Wake Forest completes second-half comeback, upsets No. 8 Duke

In front of the first sold-out home crowd in seven years, Wake Forest got its biggest win of the season. The Demon Deacons held on to hand No. 8 Duke the 83-79 loss – a huge boost for their NCAA tournament hopes.

Duke led 38-36 at halftime of Saturday’s contest, but Wake Forest found the hot hand after the break. The Demon Deacons shot 69.6% from the floor in the final 20 minutes, including a perfect 5-for-5 showing from three-point territory. It made for quite the shootout as Duke made 59.1% of its shots and went 6-for-11 from downtown.

Hunter Sallis had a monster day for Wake Forest, dropping 29 points on 11-of-13 shooting and 5-of-6 from three-point land to lead all scorers. Andrew Carr came in behind him with 18 points to go with four assists in the effort.

For Wake Forest, it was especially important for with March Madness quickly approaching. The Demon Deacons now improve to 18-9 overall and 10-6 in ACC play with the victory over Duke – their second Q1 victory of the season.

ESPN’s Joe Lunardi had the Demon Deacons as his first team out of his Bracketology entering Saturday’s game, but said a victory over the Blue Devils could have major implications on their tournament aspirations.

“Wake at home against Duke, certainly a win would slide the Demon Deacons into the field,” Lunardi said. “You could argue they should be there already. But this is where the bubble is.”

Kyle Filipowski led Duke with 17 points in the effort, but Blue Devils fans held their collective breath as the Wake Forest faithful stormed the court. He got caught in the middle of the crowd and had to be helped off with an apparent injury.

Jon Scheyer initially said it was an ankle injury for his star center, but he asked when court storming would get banned considering multiple player safety issues this year.

“Disappointed we lost” Scheyer said. “But look, for me, I’m more concerned about the well-being of our guys. Flip sprains his ankle. When are we going to ban court storming? When are we going to ban that? How many times does a player have to get into something where they get punched or they get pushed or they get taunted right in their face? It’s a dangerous thing.

“I don’t want that to take away from the game that Wake played because Wake played a big-time game… When I played, at least it was 10 seconds and then you could storm the court. Now, it’s the buzzer doesn’t even go off and they’re running of the floor.