Minnesota Golden Gophers at Wake Forest Demon Deacons

Hollins leads Minnesota past Wake, 84-69

Just not like this.

Hollins hit a career-high seven 3-pointers and scored a season-best 27 points in the Golden Gophers' 84-69 win over Wake Forest on Tuesday night in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.

"You certainly can't expect him to hit seven 3s," Pitino said. "That would be nice, but that's unrealistic."

Minnesota hit its first seven shots of the second half and spent most of the rest of the night protecting a double-figure lead.

Miles Overton had 14 points for the Demon Deacons (4-4).

Thomas entered averaging a team-best 11.7 points but was coming off a scoreless, 0-for-7 performance four nights earlier in a discouraging home loss to Delaware State. He finished this one with eight rebounds but just four points on 1-of-4 shooting and didn't play again after drawing a technical foul with 8:51 remaining.

New coach Danny Manning compared Thomas to Denver Nuggets forward Kenneth Faried, saying "his emotions kind of make him the player that he is, but he's got to go out there and continue to make the hustle plays and plays like that."

When this game was in doubt, Minnesota couldn't miss.

The Gophers opened the second half with a 16-3 run that finally gave them some separation.

"It wasn't a whole lot, really, that I said" at halftime, Pitino said. "I just told them to calm down and sustain the run."

Hollins stretched the lead to 66-48 with another 3 with 8 1/2 minutes to play, and Wake Forest didn't get closer than 12 after that.

Codi Miller-McIntyre and freshman Mitchell Wilbekin added 10 points apiece for the Demon Deacons, who erased their only double-figure deficit of the first half by reeling off nine straight points before the break. Miller-McIntyre's drive about a second before the buzzer pulled them to 32-31.

After that, it was all Minnesota.

QUOTE OF THE NIGHT

STAT LINE

TIP-INS

UP NEXT

Wake Forest plays its ACC opener at North Carolina State on Saturday night.

Minnesota is home against Western Carolina on Friday night.

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Follow Joedy McCreary on Twitter at http://twitter.com/joedyap

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• TV Channel: Minnesota at Wake Forest 2021 College Basketball, week 4, is broadcasted on ESPNU.
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