Wake Forest Falls at Clemson

CLEMSON, S.C. – Despite a strong second-half effort that saw the Wake Forest women's basketball team outscore Clemson by 11 points, the Deacs fell 73-59 on the road at Littlejohn Coliseum Sunday evening in Clemson, S.C.

The Demon Deacons showed a spirited fight in the third and fourth quarters, outsourcing the Tigers 34-23 in the final 20 minutes. Wake Forest (4-16, 0-8 ACC) limited Clemson 6-of-20 from the field including 0-of-6 from three-point range and 11 of the Tigers' (9-12, 2-7 ACC) second half points came at the free throw line.

In total Wake Forest forced 20 turnovers on the night, tying the second-most this season with the only other higher total coming against BYU during the North Shore Showcase. Additionally, the 20 turnovers are the highest total forced in ACC play both this season and during the Gebbia era.

Offensively, Wake Forest was led by an inspiring performance from graduate guard Alexandria Scruggs. Despite having early foul trouble, the Fayetteville, N.C. native finished the night with a team-high 14 points on 7-of-10 field goals while also collecting three rebounds.

This is the sixth time in the last 10 games she has reached double-digit points and the seventh time overall this season. Over the last two games, Scruggs has been 10-of-14 from the field (71.4 pct.).

Junior guard Raegyn Conley came alive in the fourth quarter, ending the night with 13 points including hitting all three of the Deacs three pointers. She added a rebound and an assist to her statline.

This was Conley's third double-figure game in the last four outings and marked her second-highest point total of the season.

Graduate guard Kaia Harrison tallied eight points on 4-of-6 shooting while also tying for the team high with six rebounds along with junior guard Alyssa Andrews.
An exciting season awaits at Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum for the Wake Forest women's basketball team! There is no better time than now to become a season ticket holder and support your Demon Deacons at home this season.

Along with your purchase of a $60 season ticket package this season there are many added benefits exclusive only to those who buy season tickets.

How It Happened

After Malaya Cowles won the opening tipoff for Wake Forest, the Demon Deacons were the first on the scoreboard as Alexandria Scruggs connected on a jumper on the opening possession from Alexandria Scruggs.
The Tigers netted the next five points before a nice pass from Kaia Harrison to Cowles, made it a 5-4 game with 6:38 in the first quarter.
After a 6-0 run from Clemson, an Elise Williams find to Scruggs ended the scoring run and made it an 11-6 game.
Earning trips to the free throw line late in the first quarter, the combination of Alyssa Andrews and Rylie Theuerkaf were perfect in their two trips.
- Wake Forest cut the deficit to 18-12 after two makes from Theuerkauf.
  - At the end of the first quarter, Clemson had a 21-12 edge.
    - Five different Demon Deacons found the score column in the opening 10 minutes of play.
Scruggs opened up the scoring in the second quarter when Kate Deeble found her on the left baseline for a jumper.
Clemson stretched its lead out to 16 points with the help of a 6-0 run, but Wake Forest responded with a run of its own.
- Deeble found Andrews on a layup at the basket and then on the next possession Conley had a nice cut to the basket and finished through the contact for an and-one.
  - Making the free throw, Conley cut the deficit to 30-19 with 5:41 left before halftime.
  - Up to this point, Wake Forest had assisted on six of the first seven made baskets.
The Demon Deacons continued to shoot well at the free throw line as Theuerkauf improved the team to 7-of-7 from the line with a pair of makes.
Clemson finished the first half on a 9-2 scoring run to increase its lead to 49-25 at the break.
- Cowles and Scruggs led the way on the score column with six points each for the Demon Deacons.
- Theuerkauf and Andrews each grabbed three rounds while Deeble dished out three assists.
The Demon Deacons came out on fire in the third quarter, scoring the first six points to force a quick timeout from Clemson.
- This included a pair of nice layups from Harrison to make it 49-31 in favor of Clemson.
Scruggs entered double figures with a jumper from the free throw line to break the zone, marking the seventh time this season she was in double-digits scoring.
Going into the first media timeout, Wake Forest had a 10-1 run going out of halftime.
- The Deacs forced an 0-of-5 start from Clemson in the first 5:13 of the third with the lone Tiger point coming at the free throw line.
Overall in the third quarter, Wake Forest outscored Clemson, 14-6, limiting the Tigers to just two field goals in the 10-minute stretch.
- The Demon Deacon defense held the Tigers to 2-of-13 shooting including 0-for-5 from behind the arc.
- The Deacs trimmed the deficit down to as few as 16 points.
A pair of three from Conley kickstarted the Deacs scoring the fourth.
Scruggs continued her impressive game as a layup with 5:23 left in the game made it a 62-49 contest.
- At this point, Scruggs was 6-for-8 from the field.
Despite the strong second half performance, the Demon Deacons were unable to cut into single digits, falling on the road,

Standout Stats

Defensively, the Demon Deacons forced double-digit turnovers for the 30th time in the last 31 games, with the lone game coming against Syracuse on Jan. 11.
- The 30 game stretch goes back to January of 2022.
- In total, the Deacs forced 20 turnovers by Clemson. This included nine steals from five different players.
- The 20 turnovers are the highest total forced in ACC play both this season and during the Gebbia era as well as tied for the second-highest total this season, marking the most since forcing 25 in the opening game of the North Shore Showcase against BYU:
  - 1. vs. BYU - 25 turnovers forced (Nov. 18, 2023)
  - T2. at Clemson - 20 turnovers forced (Jan. 28, 2024)
  - T2. vs. NC A&T - 20 turnovers forced (Nov. 15, 2023)
Elise Williams continued her impressive run at the free throw line, knocking down 2-of-2 attempts at the stripe. She has now made her last 10 free throws, dating back to the Syracuse game on Thursday, Jan. 11. Additionally, Williams is shooting a blistering 90.9 percent from the line in conference play with her only two misses coming against Syracuse.
- Since the start of ACC play, she leads the Deacs with 11.9 points per game.
- Williams is averaging a career-best 83.3 percent from the stripe (45-of-54) this season. She is now ranked ninth in program history in free throw percentage:

Rank	Player	FT Percentage
1.	Nicole Levesque (1991-94)	.830
2.	Jewel Spear (2020-23)	.827
3.	Alice Neal (1986-89)	.805
4.	Heidi Coleman (1995-99)	.800
5.	Beth Davis (1989-91)	.792
6.	Porsche' Jones (2004-06)	.778
7.	Ivana Raca (2017-21)	.765
9.	Elise Williams (2021-Present)	.759
10.	Amber Campbell (2014-18)	.755

From Gebbia
"We only allowed 23 points in the second half but we didn't do what we had to do in the first half to give ourselves a chance to win on the road. If we would have played the way we did in the second half for 40 minutes, we would have had a chance to win this game. Alex played well offensively and gave us a good 14 points despite being in early foul trouble. We needed more from our bench when we had our starters in foul trouble. In the second half, we did a good job of playing without fouling and we chipped away at the lead but we needed to make a bunch of shots and they didn't fall. We only have a month before postseason to get this right and that has to start with consistency in practice and carry that over into Thursday night at home against a good Miami team." - Megan Gebbia

Next Up
The Demon Deacons are back home on Thursday night as they play Miami for the second time this season.

The 6:00 p.m. tipoff against the Hurricanes will also air on ACC Network Extra.

Next Event

Team Stats

Alexandria Scruggs

Raegyn Conley

Kaia Harrison

Malaya Cowles

Players Mentioned

Alyssa Andrews

Raegyn Conley

Malaya Cowles

Kate Deeble

Kaia Harrison

Alexandria Scruggs

Jewel Spear

Elise Williams

Wake Forest Athletics