Red-hot shooting lifts Wake Forest over Florida State
Wake Forest cruised past Florida State 90-75 on Wednesday night, bolstered by a prolific offensive performance that saw three Demon Deacons score at least 20 points for the first time since 2005. Cam Hildreth led all scorers with 23 points on 9/14 shooting, and Andrew Carr added 22 on 8/10 from the field. Damari Monsanto went nuclear, hitting six triples en route to his second 22-point performance of the season. As a team, Wake Forest shot 55.6% from the field and 53.8% from deep.
“I feel like we have everyone on the team that can score,” Hildreth said after the game. “We have one-through-12 who can all get a bucket. If one person’s not scoring, it’s going to be someone else who steps up.”
Though Hildreth and Carr also scored at a high clip, Monsanto’s performance was truly exceptional. He made his first six threes and didn’t miss a shot until the second half. His 22 points came on just eight field goal attempts.
“We did a great job of sharing the ball on offense,” Forbes said. “Damari got us going. He shot the living crap out of it. Every time he shot it, I thought it was going in. He played a pretty good floor game, for a guy that is hot like that. He didn’t just go hunting on every possession. He’s matured in that area.”
On a night where the Seminoles shot 53.7% from the field and easily cleared the 70-point mark, Leonard Hamilton’s group still left the Joel with a 15-point loss. In the end, the difference was a combination of Wake Forest’s playmaking, execution and experience.
“You have to give credit to Wake Forest,” Hamilton said. “They executed their game plan flawlessly. Wake has a very mature team. They’ve been able to come together and respond to the coaches’ system.”
Though the shooting was great all night, other areas of the game started a bit shaky for the Deacs. By the under-12 media timeout in the first half, they’d turned the ball over six times (leading to eight FSU points) and were struggling to play under control. However, Forbes’ group settled in nicely on both ends as the game progressed.
“I was concerned about the six turnovers early,” Forbes said. “But then I think somebody told me that 17 out of the next 21 possessions, we got stops. We got a little too spread out early. We slowed down and made better plays. They did a great job executing.”
The last few minutes of the game, though, things got sloppy. Wake Forest led by as many as 20 points but the lead dwindled to 12 late in the second half. Similar to the Louisville game, Wake let Florida State hang around a few minutes longer than they should have.
“We were playing at a pretty high level, but then we relaxed,” Forbes said. “Again. We can’t do that. It’s frustrating. I’m not happy about that. We ended up winning by 15 and I’m very pleased with that, but to take the next step in my opinion, to be the team we want to be, we have to finish the game out.”
In the end, though, Wake Forest was able to get the job done. The Deacs notched their fourth ACC win of the year and advanced to 12-5. As with every game, they’ll take the lessons and continue to move forward.
“We’ve been in different positions our whole season,” Hildreth said. “We’ve been in positions where it’s been really close and we lost. Every game, we learn. We come to practice, we learn. We just have to stay composed and get to our fundamentals. That’s what we did and I’m proud of everyone on our team for that.”
Wake Forest returns to action Saturday night as they travel to Chestnut Hill to take on the 8-9 Boston College Eagles. Tipoff is set for 8 p.m. ET.
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Ben is a managing editor and lead contributing writer for Deacons Daily. Ben has a year of experience as the Sports Editor for the Old Gold & Black, and a year of experience as the publication’s print managing editor. He has a journalistic profile of over 40 published news and sports pieces for the Dayton Daily News.