Virginia Tech fought but didn’t have enough in its 72-63 loss to Wake Forest on Saturday.
“It’s an easy game, an uncomplicated game. We complicate it sometimes as coaches,” Hokies head coach Mike Young said. “[Wake Forest head coach Steve Forbes] is a really good coach. We’ve competed against each other a lot. In the last eight minutes, he gave the ball to two really good players and I don’t have a great matchup for either, and got gashed time and time again with [Cameron] Hildreth and [Hunter] Sallis. Those two kids have played a lot of college basketball and [I] tip my cap to them.”
The Hokies (8-10, 3-4 ACC) trailed by 10 in the first half but cut the deficit to just two, 31-29, at intermission. They found a groove to start the second half behind a four-point play from Jaden Schutt, though the Demon Deacons (14-4, 6-1) stormed back.
The teams traded the lead six times before Wake gradually pulled away behind the dynamic duo of Sallis and Hildreth. The senior guards got downhill and made plays at an impressive rate in the second half. After combining for 19 at the break on 7-of-15 shooting, they were a near-perfect 10-of-15 in the second.
“Hunter is a tough shot taker, tough shot maker,” Forbes said. “… Cam is like the fullback in the wishbone. You just hand it to him and he just runs over people.”
Sallis, who entered the day as the league’s third-best scorer at 19.2 points per game, paced Wake with 24. Saturday marked the seventh straight 20-point game for last year’s first-team all-conference pick. Meanwhile, Hildreth blew past his average of 13.5 points per game with 21 — two games after he dropped 31 on Miami.
Though Tech held the rest of the team to 9-of-27 shooting (33%), including just six points (two 3-pointers) from center Efton Reid (who was 1-of-13 from deep prior), it couldn’t slow down the two-headed monster of Sallis and Hildreth.
“He’s played for four years ... so he’s seen mostly everything,” said Tech forward Tyler Johnson, who was matched up with Sallis. “I was just trying to slow him down. He’s a great player. Just getting to his spot, being aggressive the whole game. …
“I feel like in the first, we were making them make tough shots, but those type of dudes, they just get going. You can make them miss, but their confidence is so high, they’re just going to keep shooting.”
That tandem was the ultimate difference. The Hokies hung around and were in the game, but Hildreth and Sallis made big-time plays when it mattered and orchestrated an efficient Deacs offense that shot above 45 percent for the seventh time in the last eight outings.
In the second half, Wake was 52 percent from the floor (15-of-29). It also capitalized on second-chance opportunities with 16 points off six offensive boards. Meanwhile, Tech was just 40 percent for the game and only hit a 39 percent clip (11-of-28) in the second half.
Many of those misses for the Hokies came around the rim. They were 15-of-33 (45%) on 2-point looks and couldn’t get some pivotal ones to fall against one of the better defensive teams in the country. The Deacs ranked 36th in Ken Pomeroy’s adjusted defensive efficiency metric entering the game.
“This is the best defensive team he’s had,” Young said of Forbes. “Efton has something to do with that, their length. Ty-Laur [Johnson], who he’s playing more at the point and Hunter more off the ball, is disruptive. They do a really good job of sitting in gaps and the ball is driven here and they’ll really come after it with both hands.”
After Wake Forest snatched the lead back for the final time on a 3-pointer from Sallis with 14:47 to play in the second half, Virginia Tech hung around but couldn’t quite pull back even. The margin stayed under six points until Hildreth got a layup down out of the under-eight timeout.
The Hokies made one final push right after. A traditional three-point play from Johnson, followed by a turnover from Sallis, pulled them within five with 3:58 to play.
However, freshman point guard Ben Hammond missed the front end of a one-and-one. He couldn’t get a layup to fall on the next possession, which followed another giveaway from Sallis, and the Hokies couldn’t put it away, even with another chance via an offensive rebound.
Then the Demon Deacons closed the door behind a turning-point play from freshman Juke Harris. Through a mess of bodies in the lane, he missed a jumper but followed his shot, grabbed the offensive board and put it back up to make it a seven-point game.
“It was a real big play, and he made some big plays defensively too,” Forbes said of Harris.
When Tech trimmed the deficit to four a minute later, Wake quietly closed out the contest behind two free throws from Hildreth and an acrobatic layup from Sallis.
The Hokies had four double-figure scorers but none more than Schutt’s 12 points. Mylyjael Poteat posted 11 while Brandon Rechsteiner and Tobi Lawal had 10 each. As a collective, they didn’t have enough to match the Deacs’ production down the stretch.
“We had a lot of good looks,” Lawal said. “… We had some bunnies at the rim we should make. But it’s going to happen. No one’s perfect. It’s hard to go 100 percent from the field. But at the same time, we missed some shots that we normally make, and when that’s happening, it makes it harder in general because they’re a good team so we have to play as well as we can to get the win.”
Once again, turnovers played a factor in Tech’s early deficit. It gave the ball away nine times in the first half and had 14 for the game — not a great mark when it had just nine assists over 40 minutes.
“Burns my ass,” Young said of the turnovers. “We’ve never played that way. You can’t do it. … They’ve got great intentions. It’s frustrating, really frustrating.”
Still, the Hokies’ gradual improvement is evident, particularly in their young players. Though Hammond wasn’t quite himself in his return from a foot injury — he started and played 25 minutes but was 1-of-9 from the field, which Young said was likely due to his rustiness having not played in two weeks — fellow freshman Tyler Johnson has come on strong.
The forward, who had nine points and 10 rebounds against the Deacs, has complemented Lawal well in the frontcourt and is a machine on the glass. He’s shown the ability to grab boards over opponents and has 28 rebounds in his last three outings (9.3 per game). On the flip side, Young’s tasked him with guarding the other team’s best scorer — Andrej Stojakovic at Cal, the ACC’s second-leading scorer, and Sallis vs. Wake Forest. Lawal described Johnson as “relentless” in his everyday approach.
“Tyler’s physicality and toughness and ability to rebound,” Young said. “He had a man’s play in the first half when he went over Hunter’s back and stuck the thing in the basket, and he had one against [Marcus] Hill from NC State on Wednesday. Just vicious, plays around the rim and then sticks it back in there.”
The Hokies head to Georgia Tech (8-11, 2-6 ACC) on Wednesday evening (7 p.m. ET) before returning to Cassell Coliseum on Saturday against Clemson (13-4, 5-1), who is tied for second in the league standings.
Box Score: Wake Forest 72, Virginia Tech 63