January 15, 2025
Winston Salem, NC- Hunter Sallis scored 30 points as Wake Forest defeated Stanford 80-67 on Wednesday evening.
Wake Forest went on a 16-4 run led by Tre’Von Spillers hook shot to lead 66-63 with over four minutes remaining. Wake Forest has now won five of their past six games and are 13-4 overall and 5-1 in conference play, while Stanford is 11-6 overall and 3-3 within the conference. Stanford has now lost 3 of their past 5 games. Both teams shot 78% or better from the free throw line. Wake Forest outrebounded the Cardinal 30-28 and scored 38 points in the paint to Stanford’s 30.
Hunter Sallis had 30 points on 12-of-17 from the field while Tre’Von Spillers added 18 for the Deacons, a career high for him with 10 rebounds to have his fifth double-double of the year. Cameron Hildreth made all 10 free throws attempts adding 12 points. Today marks Sallis’s second game of 30 or more points this year and has scored 20 or more points in the last six games. Stanford was led by Oziyah Sellers 16 points and Jaylen Blakes also added 15 points. Maxime Raynaud had 14 points and 11 rebounds while Ryan Agarwal also had 14 points.The Cardinal actually at the break 35-33 and led 10 minutes into the second half, but could not put it away. Wake Forest shot 37.5% in the first half but 65% in the second half.
Both teams struggled behind the arc, Stanford shooting 8-of-24 (33.3%) while Wake Forest was 3-of-11 (27.3%). Stanford had 13 turnovers while piling up 15 assists and 10 fast break points. Stanford led by as many as 9 with the Deacons leading by the maximum of 13 on the night. Both teams shot over 44% from the field.
Wake Forest remains perfect at home with a 9-0 record joining only Duke to be unbeaten at home. The Demon Deacons forced 13 turnovers and had eight steals and three blocks.
These two teams met for just the second time. Stanford and Wake Forest had not played a game against each other since the 1997 NCAA tournament game featuring Tim Duncan of Wake Forest and Brevin Knight from Stanford.
Winning Coach Comments from Steve Forbes:
“Credit to Kyle [Smith] and Stanford. They came in here ready to play. They got off to a great start by making six of their first eight shots. A couple of those were highly contested. When the big fella threw in a left-handed hook shot from 14 feet, I knew this was going to be a tough night, but then we settled in defensively. From 15:38 to 2:44 we stopped them and they were 5-of-20 from the field, so we got after them defensively and got a couple kills. We did a really good job of not fouling them and putting them at the line in the second half. They have made more free throws in league play than some teams have attempted against them, and they shoot 90 percent from the free-throw line. We made some adjustments at halftime, especially on how we defended the ball screen. That really helped. The most important thing was the job we did against the big guy, Maxime Raynaud. We made him into a three-point shooter. He only had one post-up the entire game. We doubled him and got it out of his hands. He got some offensive rebounds, but he’s everything as advertised. “
We got in the lane in the first half, we just shot 38 percent from two. We shot 76 percent in the second half and that made a big difference. When we played with more speed in the second half, you could see what happened. We got them where we wanted to be and we moved the ball a lot more and we cut more. Obviously, Hunter [Sallis] is on a heater right now. Tre’Von [Spillers] was awesome. Cameron [Hildreth] didn’t shoot it well, but he was 10-for-10 from the free-throw line. Ty-Laur [Johnson] did a good job of running our team. It was a good team win.”
Stanford stays on the east coast playing at North Carolina on Saturday. Wake Forest looks to extend its four game win streak to five going on the road to Virginia Tech to face the Hokies on Saturday.
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