Alondes Williams sparked Wake Forest in the second half and finished with 17 points, nine rebounds and six assists as the visiting Demon Deacons repelled North Carolina State 69-51 on Wednesday night in Raleigh, N.C.
Wake Forest (20-5, 10-4 Atlantic Coast Conference) reached 20 wins in a season for the first time in 12 years.
The Demon Deacons joined Notre Dame as the first teams to reach 10 ACC wins among the cluster of teams within contention for the top spot.
Isaiah Mucius poured in 13 points and Daivien Williamson had 11 points for Wake Forest, which scored 24 of the game’s final 30 points.
Dereon Seabron’s 22 points paced NC State (10-15, 3-11), which has lost five games in a row. Jericole Hellems added nine points and Terquavion Smith fouled out with eight points, going just 3-for-16 from the floor.
The Wolfpack fell to 7-2 against Wake Forest under coach Kevin Keatts.
Seabron racked up 11 points in a span of less than five minutes as the Wolfpack finally caught up at 45-45 after trailing for most of the game.
The Demon Deacons didn’t fall behind. Then Mucius and Williamson hit 3s before Williamson’s bucket in transition provided a 58-51 edge on the way to what became a lopsided score.
More than 29 minutes elapsed before there was a double-figure scorer in the game, with Seabron the first to achieve that.
Wake Forest led 31-28 at halftime despite only two points from Williams, the ACC scoring leader. The Demon Deacons held the biggest first-half edge at 27-20, but managed only five points in the final 5 1/2 minutes of the half.
The Demon Deacons shot 52.2 percent from the field in the opening half compared to NC State’s 30.6, but the Wolfpack held an 8-1 edge in offensive rebounds.
Smith and Hellems accounted for 20 of NC State’s first 32 shots from the field, making only five of those.
The teams meet in a rematch March 2 at Wake Forest.
–Fiedl Level Media
