Deacs Edged by No. 14 Arizona in Wooden Legacy Final - Wake Forest University Athletics (original) (raw)

12/2/2019 12:12:00 AM | Men's Basketball

ANAHEIM, Calif. – Wake Forest's bid for the title at the Wooden Legacy came up short with a 73-66 loss to No. 14 Arizona in Sunday night's final at the Anaheim Arena. The Demon Deacons (5-3) saw their three-game win streak snapped, while the Wildcats (9-0) remained undefeated.

Olivier Sarr led the Deacs with 21 points and 13 rebounds for his third double-double of the season. His 21 points tied his career high as he was named to the Wooden Legacy All-Tournament team. Brandon Childress added 19 points for Wake Forest.

Wake Forest shot a season-low 32.2 percent from the floor, but stayed in the game with a 23-26 (88.5%) performance from the free throw line, its third time over 80 percent from the line in the last four games.

How it Happened:
After both teams got off to a strong offensive start, a 10-0 Deacon run gave Wake a 23-16 lead before Arizona responded with an 14-0 run of its own to retake the lead. The Wildcats led by as many as 10 in the first half before taking a 39-33 lead into halftime. Sarr had 13 points and four rebounds at the break to lead the Deacs.

Arizona pushed the advantage to 15 in the second half before the Deacs closed to within four at 68-64 in the final minute. The Wildcats made free throws at the end to push the final advantage to 73-66.

Quotable:
"We are disappointed as this was not the game we wanted to have. We wanted to walk out of here holding the trophy. I thought we did some things fairly well, but not well enough to win the ball game. Putting in our game plan, we wanted to slow down their big three, Nnaji, Green and Mannion. I thought we did a decent job on them, but Jeter and Smith were the guys we wanted to take shots and hats off to to them because they made shots. Our guys guarded the scouting report well. I thought we showed some grit and started rebounding the ball better in the second half. We had some chances but just couldn't do enough to get over the hump. We showed some toughness to be down 15 in the second half and make it a game down the stretch." – Head Coach Danny Manning

Noteworthy:
Olivier Sarr averaged 17 points and 10.7 rebounds over three games in the tournament to earn All-Tournament Team honors … Wake Forest allowed nine second-chance points to Arizona, continuing a streak of allowing single-digit second chance points in every game this season … The Deacs were playing in their first tournament final since winning the 2008 76 Classic in Anaheim.

Up Next:
Wake Forest will conclude a six-game road trip on Wednesday with a visit to Penn State in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge. Game time is 9:15 p.m. and the game will air on ESPNU.