Sometimes all you need a coach’s opening statement to summarize a game – really, the second half in this case.

“All credit tonight goes to Syracuse. They whipped our tail in every aspect of the game – offense, defense and coaching,” Steve Forbes said after Syracuse’s 94-72 win over Wake Forest on Saturday night.

The Deacons (17-5, 7-4 ACC) saw a three-point halftime lead quickly erode, with Syracuse (10-11, 4-6) shooting 62.2% (23 of 37) in the second half and outscoring Wake Forest 55-30.

Wake Forest’s last lead came at 45-43; from there, Syracuse grabbed the lead with an 8-0 run that took less than a minute, and the lead grew to double-digits with a 10-1 run that took all of 2½ minutes.

The Deacons never came within 15 points of the Orange’s lead for the last 10 minutes.

“I just thought that … they just didn’t feel us out there defensively,” Forbes said. “That’s a credit to them. They’re a really good offensive team, especially one-on-one.

“It wasn’t fancy plays, it was just guys making plays and not feeling the defender in front of them.”

Buddy Boeheim led Syracuse with 30 points on 12-for-21 shooting, and added seven assists. The Orange’s fourth-year sharpshooter had 19 points in the second half.

“Especially in the second half, they’re a very right-handed team and when he got going right, that’s when he got going,” Wake Forest guard Daivien Williamson said.

Around the time that the Orange clicked into gear offensively was the time that Wake Forest committed a rash of turnovers, with one five-minute segment seeing seven turnovers.

“We just made very poor decisions. We stared at – one of the things we were doing great in the first half was faking and making,” Forbes said. “Faking a pass, making a pass. Looking one way and going the other. We got the ball in to Jake a lot in the middle of the zone.

“Now we were just telegraphing, looking right at him and throwing it right to him.”

Eleven of Wake Forest’s 17 turnovers came in the second half. In this perfect storm of things going wrong, the Deacons were sloppy with the ball and couldn’t get a stop on the other end.

While Williamson matched a career-high with 27 points, it was the first time this season Alondes Williams was held to a single-digit scoring total (eight points). Jake LaRavia was also limited, with five points.

The Deacons led this game by as many as eight, at 22-14 halfway through the first half. Wake Forest held a loose control on the first half, getting mostly what it wanted offensively – the Deacons shot 16 of 30, and 7 of 15 on 3-pointers – in the first 20 minutes.

Williamson paced the Deacons with 17 points in the first half, despite being saddled with a second foul with 11½ minutes left. He had nine points when he exited and after a four-minute break, Forbes put him back in and he put up another eight points in the last seven minutes before halftime.