Wake Forest rolls past Boston College
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) -- C.J. Harris scored 23 points to help Wake Forest beat Boston College 85-56 on Saturday.
Travis McKie added 21 points for the Demon Deacons (13-15, 4-10 Atlantic Coast Conference), who broke out of nearly three-week scoring slump to earn a season sweep of the Eagles.
After failing to score 60 points in each of the past four games, Wake Forest reached that mark with about 12 minutes left. The Demon Deacons shot 55 percent and went 9-for-14 from 3-point range for a rare easy victory.
Wake Forest led by 32 points late, its biggest lead in any game this season.
Ryan Anderson scored 18 points for the Eagles (8-20, 3-11), who fell to 0-8 on the road and lost their fourth straight overall. Boston College shot 43 percent, but didn't put much pressure on the Demon Deacons and gave up way too many open looks.
And Wake Forest kept knocking them down, taking a 38-29 lead into halftime and then blowing the game open early in the second half. Wake Forest finished with its best scoring total in an ACC game this year and its highest output since scoring 87 against UNC Wilmington on Dec. 21.
Carson Desrosiers came off the bench to score 13 points and hit three 3-pointers, including one to beat the shot clock with 14 minutes left as the Demon Deacons were stretching out the lead.
McKie's three-point play pushed Wake Forest's lead to 64-44 with 8:59 left. He followed with a layup on the next possession, then Tony Chennault added a jumper that made it 68-44 with 7:46 left.
By the time Harris hit his third 3, Wake Forest led 75-47 with 4:59 left and BC coach Steve Donahue could only bury his face in his left hand on the sideline.
Before Saturday, Wake Forest's biggest lead of the season was 19 against Yale four days after Christmas.
It was hard to imagine this type of performance from the Demon Deacons, who had lost seven of eight since beating the Eagles 71-56 on the road on Jan. 21
The only win came against Georgia Tech on Feb. 15 in a matchup of the bottom two teams in the ACC standings. That 59-50 victory represented the Demon Deacons' best offensive showing in the past four games, as Wake Forest shot just 36 percent in that four-game stretch.
But the Demon Deacons cracked the 60-point mark on freshman Daniel Green's free throw with 11:53 left, and turned the rest of the game into a rare crowd-pleasing romp.
Boston College has lost 10 of 11 since notching a pair of two-point league wins against Clemson and Virginia Tech in mid-January. Oddly enough, the only win in that stretch came against Florida State -- which entered the week tied for the ACC lead with Duke and North Carolina -- on Feb. 8.