The pain was more in the way Wake Forest lost its first game of the season than that fact alone.

The Deacons blew an eight-point lead with two minutes left in regulation and lost 77-75 to Loyola Marymount in overtime in the championship game of the Jersey Mike’s Jamaica Classic on Sunday at Montego Bay Convention Centre.

“It’s inexcusable for us not to close out the game in regulation, up eight, and win the game,” coach Steve Forbes said of his team’s first loss. “It’s our fault and my fault, and my fault is to get our team to play the right way at the end of the game, obviously I didn’t do that.”

Wake Forest (4-1) went from down 10 at halftime to ahead by eight with two minutes left — and then didn’t score in those last two minutes.

Tyree Appleby was shaken up in the second half and was visibly hobbled for the last few minutes and in overtime. He committed three turnovers in the final two minutes, two of which led to LMU baskets — though both of those came after offensive rebounds.

He took to Twitter immediately after the game to take responsibility.

“It’s not like they forced us to turn the ball over,” Forbes said. “I’ve already watched it. And I watched it live. We just mishandled the basketball. It’s inexcusable. It’s almost unexplainable, to be honest.”

Sophomore center Matthew Marsh, who had a career-high 14 points, missed two free throws with 13 seconds left. That led to Cam Shelton’s game-tying 3-pointer with 1.6 left, and Andrew Carr’s desperation shot at the buzzer missed everything.

“If we still get the rebound, they don’t make a 3, they don’t make a 2,” Forbes said of LMU’s second-chance baskets down the stretch. “It’s just right in our hands. And so that’s hard to swallow.

“And then we’ve still just gotta make one free throw out of two, we still win the game.”

The back-and-forth action of overtime became riveting, with six lead changes in the final five minutes alone.

The ending might have been more painful for the Deacons than that of regulation.

Cameron Hildreth gave the Deacons the lead for a final time with 1:10 left, completing a three-point play to make it a 75-73 lead. Hildreth got a steal on the ensuing possession, but then dribbled out of bounds on the baseline with 30 seconds left.

LMU freshman Chance Stephens — sizzling in the first half but cooled in the previous 30 or so minutes of game play — drilled the go-ahead 3-pointer with 16 seconds left.

“Cam Sheldon and Chance Stephens had great games for them,” Forbes said. “Shelton was really good off the dribble and obviously Stephens can really shoot it, as he made seven of 10 3s. They’ve got a really nice club and they deserved to win.”

Wake Forest got off to a better start than its first game in Jamaica, and then things unraveled in the first half.

The Deacons were up 13-5 when Stephens hit his first 3-pointer. The lead was 17-10 with 10:25 before halftime when Marsh finished his second alley-oop of the first half.

Stephens took over from there, nailing four more 3s in an unconscious 2-minute span. He was 5-for-5 in the first half.

“I think it’s scouting report,” Forbes said. “I think we did a really poor job in the first half of not taking away their strengths. To their credit, that’s what (LMU) did to Georgetown (on Friday).”

By the time the Deacons had locked down Stephens, two things happened: The rest of LMU got going offensively, and Wake Forest started forcing 3s instead of doing what it did successfully in the first several minutes, which was driving and finishing or kicking.

Wake Forest worked back into the lead steadily throughout the second half; never so much as putting together a big run to take control, but edging in front of LMU with spurts.

Hildreth and freshman Zach Keller moved into the starting lineup for the first time this season. Hildreth had 10 points, four rebounds and three assists, while Keller had two points in 12 minutes, his role fading with Marsh’s emergence inside.