Miami Defeated Wake Forest 74-72, Advanced in ACC Tournament
The Miami Hurricanes won their first Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament game 74-72 over Wake Forest.
Leading the Canes in scoring was Jordan Miller with 18 points, while Isaiah Wong added 17 and Norchad Omier went for 14 points and 10 rebounds.
To get the victory, Miami certainly had to earn it. With 3:59 to play, Wake Forest’s Cameron Hildreth drove the lane and was fouled. He made one of two to bring the score to 65-58.
After a hoop by Wong, Hildreth drilled a shot from downtown. That brought the score to 67-61 with 3:18 to go.
A critical play happened next. Nijel Pack fouled out with 2:44 to play. Harold Beverly entered the lineup for the Canes.
Hildreth knocked down a 3-point shot from the right wing to get the Demon Deacons to 71-66 with 59 seconds remaining. Wake Forest refused to give up, but the press was not always its friend.
Wong made Wake Forest pay by beating the press with a pull-up jumper. Then Tyree Appleby came back with an acrobatic 3-point make to make it 73-69 with 39 seconds to play.
A couple of plays later, Hildreth came up big again. He knocked down a contested 3-point shot on the left wing to close the score to 74-72 with 2.7 seconds remaining.
Wooga Poplar was sent to the line with a 1-and-1 free throw, and he missed. Daivien Williamson had a halfcourt heave that went off the backboard, and the Canes survived.
As for the game flow, Miami was the better team for the vast majority of the contest, despite allowing a big lead slip away (again).
Good shooting helped Miami go up 30-23 with 2:20 remaining in the first half. That stated, a couple of empty looks at the offensive end and then Wake Forest’s Tyree Appleby went to work.
He drove for a layup, and also hit Williamson on the next possession for a 3-point make to close the gap to 30-28. The Canes called timeout with 1:38 to go in the first half, but an even worse scenario played out immediately afterwards anyway.
Omier picked up his second foul, sending him to the bench. Even so, Miami finished the first half up 34-29.
The second half saw the Canes come out hot, including a 3-point bomb knocked down by Bensley Joseph to put the Hurricanes up 52-38 with 14:20 to play.
The shots kept on dropping, as Wong knocked down a 3-point shot of his own to make it 55-38. With that bucket, Miami was 8 of 10 from the floor during the second half.
Watching the action, it was clear that Miami had more juice after not playing since this past Saturday when defeating Pittsburgh, while Wake Forest was coming off a last-second win over Syracuse just one day prior.
The Canes upped the lead to 61-43 as Pack layed it up and in for two with 9:51 to play. Pack finished with 9 points on the day.
Even when Omier picked up his fourth foul with 7:29 to play in the game, Miami continued to be aggressive on both ends of the basketball court, but so did Wake Forest.
At that point, it’s when the Demon Deacons started to make its run. Leading Wake Forest in scoring was Appleby with 24, while Hildreth had 17 and Williamson 14.
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