Monday, November 4
Winston-Salem, N.C.
8:00 p.m.
Wake Forest University
1-0,0-0ACC
64
vs
49
Coppin State
0-1,0-0MEAC
1
2
F
Coppin St.
22
27
49
Wake Forest
42
22
64
Photo by: Seth Seebaugh
Demon Deacons Down Eagles in Season-Opening Victory Inside LJVM
11/4/2024 11:06:00 PM | Men's Basketball
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Basketball action made its return to Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum on Monday night (Nov. 4), as the Wake Forest men's basketball team opened the 2024-25 season with a showing versus Coppin State. The Demon Deacons (1-0) finished with a 64-49 victory over the Eagles (0-1).
Cameron Hildreth started off his senior season on a strong note, leading the Deacs in scoring with 15 points. The Worthing, England native was efficient in his looks from the field (4-of-8) and splashed in three triples. He also grabbed five rebounds and dished out four assists.
Several newcomers made their Demon Deacon debuts during the evening, contributing in different ways. Playing 15 minutes, Omaha Biliew posted 11 points while making all but one of his five field goal attempts. The sophomore impressed defensively with four steals. Tre'Von Spillers was close to a double-double, finishing with nine points and nine rebounds while adding a pair of blocks. Ty-Laur Johnson totaled seven points and four rebounds in 16 minutes.
Rounding a Wake Forest trio of double-digit scorers. Hunter Sallis had 10 points. The reigning All-ACC first teamer made plays all night long to tally a game-high five assists.
Wake Forest forced 20 turnovers while holding Coppin State to only 49 points, which is the lowest points allowed by a Wake Forest team in a season opener during the Steve Forbes era, and the lowest since the 2008-09 season (48 vs. North Carolina Central).
The Deacs are now 2-0 against Coppin State, with the two matchups coming 35 years apart in 1989 and 2024. Additionally, the team has won 23 of their last 24 non-conference games at home, dating back to December 2018.
Wake Forest head coach Steve Forbes remains perfect in season openers, advancing to 10-0 in his Division I head coaching career.
How It Happened
Stats of the Game
Key Moment
Coach's Comments
"I want to thank the students for showing up tonight, we had a great crowd and they had a lot of enthusiasm. I know for me, personally, it's the biggest student crowd for an opener that we've had. Defensively we were really good the entire game and we came out focused. We had nine consecutive stops to start the game, thirteen kills for the game, and we turned them over twenty times, but our offense was so abysmal it put so much pressure on our defense. I was really proud of the way that we defended, and we're going to have to do that as we keep going through this season, we're going to have to be able to defend. Omaha really sparked us off the bench in the first half with some shot making and energy. He's really good defensively, so I was really pleased with him.
Anyone can read a stat sheet and see we're 9-for-37 from three and 11-for-23 from the line. It's going to be really hard to win big games when you're shooting that poorly, especially our main guys like Hunter [Sallis], Parker [Friedrichsen], and [Davin] Cosby were 2-for-18 from three and I'd have to say all of those were pretty good shots. Am I panicking? No. I know what they can do, but they have to do it. Now the free throw thing - we were 17-for-20 on the free throw line against West Virginia, and then we come back and go 11-for-23 tonight, so we're going to have to work on that. We did have 14 assists on 22 baskets, so that's encouraging, but we need more than 22 baskets. I know everyone is used to us getting 90, 100 points and flying up and down, and I still think this team is very capable of that, we just had a really poor night shooting." - head coach Steve Forbes
Up Next
Wake Forest remains in Winston-Salem for the second matchup this week. The Deacs will face the North Carolina A&T Aggies on Thursday, Nov. 7, inside The Joel.
Tip is set for 7 p.m. and the game will stream live on ACC Network Extra.
Cameron Hildreth started off his senior season on a strong note, leading the Deacs in scoring with 15 points. The Worthing, England native was efficient in his looks from the field (4-of-8) and splashed in three triples. He also grabbed five rebounds and dished out four assists.
Several newcomers made their Demon Deacon debuts during the evening, contributing in different ways. Playing 15 minutes, Omaha Biliew posted 11 points while making all but one of his five field goal attempts. The sophomore impressed defensively with four steals. Tre'Von Spillers was close to a double-double, finishing with nine points and nine rebounds while adding a pair of blocks. Ty-Laur Johnson totaled seven points and four rebounds in 16 minutes.
Rounding a Wake Forest trio of double-digit scorers. Hunter Sallis had 10 points. The reigning All-ACC first teamer made plays all night long to tally a game-high five assists.
Wake Forest forced 20 turnovers while holding Coppin State to only 49 points, which is the lowest points allowed by a Wake Forest team in a season opener during the Steve Forbes era, and the lowest since the 2008-09 season (48 vs. North Carolina Central).
The Deacs are now 2-0 against Coppin State, with the two matchups coming 35 years apart in 1989 and 2024. Additionally, the team has won 23 of their last 24 non-conference games at home, dating back to December 2018.
Wake Forest head coach Steve Forbes remains perfect in season openers, advancing to 10-0 in his Division I head coaching career.
How It Happened
- A free throw from Sallis on the first Wake Forest possession were the first points scored this season for the Deacs.
- Wake took a 2-0 lead after another free throw made by Hildreth.
- Out of the timeout, Biliew hit his first bucket as a Deac with a corner three to put Wake up 5-0.
- On the next possession, Hildreth went 2-2- from the line for a 7-3 lead.
- Two players later, Hildreth hit his first three of the game and Wake went up 10-3.
- Hildreth's second three came two minutes later for the 13-5 lead.
- On the next possession, Biliew hit his second three of the game to put Wake up 16-5.
- Out of the timeout, Spillers got his first points as a Deac to put Wake on a 10-0 run with a 13-point lead.
- The next possession resulted in a dunk from Biliew for the 15 point lead, 20-5.
- Sallis ended a short Coppin State run with a driving layup to keep the Deacs up by 11, 22-11, with 7:44 to go in the half.
- Friedrichsen turned defense into offense with a steal and a bucket for the 24-11 Wake Forest lead.
- On the next play, Friedrichsen found Reid under the basket to extend the lead.
- Johnson got his first bucket as a Deac with a corner three for the 29-15 lead.
- Two possessions later, Johnson extended the lead with an and-one conversion.
- Sallis hit a stepback jumper from the free throw line to put Wake up 34-17.
- A steal from Cosby turned into a fast break dunk by Spillers for the 39-20 lead with 2:07 to go in the half.
- Before the end of the half, Cosby got his first bucket as a Deac, also with a three-pointer.
- Wake Forest went into halftime with the 42-22 lead.
- Hildreth led all scorers with 10 points in the first 20.
- Spillers led all players with seven rebounds.
- The Deacs shot 45 percent from the field while holding the Eagles to 29 percent.
- Spillers opened second-half scoring for Wake with a three-pointer from the left wing to make it 45-25 Deacs.
- Hildreth found Spillers under the basket for a dunk to keep the 20-point lead with 16:37 to play.
- Out of the timeout, Reid found Hildreth on the cut for a layup and the 22-point lead, 49-27.
- On the next possession Hildreth hit a corner three to maintain the lead.
- Reid found the rim off a spin move in the lane to put Wake up 54-34 with 10:48 to play.
- Biliew extended the lead with a putback dunk on the next possession.
- Sallis hit a three out of the timeout to keep Wake's 20-point lead.
- Harris got his first points of his collegiate career with 2:22 left in the game, and converted the and-one opportunity for the three-point play.
- Wake Forest defeated Coppin State 64-49.
Stats of the Game
- With 10 points against the Eagles, Hunter Sallis is 76 points away from 1,000 for his career.
- In his first showing as a Deac, Tre'Von Spillers led all individuals in rebounding with nine, falling just short of a double-double, as the senior forward totaled nine points on 4-of-6 shooting.
- Omaha Biliew finished with 11 points versus the Eagles – the second-best scoring output of his career thus far.
- Wake Forest held Coppin State to a 28.3 field goal percentage for the game, including just over 22 percent from three.
- Finishing with a team-best 15 points, Cameron Hildreth led the Deacons in scoring for the second straight season opener.
- He posted a career-high 33 points versus Elon to open the 2023-24 campaign a year ago on Nov. 6, 2023.
Key Moment
- Coming out of the under-four media timeout of the first half, Wake Forest went on an 8-2 run to finish off the first 20 minutes.
- Hunter Sallis started things with two makes at the charity stripe before Cameron Hildreth got fouled and made his way to the line
- After Davin Cosby collected a steal, Tre'Von Spillers was found in transition for a thunderous dunk.
- Cosby was found at the right wing for one more triple, right before time expired on the clock.
- Wake Forest entered the break leading 42-22.
Coach's Comments
"I want to thank the students for showing up tonight, we had a great crowd and they had a lot of enthusiasm. I know for me, personally, it's the biggest student crowd for an opener that we've had. Defensively we were really good the entire game and we came out focused. We had nine consecutive stops to start the game, thirteen kills for the game, and we turned them over twenty times, but our offense was so abysmal it put so much pressure on our defense. I was really proud of the way that we defended, and we're going to have to do that as we keep going through this season, we're going to have to be able to defend. Omaha really sparked us off the bench in the first half with some shot making and energy. He's really good defensively, so I was really pleased with him.
Anyone can read a stat sheet and see we're 9-for-37 from three and 11-for-23 from the line. It's going to be really hard to win big games when you're shooting that poorly, especially our main guys like Hunter [Sallis], Parker [Friedrichsen], and [Davin] Cosby were 2-for-18 from three and I'd have to say all of those were pretty good shots. Am I panicking? No. I know what they can do, but they have to do it. Now the free throw thing - we were 17-for-20 on the free throw line against West Virginia, and then we come back and go 11-for-23 tonight, so we're going to have to work on that. We did have 14 assists on 22 baskets, so that's encouraging, but we need more than 22 baskets. I know everyone is used to us getting 90, 100 points and flying up and down, and I still think this team is very capable of that, we just had a really poor night shooting." - head coach Steve Forbes
Up Next
Wake Forest remains in Winston-Salem for the second matchup this week. The Deacs will face the North Carolina A&T Aggies on Thursday, Nov. 7, inside The Joel.
Tip is set for 7 p.m. and the game will stream live on ACC Network Extra.
Team Stats
Coppin
WF
FG%
.283
.393
3FG%
.222
.243
FT%
.733
.478
RB
44
38
TO
20
12
STL
5
11
Game Leaders
Pts
15
FGM
4
3FGM
3
FTM
4
Pts
11
FGM
4
3FGM
2
FTM
1
Pts
10
FGM
3
3FGM
1
FTM
3
Pts
9
FGM
4
3FGM
1
FTM
0
Players Mentioned
F
/ Men's Basketball
G
/ Men's Basketball
G
/ Men's Basketball
G
/ Men's BasketballG
/ Men's BasketballF
/ Men's BasketballFootball Media Availability (10/16/25)
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