Wake Forest Comes Up Short in OT, Falls to Florida State 85-92

Wake Forest came up short in their upset bid against #17 Florida State by about half of a second. Scottie Barnes’s reverse layup with under 1 second to go sent the game to overtime, and the Noles pulled out the home win 92-85.

Both teams started the game out hot from beyond the arc. Wake Forest hit 5 of their first 8 3-point attempts, including 3-3 shooting from graduate transfer Jonah Antonio, while the Noles started the game 4-4 from downtown. The Deacs were led in the early going by Carter Whitt; the freshman guard had one of his best halves as a Deac with 5 first half assists. Wake and Florida State traded baskets for much of the 1st half, but a 4 minute scoring drought for the Deacs would result in a 15-2 FSU run, allowing the Noles to take a 41-31 lead into the half.

The second started with a bit of Déjà vu—The Noles once against started the half making their first 4 3-point attempts to take a 55-44 lead at the under 16 minute timeout. In the next stretch, Jonah Antonio got hot and made 3 out of 4 3-point attempts, giving him 18 points on 6-7 shooting from downtown. A 9-0 Wake Forest run, capped off by a Daivien Williamson 3-pointer, cut the FSU lead to just 4 points. With just under 7 minutes remaining, Antonio hit his 7th 3-pointer of the game to tie the game at 66 all. Just a few minutes later, Antonio would give Wake Forest their first lead in the 2nd half on a pair of free throws.

With just 20 seconds remaining in the game, Ian DuBose split a pair of free throws to give the Deacs a 2 point lead. Anthony Polite made 1 of 2 from the stripe on FSU’s ensuing possession, and the Deacs led by 1 with just 9 seconds remaining on the clock. DuBose split another pair of free throws and freshman Scottie Barnes drove the length of the court to make a reverse layup and send the game into OT. In the overtime period, the depth of Florida State overpowered the Deacs as both DuBose and Ody Oguama fouled out. Florida State would win the game 92-85.

This one was tough. Wake Forest had a chance to win their first ACC road game over a ranked opponent since beating 24th ranked UNC in 2010 (fact check needed). The Deacs showed incredible fight coming back from down 11 and had an opportunity to win the game at the free throw line with under 10 seconds on the clock. The Noles are one of the best teams in the conference and tough to beat on a normal day, but even tougher to beat when they are shooting around 50% from the 3-point line. Any other team and the Deacs probably win this game by double digits. Just a tough, tough loss.

Wake Forest was led by Antonio, who finished the game with a team high 23 points on 7-9 shooting from beyond the arc. DuBose added 18 points on 6-9 shooting and Whitt had an incredible 9 assists to go with his 6 points.

The Noles were led by RaiQuan Gray, who finished with a game high 24 points on 70% shooting from the floor. Outside of Gray, Florida State had a very balanced scoring attack with 5 players scoring between 9 and 14 points.

Obviously losing sucks, and losing when you come so close to pulling off a big upset sucks even more. But on the positive side, Wake Forest showed they are capable of playing with any team in the ACC and the future looks very bright for the program. The Deacs are back in action on Wednesday to take on the Duke Blue Devils at 8:30 pm.