Wake Forest Comeback Effort Falls Just Short Against Louisville
In this story:
Wake Forest trailed the ranked Louisville Cardinals by as much as 15 points at home today at the Joel. They battled back to tie up the score with five minutes to go, but they ultimately came up short. Let's go through how it happened.
1st Half Highlights
Louisville started the game going up 5-0, which forced Steve Forbes to burn a timeout less than a minute into action. After that, the Deacs settled in a bit and got it to 6-7 by the first media timeout.
Isaac McKneely went on a mini run, 8-0 for the Cardinals to give them an advantage. Wake countered with some nice two-man action between Sebastian Akins and Tre'Von Spillers, and Isaac Carr provided some good minutes off the bench.
The first half mostly boiled down to Wake's inability to get a stop on defense. The Demon Deacons showed some ability to score consistently, but Louisville had 20 first-half points in the paint, which made them tough to stop.
When it was all said and done, Wake went into the locker room down nine. They gave up 43 points to the Cardinals in the first half and were left searching for answers defensively. Juke Harris led the way in scoring with nine first-half points.
2nd Half Highlights
At the start of the half, it looked like Louisville would run away with this one. They grew their lead to 15 points and looked like they found their groove offensively. At one point, they stacked together three straight three-point plays.
However, like we have seen the Deacs do so many times this season, they battled back. Juke Harris was a huge part of that. He finished with 25 points and 11 rebounds. Omaha Biliew also stepped up hugely. He had 14 points and went 3-3 from three.
Wake was able to tie this game with 5:06 to play. Some off-ball fouls gave Louisville several free throws, which they were able to convert on. Still, the game remained to go back and forth.
The key point in the game came with 4:14 to play in the second half. Tre'Von Spillers got fouled and went to the line for two free throws while the Deacs trailed by just a point. He missed both free throws, and then Louisville went down and hit two free throws to grow their lead to three.
After this, the Deacs did not score the rest of the game. Louisville ended the game on an 8-0 run to win the ball game by eight points.
It was another valiant effort from the Deacs, but once again, they came up just short. Next up, Wake Forest goes on the road to Atlanta to take on the Yellow Jackets on Wednesday at 9 pm.
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Justin is a student at Wake Forest University. He is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and aspiring finance major interested everything sports. In his freshman year, Justin completed an internship with the Wake Forest Ticketing Department where he gained some valuable insight into the sales and operations aspects of collegiate athletics. Before working with Wake Forest On SI, Justin was a contributing writer for Wake Forest’s student publication The Old Gold and Black. Currently, Justin serves as a student manager on the Wake Forest Men’s Tennis team. In his free time Justin enjoys spending time with his family and friends on the golf course and traveling.