Deacons lose after leading by 10 at halftime

Wake Forest lost an ACC road game for the fourth straight time and it had nothing to do with a slow start for a team that hadn’t played in nine days.

The Deacons had a 10-point halftime lead and it turned into a 77-72 loss at Pittsburgh on Wednesday night at the Petersen Events Center.

This had some similar feelings of Wake’s loss two weeks ago at N.C. State, in which the Deacons (13-7, 5-4 ACC) also led by 10 at halftime and wilted because of ball pressure and turnovers down the stretch.

Wake Forest committed 15 turnovers against Pitt (13-8, 4-6) and allowed the Panthers to score a clip of 1.56 points per possession in the second half, according to StatBroadcast.

It’s a missed opportunity for an ACC road win that likely would’ve wound up as one of those coveted Quad-1 wins in the NCAA’s NET system. Pitt entered the day at 65th; Quad-1s are earned in road games against any team ranked 1-75.

The last three of Wake’s ACC road losses have been Quad-1 losses; the Deacons don’t have a Quad-1 win as they enter February.

Wake’s lead was 37-27 at halftime. The largest it got was 12 when Kevin Miller scored the first two points of the second half, and by the first media break — induced when coach Steve Forbes called a timeout — Wake’s lead had shrunk to four.

Pitt tied the game for the first time since the opening four minutes when Carlton Carrington, a freshman guard who scored a career-high 24, hit a 3-pointer to make it 49-49 with 10:36 left. After the teams traded buckets for a couple of minutes, Pitt surged in front with an 11-2 run that gave the Panthers a 64-57 lead with a little less than 5 minutes to play.

The closest Wake Forest got to the lead after that was what wound up being the final margin, five.

The Deacons started and finished the first half strong, making 5 of their first six shots and five of seven entering halftime.

At the beginning, Hunter Sallis was the leading scorer but a lot of Wake’s offense came through Efton Reid III post-ups. He scored Wake’s first points and assisted on the next two buckets.

Sallis scored 22 to lead the Deacons, while Reid had 14 points — matching a season-high — and 10 rebounds, though he was limited late in the game by Pitt’s William Jeffress, who played the role of undersized center (6-7, 210).

Miller propelled Wake Forest to end the first half, scoring seven straight Deacons points, putting on display his array of ball fakes and mid-range to close-range jumpers. He finished with 11 points, one assist and three turnovers.

Pitt didn’t have an offensive rebound in the first half; the Panthers had nine in the second half, leading to 10 second-chance points.

TIP-INS: Of Wake’s five remaining ACC road games, three of them — against Duke, Virginia and Virginia Tech — qualify as Quad-1 chances. The two that don’t are games at Georgia Tech and Notre Dame. … Wake Forest was 6-for-22 on 3-pointers, meaning that in the two games since pouring 18 of them onto Louisville, the Deacons are a combined 9-for-42. … Carrington wasn’t the only Pitt guard who burned Wake Forest; Ishmael Leggett scored a season-high 22 points. Forward Blake Hinson had 17 points on an efficient (very much so, for him) 6-for-10 from the field.