then we’ll move on,” Forbes said.
Wake Forest (9-3, NET: 59) led by 10 with 3:51 to go, before Thompson – who had 22 points (7-of-13 FG, 6-of-12 FG) – got fire hot, hitting three threes and scoring on a pair of free throws to fuel an 11-1 run that tied the score at 65-65 with 1:49 to go.
The two teams traded pairs of free throws that left the score at 67-67 with exactly 1:00 to go.
Myles Colvin, to that point 0-of-3 from three, connected on a jumper from behind the arc with 49 seconds left to put the Demon Deacons on top.
Elijah Tucker missed a potential tying three with 31 seconds left, and Omaha Bilieu was 1-of-2 at the line to make it a four-point game.
Johan Nziemi made the second of a two-shot foul with 12 seconds on the clock to get it back to a one-possession game.
Juke Harris flubbed a pair of free throws with seven ticks remaining – either one of which would have almost certainly salted the game away.
Thompson, who had the six made threes on the night, couldn’t tie it at the buzzer for Longwood (6-7, NET: 314).
Two of Longwood’s wins are non-D1, and its losses include Maryland Eastern Shore (4-12, NET: 334) and Delaware State (4-8, NET: 350) – with a pair of four-point wins over Maine (1-12, NET: 332) and Morgan State (2-8, NET: 358).
What happened here?
Wake was 5-of-24 from three, but outside of Thompson, Longwood wasn’t much better – 8-of-31; the guys other than Thomson were a collective 2-of-19.
Longwood won the rebounding battle (41-35) and outscored the Deacs in the paint (30-28).
The rebounding translated into a 14-5 advantage for Longwood in second-chance points.
“I’m disappointed in the fact that we were not only outscored in the paint, but we also got outscored off turnovers and second chance points. Those are things that we have been pretty good at all year long,” Forbes said.
Maybe some credit should go to the Longwood side here.
“I thought our guys stayed true to the game plan and really relied on one another to execute,” first-year Longwood coach Ronnie Thomas said. “I feel like we took a step in that direction of executing and playing as a unit. If this team plays together and with that effort, we have the right guys to reach all of our goals come conference play.”
Across the ACC
It hasn’t been the best of weeks for the ACC.
- Louisville (9-2, NET: 17) lost by 21 at Tennessee (8-3, NET: 24).
- SMU (9-2, NET: 43) lost by 12 to LSU (9-1, NET: 31).
- Syracuse (7-4, NET: 96) lost at home to Hofstra (8-4, NET: 88).
- Florida State (5-6, NET: 148) has now lost five straight, the most recent two to UMass (8-3, NET: 171) and Dayton (9-3, NET: 75), the latter by a 97-69 final score.
- UMass improved to 2-0 in ACC play with a 76-74 win at Boston College (5-6, NET: 177).
ACC in the NET
Updated Dec. 18
- #2 Duke (11-0)
- #15 UNC (10-1)
- #17 Louisville (9-2)
- #21 UVA (9-1)
- #32 Clemson (9-3)
- #33 Miami (10-2)
- #34 NC State (8-4)
- #43 SMU (9-2)
- #58 Virginia Tech (10-2)
- #59 Wake Forest (9-3)
- #63 Cal (10-1)
- #65 Notre Dame (9-3)
- #96 Syracuse (7-4)
- #98 Stanford (9-2)
- #148 Florida State (5-6)
- #154 Pitt (6-6)
- #177 Boston College (5-6)
- #189 Georgia Tech (7-4)
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Chris Graham
