GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Pitt now has an opponent for its first ACC Tournament as No. 12 seed Wake Forest beat No. 13 seed Notre Dame, 81-69, today at Greensboro Coliseum in a first round game.
That means the Demon Deacons (17-15) will advance and play the Panthers (23-8), who are the No. 5 seed, tomorrow at 2 p.m. in a quarterfinal matchup.
Pitt beat Wake Forest, 80-65, at the Petersen Center on Jan. 11 but the Demon Deacons are healthier than they were in that game and have played better recently.
Wake Forest is a dangerous team and one of only two teams in the conference with wins over Duke and North Carolina this year, but Demon Deacons forward Travis McKie said that they are going to have to play extremely well to beat the Panthers.
“I remember we did nothing well in that game,” McKie said of the first matchup with Pitt. “We didn’t rebound well, we didn’t guard well, we didn’t shoot well – we just didn’t play well and Pitt played very well. They are going to be a tough team, they played really hard and really got us on the boards so we need to rebound much better than we did.”
Senior Coron Williams, a Robert Morris transfer, led Wake Forest with 25 points against the Irish while sophomore Devin Thomas added 19 points and 10 rebounds.
It was the Demon Deacons first win in the ACC Tournament since 2007 when they beat Georgia Tech 114-112 in a first round game.
First Published: March 12, 2014, 8:41 p.m.