Wake Forest’s season opener was anything but boring.

The Deacons trailed by as much as 21 against Elon before storming back in the second half for a 101-78 win to open the season at Joel Coliseum on Monday night.

Junior guard Cameron Hildreth scored a career-high 33 points, making 13 of 18 shots, and added six rebounds and five assists.

He wasn’t the only Deacon who had a career night — fourth-year forward Andrew Carr scored a career-best 24 points, needing to shoot only 7-for-9 to get there (he was 10 of 11 at the free-throw line).

That duo was joined in double-figure scoring by a couple of guards making their Wake Forest debuts. Hunter Sallis (Gonzaga) scored 19 points (also a career-high) and Kevin Miller (Central Michigan) scored 17.

Altogether, that quartet combined for 93 points on 34-for-54 shooting.

All of that scoring was necessary after Elon made 21 of 33 shots in the first half and scored 12 points off of Wake’s eight turnovers.

Elon made four of its first five 3-pointers and six of its first eight, leading 27-13 after 10 minutes. The lead grew to 36-15 with seven minutes left in the first half.

After scoring 15 points in the first 13 minutes of the game, Wake Forest scored 28 in the last seven minutes of the first half. That helped the Deacons trim Elon’s lead to nine, as Wake Forest got three 3s from Sallis and one from Hildreth in the four minutes before halftime.

The Phoenix’s halftime lead was 55-43. Wake Forest used a 14-0 run to take its first lead, at 66-60, with 12:12 left.

Elon never got within a single possession of Wake’s lead after that. The Deacons led by double digits for the last 6½ minutes.

EXTRA POINTS: Wake Forest has scored at least 100 points in a game in each of Steve Forbes’ four seasons as coach of the Deacons. It’s the second time they’ve done that in the opener, along with the 2020 opener against Delaware State (111-51). … Hildreth’s previous career-high was 23 points and Carr’s previous career-high was 22 — both of those came in the same game against Florida State last year. … Wake Forest only had five players score, as freshman Parker Friedrichsen scored eight points in addition to the four players in double-figures.