Duke Suffers Upset Loss to Wake Forest on the Road

WINSTON-SALEM, NC — Senior guard Tyree Appleby scored a game-high 18 points for Wake Forest en route to their 81-70 upset win over No. 14 Duke on Tuesday evening.

The Blue Devils were fresh off of a 10-day break for finals following their dominant victory over Maryland-Eastern Shore nearly two weeks ago. Meanwhile, the Deacons seemed determined to turn things around after their blowout 81-57 loss to Rutgers on Saturday.

Duke was missing the services of their two top recruits Dereck Lively II and Dariq Whitehead, who were both out with non-COVID illnesses. Their presence was greatly missed as the Blue Devils struggled to rebound or defend as well as they have during the season’s first seven weeks.

In the early minutes of the game, the Demon Deacons took hold of the lead with a 9-0 scoring run. After trading buckets with Duke for a stretch, Wake Forest rode a 4-0 run to close the half with a wide nine-point lead.

Big man Kyle Filipowski, who has arguably been Duke’s best player to this point this year, struggled all night long to get a rhythm going. The Wake Forest defense hounded Filipowski all game as the freshman scored just nine points on 4-of-14 shooting.

In the second half, Wake Forest guard Cameron Hildreth began to catch fire, giving the Deacons their largest lead at 14. Duke guard Jaylen Blakes was perfect from the field in the second half, finishing with 17 points on 6-of-7 shooting as the Blue Devils brought the game within seven. In the end, the scoring duo of Appleby and Hildreth proved to be too much for Duke.

The entire Wake Forest starting lineup scored in double figures and outrebounded Duke 37-29.

“It’s inexcusable,” Duke big man Ryan Young said. “It’s toughness and it’s effort. There’s not much else that goes into rebounding. We take pride in that being a strength of ours. And it was embarrassing that we couldn’t win that tonight.”

Duke looks to bounce back from this loss next week when they take on Florida State at home on New Year’s Eve in Cameron Indoor Stadium.