WINSTON-SALEM – If you drew up the ideal way for Wake Forest to play the first 32 minutes or so, this wouldn’t have been it — but it was close enough for the Deacons to lead by 16.

If you drew up the worst-case scenario for the last eight minutes, with the most-painful way to lose a game involved — that’s about the crux of it.

“Probably the worst loss I’ve had here in my tenure. And we have nobody to blame but ourselves,” coach Steve Forbes said after Wake’s 72-70 loss to visiting Florida State on Wednesday night at Joel Coliseum.

Wake Forest (18-7, 10-4 ACC) will be stinging from this for a while for a few reasons. Chief among them is the blown lead, which was 16 at seven junctures of the second half, and was still at 63-54 with 4:50 left and FSU’s best player, Jamir Watkins, having fouled out.

It’s also the first “bad” loss for a team that spent the last month and a half playing its way onto the right side of the NCAA tournament bubble. FSU entered this game 87th in the NET rankings, meaning it’s a Quad-3 loss for the Deacons; they entered Wednesday with a combined record of 12-0 in Quad-3 and Quad-4 games.

And in perhaps the way that’s most stunning, it’s in the way Wake Forest lost for only the second time at home this season. A team that’s been so consistent on the defensive end was gouged on that end of the court.

“As a team that prioritizes defense, it’s extremely disappointing,” senior guard Hunter Sallis said. “I mean, there’s no explanation for how we guarded the last 15 minutes of the game.

“That’s just not who we are and we’ll definitely correct it before Saturday.”

That’s the next big one, a game at SMU. The Mustangs are now ½-game ahead of Wake Forest for fourth place in the ACC standings.

There will be time to talk about that one soon enough; first, a rundown of what went wrong Wednesday.

Wake’s defense was poor throughout the determining stages of this one. Its offense was hit or miss — with a lot of the latter when it mattered most.

- Sallis missed the front end of a 1-and-1 free throw with 2:23 left and the Deacons leading 65-62.

- Sallis missed a jumper from in the paint with about a minute left.

Those paled in comparison to what came next.

- After FSU’s Taylor Bol Bowen drained a wide-open 3-pointer for the Seminoles’ (15-9, 6-7) first lead since the first 10 minutes of the game, Ty-Laur Johnson missed a rushed, transition 3 with about 13 seconds left. That came with Sallis trailing the play and seemingly confused why he didn’t get the ball.

“There’s nothing you can see there,” Forbes said. “I wanted Hunter to get the ball, you know, he was right behind him. I thought he was going to turn and give it to him.”

- Through some combination of luck and/or bone headedness, Wake Forest wasn’t out of chances. After Johnson’s 3, there was confusion and the Deacons didn’t commit a foul. So, FSU went down and had Justin Thomas dunk the ball for a three-point lead with 1.1 seconds left.

Wake Forest in-bounded the ball to Cameron Hildreth, who took a dribble and was fouled trying to heave a shot from halfcourt. That sent him to the free-throw line for three shots and a chance to tie the game.

He missed the first one, made the second, and missed the third intentionally for Wake Forest to attempt a tip-in with three-tenths of a second left.

That didn’t work.

“So, look, it’s on us. On me,” Forbes said. “It’s a bad loss, a Quad-3 loss at home. When your margin of error is not very big, these things come back to hurt you. So, we’ve got to go find it some place else, to make it up. I’m disappointed in the loss, extremely disappointed.”

Center Efton Reid III had Wake’s only two field goals of the last five minutes. The last one was a tiebreaking dunk with 24 seconds left, on a feed from Hildreth.

Wake Forest scored early in the shot clock to get that 69-67 lead; it was a dunk, though, and the Deacons could set up their defense.

Bol Bowen’s 3-pointer came because Tre’Von Spillers followed a rolling Malique Ewin through the lane, which wasn’t his responsibility.

“I caught the slip,” Spillers said. “It was in the heat of the game and (Ewin) slipped to the basket, so I took him. I left (Bol Bowen) open and that was a bad mistake on my part.”

It was the final defensive lapse in a second half full of them.

“To give up 51 points in the second half is just inexcusable,” Forbes said, slamming the table early in that sentence. “It’s just inexcusable.”

FSU scored nine of the game’s first 11 points amid what was a sleepy start for the Deacons. Wake Forest missed six of its first seven shots.

Juice was pumped into the crowd of 8,356 and the Deacons with a posterizing dunk by Sallis, driving the left side of the lane, punching it through with his right hand.

That was the first field goal during a 22-4 run, which ended with the Deacons scoring 14 straight points. They got 3s from Hildreth, Spillers and Sallis in that 14-0 spurt and, to that point, gave you no reason to think they were a tired team that spent last week on the road.

If that was going to be an excuse, it was stiff-armed.

“I’m not going to use that as an excuse,” Forbes said. “We guarded them like crazy in the first half.”

The Deacons go into games with a goal of recording six or seven “kills,” which is three straight defensive stops. They had five of them in the first half, all in the last 15 minutes, which is how the game got to halftime with Wake Forest leading 35-21.

Wake Forest ended the game with six kills; FSU scored 51 points, scored on its last eight possessions and 14 of its last 17, and shot 56.3% in the second half.

“Our execution in the last 10 minutes was much better than it was in the first half,” FSU coach Leonard Hamilton said. “We were a little desperate. That’s what happens at this time of the season.”

TIP-INS: Wake’s loss and N.C. State’s blowout loss to Louisville means ACC teams that have spent a week on the West Coast are 1-6 in their next games after returning. All of those games have been Wednesday night home games. … The Deacons lost a game in which their points per possession was over 1.0 for the first time this season. They were previously 16-0 with such offensive games; Wake Forest had 70 points on 67 possessions against the Seminoles. … Johnson was scoreless and was 0-for-3 when he took the 3-pointer at the end of the game. He had two assists and three turnovers.