Wake Forest Demon Deacons at UNC Greensboro Spartans

Wake beats UNC Greensboro 78-75 on late Crawford 3

The only question was where it would come from.

Crawford hit a deep 3-pointer with 2 seconds left to lift Wake Forest past UNC Greensboro 78-75 on Friday night.

"He's fearless," coach Danny Manning said, "and we love that about him."

John Collins had 17 points and 13 rebounds, and Crawford finished with 17 points for the Demon Deacons (8-2). They blew a 16-point second-half lead before Crawford shot them to their third straight win.

R.J. White scored a season-high 22 points and Diante Baldwin finished with 18 for UNC Greensboro (7-3), which had its six-game winning streak snapped.

Baldwin banked in a runner with 28.6 seconds left that tied it at 75. Wake Forest called a timeout with 18 seconds left to set up its final sequence. Manning said the plan was for Crawford to come off a high ball screen but "he just waved everybody off."

Austin Arians inbounded the ball in the backcourt to Crawford, who dribbled most of the clock away before making a move right with about 10 seconds left. Crawford slipped near the 3-point arc but recovered and buried a contested 3-pointer from a logo on the floor about 25 feet out.

"I actually think (slipping) was a good thing because when I started driving, there were still like 7 seconds left (and) I was going to pull it out regardless," Crawford said.

Crawford then picked off Francis Alonso's deep inbounds pass and flung the ball toward the scoreboard as time expired.

Keyshawn Woods added 16 points and Dinos Mitoglou had 11 before fouling out with 1:01 remaining for Wake Forest.

BIG PICTURE

Wake Forest: Manning will have plenty of teaching points after this one to go over with the Demon Deacons after they led 59-43 with less than 15 minutes to play. They had serious trouble getting stops in the second half, allowing the Spartans to shoot 56 percent after the break.

"We can't apologize for winning," Manning said. "We're disappointed that we had to win in this fashion because we had a 16-point lead in the second half, but I'm not going to take anything away from UNCG. ... We just had a guy make a tough shot."

UNC Greensboro: One of the best starts in school history is, well, history. With a victory, the Spartans would have been 8-2 for the first time since they opened 12-2 in 1994-95. Instead, they fell to 0-10 all-time against Wake Forest and 2-55 against Atlantic Coast Conference schools, never having beaten one at home.

But this felt different for the Spartans, who weren't at all content to simply be competitive.

"The team we know we have this year, we expect to win those games (and not just) be close with big schools like that," White said. "We have confidence in all our guys."

STAR WATCH

Collins had his fifth straight double-double, and the Demon Deacons are 5-1 this season when he has one. But he only attempted two shots after halftime, hitting one. His most impressive individual highlight might have come with about 8 1/2 minutes left in the first half when he blocked a dunk attempt by James Dickey. That sent Wake Forest back the other way with Mitchell Wilbekin burying a 3-pointer that made it a seven-point game.

STAT SHEET

Wake Forest entered outrebounding its opponents by about five per game, but were outworked on the glass by the Spartans for a significant portion of this game and the teams had 31 boards apiece.

UP NEXT

Wake Forest: After a week off for exams, the Demon Deacons visit No. 13 Xavier on Dec. 17 in the Skip Prosser Classic.

UNC Greensboro: The Spartans play host to Southern Wesleyan on Dec. 14 before heading across the state to face UNC Asheville five days later.

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

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