, who bounced back from a 72-70 loss at No. 2 Duke on Saturday. The victory was Virginia's seventh in a row in the series against Wake Forest and their 12th in a row overall at John Paul Jones Arena.Brandon Childress led the Demon Deacons (8-10, 1-5) with 12 points, and Olivier Sarr had 11.Virginia led 12-0 before Childress hit a 3-pointer for Wake Forest, their only basket in their first 13 attempts. After the Demon Deacons fell behind by 32-9, they outscored the Cavaliers 14-4 the rest of the half. Childress had eight points and Sharone Wright Jr. a pair of 3-pointers in the run for the Deacons.In the second half, Ty Jerome started the scoring for Virginia with a 3-pointer, and Wake Forest never got closer than 14 the rest of the way.BIG PICTUREWake Forest: The Demon Deacons arrived among the national leaders in free-throw attempts with more than 26 per game but attempted none in the first half and just seven in the game, making five. Their offense also goes almost entirely through Childress, who leads them not only in scoring (16.8 points per game), but entered with more assists (71) than the next three top players combined (68) while playing an average of nearly 37 minutes.Virginia: The Cavaliers showed off some offensive potential in racing to the early lead. Guy had just three of the 25 points and Jerome had none. Huff, a reserve center, had eight, and Hunter, the team's second-leading scorer, and Diakite each had seven in the blitz.UP NEXTWake Forest: The Demon Deacons return home to face Boston College on Saturday.Virginia: The Cavaliers go on the road at play at Notre Dame on Saturday.---Follow Hank on Twitter: www.twitter.com/hankkurzjr---More college basketball: https://apnews.com/Collegebasketball and https://twitter.com/-Top25)
Jan 21, 2019For about six hours on Saturday, Virginia was able to claim to be the last remaining unbeaten team in college basketball after Michigan fell to Wisconsin.Although the Cavaliers fell on the road to then No. 1 Duke just a few hours later, Virginia jumped up one spot to No. 3 in Monday's AP poll.The Cavaliers (16-1, 4-1) now focus their attention on Wake Forest.The Deacons are in the midst of a brutal ACC stretch. They will be facing their fourth top-20 opponent in a five-game stretch when they travel to John Paul Jones Arena on Tuesday in Charlottesville, Va.Wake Forest (8-9, 1-4) had their record fall under .500 with a 16-point loss at Virginia Tech on Saturday as the Deacons started showing signs of fatigue in the second half. They shot just 37.5 percent from the field and will have to face a Virginia defense that is looking to bounce back after surrendering 72 points to Duke."We're a solid defensive team, but tonight we were not solid enough," Virginia coach Tony Bennett said after his team's loss to Duke. "That deserves large credit to their play, but we have to better moving forward." The 72 points allowed were the most by the Cavaliers this season. They hadn't given up more than 59 in their previous four conference games."It's always that way, fine-tuning all of the time," Bennett said. "It comes down to eliminating those errors, so we will look at those areas. It has to be about playing Tuesday and get back and ready to play." Virginia shot 52.8 percent from the field against the Blue Devils but made just 3 of 17 3-point attempts just a few days after connecting on 13 against Virginia Tech.Wake Forest has allowed at least 73 points in all nine of their losses and is giving up an average of 75.0 points per game this season."We've gotta do a better job of working on our principles and locking in," Wake Forest junior guard Brandon Childress said. "It's a reason why it's the ACC, playing against good teams every night." Childress leads the Deacons in scoring at 16.8 per game and is the clear leader on the floor for head coach Danny Manning.Virginia's trio of Kyle Guy, De'Andre Hunter and Ty Jerome continue to pace the Cavaliers on offense as they combined to score 46 of the team's 70 points against Duke. Guy leads the way at 15.2 points per game, with Hunter (14.6) and Jerome (13.2) not far behind.The Deacons haven't beaten the Cavaliers since 2013 and have lost their last six meetings by an average of 14.6 points per game.Wake's 71-67 win over then-No. 17 North Carolina State last week was its first victory over a ranked opponent in two years, and the Deacons will be looking to add to that list against the third-ranked Cavaliers.Virginia has been ranked in the AP top six in 21 consecutive polls.--Field Level Media
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