Wake Forest led by 10 at halftime but couldn’t hold on in a 77-70 loss to Utah in the opening round of the Charleston Classic on Thursday night at TD Arena.

A combination of going cold and lacking interior size doomed the Deacons (1-2), who will face Towson in a consolation bracket game at 7 p.m. Friday. Utah will play No. 6 Houston in the earlier game, at 4:30.

Wake Forest was 7-for-11 on 3s in the first half and 3-for-15 in the second half. Over the final eight or so minutes, Utah (3-0) played a zone that the Deacons weren’t able to break.

The Deacons led from the 8-minute mark of the first half to the 6:58 mark of the second. The lead was six, at 60-54, on Hunter Sallis’ put-back dunk with 8:03 left.

Utah scored the next 11 points. Wake Forest cut the deficit to two twice, both times on 3s by freshman Parker Friedrichsen, but never came closer.

Sallis led Wake Forest with 20 points on 8-for-13 shooting. Cameron Hildreth scored 14, Andrew Carr scored 13 and Zach Keller supplied 10 points.

Fifth-year senior Branden Carlson — a member of the 2017 recruiting class — scored a career-high 31 points to lead the Utes. Twenty of those came in the second half, and the 7-footer was 4-for-7 on 3s.

Utah outrebounded Wake Forest 38-27. Per StatBroadcast, Utah was 8-for-9 on layups and 8-for-8 on dunk attempts.

Keller started for Matthew Marsh at the center position, as the latter is out and day-to-day with an injury suffered against Georgia and the Deacons are still waiting on the appeal of Efton Reid III’s waiver.

Keller made two 3s in the first half — he made 4 of 20 last season and hadn’t taken one in Wake’s first two games — that helped the Deacons to a 41-31 lead at halftime.