Wake Knocks Off Duke 83-79, But Filipowski Injured As Fans Rush The Floor

Unbelievable.

If you saw Wake play at Cameron, you know the Deacs are a tournament team and they proved it Saturday, winning a very taut game Saturday, 83-79 before the first sellout at the Joel in seven years. And the court storming at the end could prove very costly to Duke, as Kyle Filipowski was injured by Wake Forest fans and had to be helped from the court. We wouldn’t normally go here, but Wake should consider banning this fan from the arena.

Duke came out ahead in the first half, shooting 48.1 percent and 351. percent for threes, but it wasn’t like the Devils pulled away from Wake Forest. Wake hung around and cut the lead to 38-36 at the break.

And in the second half, the Demon Deacons came out in attack mode, pulling out to a 51-46 lead.

But Duke fought back. After a Ryan Young free throw, Tyrese Proctor nailed a three, then after Andrew Carr hit a two, Proctor hit another three to tie it up 53-53.

Then Jeremy Roach hit a mid-range jumper and shortly after that, McCain hits long three to put Duke up 58-54 - and this was after pressuring the red hot Sallis into a miss on the other end.

The game went back and forth in the second half and was, according to the announcers, the tightest game of the ACC season.

Duke was under a lot of pressure from both Wake Forest and the fans and for most of the half handled it quite well. But near the end, the Blue Devils had some critical turnovers.

Roach had one with 5:29 left then Kyle Filipowski had one with 4:40 and Duke down 70-69.

Cameron Hildreth, who we thought played very well, hit a three with 4:20 left to give Wake a 73-69 lead.

Jared McCain hit a three to cut it back to 73-72 before Hildtreth hit a pair to push the Deacs back up 75-72.

Mark Mitchell, who we thought played really well, blocked a Hildreth shot and then Wake had a beautiful inbounds play to Andrew Carr to put the lead back to 77-72.

Roach got back to the line and hit his, then Hildreth hit a pair to push the lead back to 79-74. McCain got to the line and both, then Kevin Miller scored a basket for Wakt to push the lead to 81-76.

Filipowski hit a three with :43 left to cut it to 81-79.

Mitchell defended Andrew Carr brilliantly as he shot with :12 left and then got the rebound.

Duke came down and then Proctor made perhaps the costliest turnover of the season with an uncertain pass to Filipowski, who wasn’t expecting it. Wake got the ball back up 81-79 and Hunter Sallis, who by the way shot 11-13/5-6, hit his free throws to put Wake up 83-79 with :01 to play.

And that would have been the end of it, except for the FANS INJURING A PLAYER.

Unbelievable. We haven’t heard anything about how serious it might be but Filpowski had to be helped off the floor and his teammates had to fend off the Wake fans before anything else happened.

Obviously no one meant to injure him, but it did happen and it’s going to force the ACC to look closely at court stormings. The SEC fines schools a large amount of money and that’s likely to be discussed at conference headquarters quite soon.

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