LSU Tigers

Wake Forest routs LSU 110-76 on Mitoglou's career night (Dec 22, 2016)

Published Dec. 22, 2016 11:54 p.m. ET

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AP

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) Dinos Mitoglou seemingly couldn't miss. For that matter, during a torrid second half, neither could any of his Wake Forest teammates.

Mitoglou had career highs of 28 points and eight 3-pointers, and Wake Forest routed LSU 110-76 on Thursday night.

Bryant Crawford added 20 points and 11 assists, and John Collins and Austin Arians each scored 15 for the Demon Deacons (9-3), who hit a season-high 16 3s.

''We shot the ball so well, it covered up a lot of our mistakes,'' coach Danny Manning said.

They never trailed, shot 73.5 percent in the second half and made 13 of their first 15 shots of the half - including all seven 3s they tried during that span - while outscoring LSU 34-11 during its first 8 minutes to put the game out of reach.

Antonio Blakeney had 21 points for the Tigers (8-3). Craig Victor II, who had double-doubles in each of his last two games, finished with 14 points on 6-of-15 shooting while Duop Reath, who was coming off consecutive 20-point games, was held to 12.

''No excuses,'' LSU coach Johnny Jones said. ''We were just bad tonight.''

Keyshawn Woods scored 14 points and Mitchell Wilbekin added 10 for Wake Forest, which shot 61.5 percent from 3-point range against an LSU defense that entered allowing opponents to shoot less than 30 percent from long range.

''The object of the game is to feed the hot man,'' Woods said, ''and Dinos was the hot man tonight.''

BIG PICTURE

LSU: The Tigers didn't do much to answer any questions about their schedule. They entered on a four-game winning streak, but the last three of those came against mid- to low-majors by an average of about 7.3 points. They simply fell flat in their first true road game and their first matchup with a Power 5 opponent.

''Shouldn't have that much of an impact,'' Jones said of making a road debut. ''We've played games before, and this floor's still 94 (feet) by 50 (feet).''

Wake Forest: This was the kind of confidence-building blowout the Demon Deacons needed heading into Atlantic Coast Conference play, setting a season high for scoring while wrapping up their first perfect nonconference home schedule since 2013-14. They'll enter league play having won four of five and the lone loss in that stretch was nothing to be ashamed of - a four-point defeat at No. 17 Xavier.

''Whenever we shoot the ball this well,'' Manning said, ''we'll have a chance to be competitive with anybody in the conference.''

STAT SHEET

A hot Mitoglou might be just what Wake Forest needs entering league play. The ''Greek Deac'' was coming off a four-point performance against No. 17 Xavier in which he was 1 of 4 from the field and missed all three 3s he attempted. He hit 10 of his 14 shots in this one while surpassing his previous highs of 26 points and six 3s.

STAR WATCH

About the only thing that went wrong for Wake Forest was that Collins' string of double-doubles ended at six. The Demon Deacons' sophomore big man finished with just six rebounds. ''We needed those shots tonight, because, you know, our feature post player struggled tonight as far as playing defense with his head and his feet,'' Manning said of Collins.

UP NEXT

LSU: After a week off, the Tigers play host to Vanderbilt on Dec. 29 in their Southeastern Conference opener.

Wake Forest: The Demon Deacons have a week off before beginning ACC play Dec. 28 at No. 21 Florida State.

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

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More AP college basketball: www.collegebasketball.ap.org and https://twitter.com/AP-Top25.

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