The 2025-26 regular season has officially come to an end, and the Deacs are heading to the ACC Tournament with a win. After overcoming a terrible start to the game, Wake got hot in the 2nd half and dropped 51 points on the Golden Bears to win the game 80-73.
I’m not sure the start of this game could have gone worse for Wake Forest—the Deacs made just 1 of their first 12 shots and scored just 5 points in the first 10 minutes of the game. Trailing 21-8 with
8 minutes remaining in the half, it definitely felt like the game was trending towards yet another blowout in front of the home fans. Despite shooting just 24% from the floor in the first half , the Deacs got 15 points from the free throw line to go into the half trailing by just 8 points.
Something changed at halftime, because Wake came out of the locker room looking like a completely different team. Shots were beginning to fall and Wake was completely out-hustling Cal to loose balls and rebounds. Behind 21 second half points from Juke Harris, the Deacs not only caught up, but pulled ahead by 13 points by the 9 minute mark in the second half. Cal made a late run to close gap, but the game was ultimately ended on a statement dunk from senior Owen Kmety on his first career shot attempt. Wake finished the half scoring 51 points on 55% shooting from the floor and 41% from beyond the arc.
With the win, Wake Forest closes out the regular season 16-15 overall and 7-11 in the conference. Whatever your thoughts are about the way the season went, it was great to see the team pull out a win on the night they honored both the seniors and Rodney Rodgers. Juke Harris finished off one of the most impressive seasons by a Wake Forest player in recent history with an incredible 31 point, 15 rebound performance.
The Deacs are slotted in as the 13 seed in the ACC Tournament, where they will play Virginia Tech for a 3rd time at 7pm on Tuesday night.
Go Deacs!
