You’re either winning or learning and Wake Forest did a lot of the former over the past couple of months.

Now it’s time for the latter.

The Deacons’ nine-game winning streak ended with Tuesday night’s turnover-riddled 87-82 loss at Florida State.

“We can’t have 20 turnovers and win a game,” center Efton Reid III said on Tuesday night. “We’ve gotta take care of the ball and play good defense and be the more physical team at the end of the day.

“Stats don’t lie. You can look at the numbers and chance favors aggression.”

The giveaways were certainly the most disappointing part of a sour night. Wake’s longest winning streak since the start of the 2008-09 season fizzled with the Deacons playing uncharacteristically careless basketball.

“I don’t think they listened to us, as far as putting the game plan into the game,” coach Steve Forbes said of his team. “I think they practiced it, and then they didn’t do it.”

Wake Forest had won three straight meetings against FSU. The Seminoles under Leonard Hamilton have been, for several years, long and athletic and play aggressively on the defensive end because they’re deep enough that foul situations are manageable.

“More often than not, the most-aggressive team is going to win,” Forbes said, “and I thought they were the most-aggressive team.”

If desperation leads to aggressiveness, the Deacons will have to raise their levels to match Virginia on Saturday.

The Cavaliers have had the week off, having last played Saturday and losing 76-60 at N.C. State. After a 9-1 start to the season, Virginia has lost three of its last five games — all of which have been on the road and none of which has been particularly close.

It’s a good opportunity for Wake Forest to both show it’s learned from its mistakes and to start a new winning streak.

[The Osceola of the Rivals network contributed to this report.]

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Here’s what to know ahead of Saturday’s game:

Time: 2 p.m.

Location: Joel Coliseum.

TV: ESPN2.

Series; last meeting: Wake Forest leads 71-70; Virginia won 76-67 in January of last season in Winston-Salem.

Records: Virginia 11-4, 2-2 ACC; Wake Forest 11-4, 3-1.

Stat to watch: 21.8%.

That is Virginia’s defensive turnover percentage, which is 24th in the country and best in the ACC, per KenPom.

If you’re looking for a one-game bounce back by the Deacons in the turnover category … this will be the ultimate test.

“Florida State did a really good job of speeding us up on offense the entire game,” Forbes said.

Wake Forest is almost guaranteed to have fewer than the 20 turnovers it committed at Florida State. That’s not because of guaranteed improvement; it’s because Virginia plays at a snail’s pace and Wake Forest would have to commit a turnover on one of every three possessions to reach 20 giveaways (roughly).

So, you get the gist. Virginia forces turnovers at a high percentage — it’s a rate that’s actually higher than any Tony Bennett-coached team has ever finished a season.

Turnovers have basically been a problem for Wake Forest twice in 15 games — those just happen to be the last two losses. Twenty turnovers in 79 possessions against FSU; 18 turnovers in 79 possessions against LSU (in overtime). Those are Wake’s only two games this season with a turnover percentage above 20, and seven times in the nine-game winning streak, the Deacons’ turnover percentage was under 15%.

Matchup to watch: Virginia’s Reece Beekman (No. 2) vs. Wake Forest guard of Tony Bennett’s choosing.

Virginia has the reigning ACC defensive player of the year, a 6-3, 194-pounder with a 6-7 wingspan who’s bound to get a shot in the NBA for his defensive prowess and point guard skills.

Wake Forest has three guards who are all capable of burning defenses.

So which one of Kevin Miller, Cameron Hildreth and Hunter Sallis will Bennett opt to attach his top defender to?

The guess here would be a hedging of sorts; Bennett is probably going to use Beekman against each of Wake’s guards at different junctions of this game. Putting Beekman on Miller would be the easiest way of disrupting Wake’s offensive flow, but Hildreth and Sallis are also important to stop.

Cavalier to watch: Guard Isaac McKneely (No. 11).

Among the strangest occurrences in college basketball this season is McKneely putting up near-identical shooting lines in back-to-back games twice.

And maybe it’s good news for the Deacons that after the first instance, he went into a slump, and he’s coming off of the second instance.

Stick with me here.

Back in December, the 6-4, 188-pounder had 22 points on 8-for-11 shooting, making 6 of 8 3-pointers, against Syracuse. Three days later, he had the exact same numbers against N.C. Central.

Over the next four games, he averaged 6.8 points and made 5 of 20 3s.

And then last week, he scored 18 points on 7-for-11 shooting, making 4 of 7 3s, against Louisville. Three days later, against N.C. State, he scored 18 points on 6-for-13 shooting, again making 4 of 7 3s.

Now comes the next game, as Virginia hasn’t played since last weekend’s 16-point loss in Raleigh.

Deacon to watch: Guard Hunter Sallis (No. 23).

He’s not the only Deacon who had a game to forget in Tallahassee.

He is the most important one who struggled down there.

Sallis had 10 points against FSU but struggled with two fouls in the first half and committed four turnovers. A few times, he had driving lanes and dribbled off of his foot.

It happens. Sallis had a four-turnover game against NJIT and had six in the loss to LSU. He’s more than twice as many minutes (35.3) this season as he played across two seasons at Gonzaga (15.3). Sallis isn’t expected to be on his A-game every single game and, with talented backcourt mates, he doesn’t have to play to that level in every game.

Sallis averaged 19.6 points across the five games before the FSU trip and committed three turnovers in that stretch. The safe bet here is that he’ll bounce back with a strong performance against Virginia.

What’s on deck: Wake Forest continues alternating home and road games, as the Deacons go to N.C. State on Tuesday night. That’s a game that seems bound to be a quad-1 opportunity, on the road against one of the top five teams in the ACC.

Virginia gets a home game against rival Virginia Tech on Wednesday night before heading back onto the road — this weekend, the Cavaliers are playing their third of seven straight Saturday road games — with a trip to Georgia Tech next weekend.

KenPom prediction: Wake Forest wins 68-63.

Deacons Illustrated prognosis: It feels like the pace of this game is going to tell the story.

If Wake Forest can get out and run, get into quick offense and its guards can get to their spots, the Deacons can win comfortably against a Virginia team that struggles to score.

If Virginia is able to take the air out of the ball and grind things to a halt, the Cavaliers will swing the pendulum in their favor.

As much stock as you may put in Virginia’s road struggles — losses of 16, 22 and 23, along with a neutral-court loss by 24 — Bennett probably gets the benefit of the doubt that it won’t remain a season-long trend. Will that trend break in Winston-Salem? Who knows.