Wake Forest works overtime, sends Virginia Tech home from ACC Tournament
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Wake Forest balanced scoring; about seven players hit double figures.
- Spillers' block helped; VT's missed put-back sent game to overtime.
- Loss all but squelched VT's NCAA hopes; Wake faces Clemson Wednesday.
For much of its up-to-this-point frustrating season, Wake Forest went as its unquestioned star Juke Harris went.
On Tuesday, the Demon Deacons flipped that script.
They had to.
With just over five minutes to go in regulation of their first-round contest of the ACC Tournament, Harris — Wake’s leading scorer and one of the best scorers in the ACC — was 2-for-13 from the floor. He was focused, undeterred, engaged, no doubt. But he was struggling nonetheless.
And then, clinging onto a five-point lead, one of Wake’s most impactful plays of the game came without Harris at the center of it. Mekhi Mason, curling off a hand-off screen, attacked the basket and floated the ball to Tre’Von Spillers, who slammed it home and screamed to an animated bench of Deacons already on their feet.
There were battles thereafter. The Hokies didn’t succumb. There was a missed put-back layup at the end of regulation that would’ve awarded the Hokies the win. And there were other heroics in overtime: first supplied by Myles Colvin, who scored the period’s first five points and gave the Deacons a lead they wouldn’t relinquish; then finished off with Sebastian Akins, whose and-one floater with 57 seconds left effectively sealed the game.
But that play with five minutes left in regulation — and in particular, what that drive-and-alley-oop-and-cathartic-scream represented — powered 13-seeded Wake Forest to a thrilling 95-89 overtime win over the 12-seeded Hokies.
Wake Forest head coach Steve Forbes used the word “resilient.” And that rang true — as it has down the stretch of this season, even when those resilient performances didn’t yield a win.
But there was another word he used that fit just as well:
Balance.
“We had tremendous balance,” Forbes said. “We had like seven guys in double figures, I think, or Omaha (Biliew) had seven points on top of that. It was good to have Nate Calmese back. Juke wasn’t getting his tonight, but everybody else stepped up. He didn’t have to carry us.”
Wake Forest’s season, thus, is still alive, though its run through the ACC might need to end as champions in order to land a berth to the NCAA Tournament. Virginia Tech (19-13) was on the bubble coming into Tuesday; the loss all but squelched the Hokies’ chances at the Big Dance.
And how this all came together was because of the collective that was Wake Forest.
Not just Juke Harris.
That’s not to say his teammates didn’t want him to stop being himself — to stop hunting his shot despite his final stat-line being uncharacteristically low: 3-of-18 for 10 points and four rebounds in over 44 minutes played.
Far from it, in fact.
“I told him just stay in it,” said Spillers, who finished with 13 points, two rebounds, two blocks and two steals. “His shot is going to fall. We told him that the entire time. Just don’t get out of the game. His shots weren’t falling in the first half, but he still help us in great way. He was a great screener. So his screens helped us get open shot.”
Said Colvin, who finished with a team-high 18 points: “(He’s) obviously one of the best scorers in the country, so for him to not shoot the ball, I think that would put us at a disadvantage. So he kept his head up, and obviously he hit a big shot in overtime, so I think that was really big for us. And he’s a game changer, so that really helped us.”
How Wake Forest triumphed over Virginia Tech
It was a game of guards skying for rebounds and forwards tumbling to the hardwood — a game that reeked of not-wanting-our-season-to-end desperation. That all started early.
And although it was evenly physical, each team clearly had its own sphere of strength.
The Hokies’ strength was in the frontcourt. Virginia Tech’s big men not only towered over the Demon Deacons on the court — 7-foot starting center Antonio Dorn and 6-foot-10, 260-pound Christian Gurdak presented problems all day — but they also towered them in the stat sheet. Particularly early. The Hokies had 25 rebounds in the first half to Wake Forest’s 11.
Wake Forest’s strength? Everywhere else. By halftime, the Demon Deacons were shooting a higher field goal percentage and 3-point percentage; they shot the same amount of free throws (10) and hit two more (9); and they turned the Hokies over at will.
And even though Harris, a 6-foot-7 sophomore wing from Salisbury, struggled, his teammates picked him. They did so early. And they did so late.
With 1:20 left in the game and the score tied at 73, Spillers — the same player who finished off the dunk before — rose up and blocked a wide-open dunk attempt by Virginia Tech’s Gurdak. On the ensuing baseline out-of-bounds set, Virginia Tech’s Tobi Lawal was called for a flagrant foul after his elbow collided with Akins’ forehead.
That awarded Wake Forest two free throws — Colvin nailed both — and the ball with 1:20 to play.
Then Wake Forest had an empty possession. Virginia Tech drew a foul and hit two free throws. Another empty possession for Wake Forest. All was tied at 75. And then, on a final possession, Virginia Tech’s Ben Hammond drove left, floated a shot that caromed off the rim and Jailen Bedford attempted a put-back that just rimmed out as time expired.
That led to overtime, where Wake Forest (17-15) pulled away. The Deacons will play No. 6 seed Clemson at 9:30 p.m. Wednesday in the second round.
This wasn’t a win despite Harris. The team needed him. But it was a win without him at his best — without his 21.7 points per game, without his 45.2% field goal percentage.
And that’s meaningful. It was a statement to themselves and others.
Said Forbes: “It was just a really good team effort.”
This story was originally published March 10, 2026 at 9:41 PM.
