Recap: Deacs Fall Short to #24 Louisville, 88-80
· Yahoo Sports
Another game in the Joel, another loss for the Demon Deacons. It wasn’t that long ago that Wake Forest had one of the best home records in the country—now, the Deacs have fallen to 1-4 in the ACC at home and have lost 4 straight in the Joel. With the loss, the Deacs are now 11-12 overall and have fallen below .500 in the month of February for the first time since Steve Forbes’s first season in 2020. The loss also moves Wake to 2-8 in ACC play, moving them back into a tie for last place in the conference.
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Final. pic.twitter.com/0VAaa7KiX4
— Wake Forest Men's Basketball (@WakeMBB) February 7, 2026
From the jump, this one looked like it was going to be ugly—Forbes was forced to take a timeout after a 5-0 Louisville run just 50 seconds into the game. It didn’t help much, as the Wake offense was completely stagnant, and the Deacs had way too many possessions where they dribbled out the shot clock and got forced into a terrible shot at the buzzer. On the other end, Wake lost Isaac McKneely a couple of times at the 3-point line, which is typically just an automatic 3-points for the Cards. Louisville led by 9 at the end of the first half.
Give credit to the Deacs, as they never gave up in this one. Wake started moving the ball much better in the 2nd half and clawed their way back into the game—Wake assisted on 10 of their 15 made baskets in the second half. After trailing for the entire game, the Deacs were finally able to even things up at 78 on a Juke Harris and-1 with 5:19 remaining in the game.
From that moment, everything went downhill for Wake. The Deacs reverted back to the offense from the first half, where the ball would stick with one guy for a majority of the shot clock before they went 1 on 1 and took a contested mid range jumper. The Deacs failed to score in the final 4:44 of the game, going 0-11 from the field and 0-2 from the free throw line. On defense, it really didn’t matter what Louisville did, because the Deacs fouled them every single time down the court—the Cards didn’t make a single field goal after Kasean Pryor’s 3-point prayer with 6:38 remaining in the game. Louisville’s final 10 points of the game all came from the free throw line.
There have really been 2 types of Wake Forest losses this season: blowouts and games where Wake fights like crazy to comeback just to throw it away at the end of the game. It is inexplicable to me why the Deacs would completely go away from what got them back into the game just to play hero ball and finish the game 0-11 from the floor, but that is the type of late game execution we have seen all season in close games. Even in the close games Wake won against Virginia Tech and Florida State, Wake’s final possessions were just Nate Calmese going 1 on 1 and scorning by himself at the end of the game. That strategy has proven to be much less successful without Calmese, as Wake has now dropped 2 close games to Pitt and Louisville since his injury.
The Deacs will have their best chance of getting back in the win column this week, as they take on Georgia Tech (11-12) on the road and Stanford at home (14-9). They need one or both badly.
Go Deacs.