Turnovers doom Wake Forest in road loss to No. 15 Miami
Wake Forest couldn’t steal a win in Coral Gables Saturday afternoon, falling 96-87 behind an offensive clinic from Miami and a slew of turnovers on the offensive end. Even though Wake made 15 threes and shot 55% from the field, the turnovers were simply too much to overcome — the team finished with 19 cough-ups, 12 of which were committed by Tyree Appleby. The lack of ball security resulted in 34 points for the Hurricanes.
“Turnovers at the end of the day really hurt us,” Wake Forest head coach Steve Forbes said. “We had 19. That’s not typical for our team. When you go on the road, score 87 points and make 15 threes, you should have a great chance to win. I think that [Ty] got a little sped up. He plays at his own pace, but it’s pretty hard-charging. A couple of times, I thought he got sped up trying to throw the lane-skip too much. That was a little uncharacteristic of him.”
The No. 15 Hurricanes were lights-out from buzzer to buzzer, shooting 59% from the field and 50% from three-point land. Nijel Pack and Isaiah Wong were sensational, finishing with a combined 51 points on 18/33 shooting.
“Miami’s the best offensive team we’ve played this year,” Forbes said. “Isaiah Wong is one of the premier players in our league. Pack is a great addition to the team, he made a couple threes late when we’re trying to make a run. They can score from five spots. They’re all pretty good ball handlers, it’s hard to take the ball from them. We played drop coverage and they made a lot of tough twos. A lot of teams can’t make that shot.”
The Hurricanes’ offense has shown the ability to catch fire in an instant all season — they did just that against the Demon Deacons, going on a 7-0 run to open the game, a 13-0 run later in the first half and an 11-0 run at the start of the second period. As a result, Wake spent most of the day playing from behind, which makes the margin for error a lot smaller — especially against an elite team like Miami.
“I thought we got off to a bad start both halves,” Forbes said. “Even though we cut it to three at half, we were in good shape. We had a chance to tie it twice in the first two possessions in the second half — wide open threes by guys who can really shoot the three. We missed them. And they got some momentum going.”
Wake Forest now has just four games remaining in the regular season and needs to be nearly perfect to keep their NCAA Tournament hopes alive. This is no small ask, as road matchups with NC State and Syracuse await. However, the group will take things one game at a time and see where they end up when the dust is settled.
“This was a hard loss for us because it was a Quad 1 opportunity on the road,” Forbes said. “The only chances to get Quad 1 wins in our league are on the road. NC State poses another big game for us — a rival and a Quad 1 opportunity, I’m sure. We still have a chance to have a really good year. We have a good team. I like our team. I’m just trying to win the next game.”
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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.