Tar Heels accelerate past Wake Forest

CHAPEL HILL – The first half looked gritty, grimy and tough, with Wake Forest playing together.

The second half looked like you’d figure North Carolina’s practices look like these days.

No. 3 UNC blew past Wake Forest 85-64 on Monday night at the Smith Center, pouring 52 points on the Deacons in the second half to win its ninth straight game and deal Wake Forest its third straight road loss.

“The most important we told our team going into the game was, ‘Carolina needed to run at us. We could not run with them or behind them,’” coach Steve Forbes said. “The first half, I thought we did a really good job in defensive transition.

“Second half, you can talk about whatever you want to talk about, but that’s where the game was decided.”

Going by fast break points, North Carolina (16-3, 8-0 ACC) outscored Wake Forest 15-1, with all but two of those coming in the second half. That helps explain how UNC’s points per possession went from 0.94 in the first half to 1.35 through the first 16 minutes of the second half — which is around the time it was clear the Deacons (13-6, 5-3) weren’t mounting a comeback.

The Tar Heels were led by fourth-year guard RJ Davis, who scored a career-high 36 points — 23 of those coming in the second half. He was the Deacons’ main problem in this building a year ago, too, running his two-year total to 63 points on 23-for-37 shooting against the Deacons.

“I feel like he just got good looks,” said Hunter Sallis, who led Wake Forest with 18 points and spent much of the night guarding Davis. “He hit a couple in transition, was able to get downhill to his floater. And I mean, we watched film, he makes those shots.

“He saw a couple go in and I feel like he was seeing a big basket.”

Conversely, offensive success eluded Wake Forest for most of the night. The Deacons survived that issue in the first half; not so much in the second half.

Wake Forest made 13 of 29 shots in the first half and was 8-for-30 in the second half.

Wake’s one-point halftime lead was dwarfed into a 14-point hole with 11:44 left. That prompted a timeout by Forbes to beat the under-12 media timeout.

That came in the middle of a 3½-minute scoring drought, which was only broken by a couple of Sallis trips to the free-throw line in which he only made one of two. The Deacons went about six minutes between field goals.

“Us missing shots and them getting out in transition and getting easy baskets, and them getting confidence and the building going crazy,” Forbes said of the deciding factors. “That’s on us. A lot of that is no matter what happens on the offensive end, you’ve gotta get back and you’ve gotta get matched up.

“I think that sometimes is a reflection of letting your offense dictate how you play defense.”

Turnovers weren’t the issue, unlike Wake’s previous two road losses.

The Deacons had six turnovers; the only game in which they’ve had fewer was the win over Towson in Charleston.

UNC’s defense is good; Wake’s offense has had better nights in the shot-making category.

“There was a lot of stuff that we need to work on, like transition defense,” Sallis said. “We knew that they really pushed the pace and we struggled with that today. It’s something that we’ve definitely gotta work on, for sure.”

Wake Forest took a one-point lead (34-33) into halftime after trailing by as much as eight in the first half.

After UNC used a 10-0 run to get that eight-point lead, Forbes took a timeout to beat the under-8 media break. The Deacons reeled off the next six points, and Damari Monsanto heated things up with two 3s in the same minute, from about the same place on the left wing.

Andrew Carr scored 14 points and Cameron Hildreth scored 10, joining Sallis in double-figure scoring.

Wake Forest point guard Kevin Miller was 7-for-9 from the field with seven assists and two turnovers in Wake’s win at Boston College. In three ACC road games since then, he’s a combined 12-for-30 from the field with 10 assists and 13 turnovers.

Forbes said he feels that it’s more a case of who Wake’s opponent has been in such games, as opposed to the third-year point guard who played four games last season getting overwhelmed by hostile environments.

“The guards that we’ve played on the road are really big and physical,” Forbes said. “I mean, those guys are elite defenders. They have a better defensive efficiency than offensive efficiency. That’s a credit to Coach (Hubert) Davis.

“N.C. State, Florida State, they’ve got big guards. … He hasn’t played great the last couple of games, but he’s gonna be fine. I’ve gotta help him. I’ve gotta do a good job of coaching him.”

TIP-INS: Harrison Ingram had 10 points and 14 rebounds for UNC, his fourth game this month with more rebounds than points (with at least 13 rebounds in each of those games). … Wake’s offense doesn’t often lead to a high assist-to-field goal ratio, but three assists on 21 field goals was particularly low. The Deacons were coming off a season-best 64.5%; their previous season-low assist rate was 30% (against Virginia Tech). … UNC was 0-for-8 in the first on 3-pointers; the Tar Heels were 5-for-7 in the second half. Wake’s three 3s were a season-low, and the 15% clip (3-for-20) was a season worst.