UNC 77, Wake Forest 68

WINSTON-SALEM — North Carolina just might avoid being the 12th seed in the ACC tournament. But Wake Forest now might not be able to avoid having to play on the opening Thursday.

UNC’s 77-68 victory at Lawrence-Joel Coliseum, led by a career-high 16 points from Leslie McDonald, kept the Heels out of last place and in the mix for a possible NIT bid.

For Wake, it was a third straight loss and a first-round bye in the ACC Tournament is slipping out of reach.

The Deacons made the struggling Tar Heels look good from the outset, as point guard Ish Smith missed his first nine shots, Al-Farouq Aminu managed only seven points before fouling out and their team shot only around 30 percent for the game.

Carolina, meanwhile, actually led at halftime for the first time in five games, and found itself with a double-figure second half lead — 57-47 with 7:01 left, on a Will Graves jumper — for the first time in recent memory.

Wake, despite shooting abysmally at that point, tried to make a comeback, cutting it to 57-52 when Ari Stewart followed a David Weaver shot with a 3-pointer. But Graves countered, again, with another 3-pointer, followed by two Dexter Strickland free throws to give their team a 62-52 cushion, again.

With less than three minutes left, Aminu buried a 3-pointer to cut it to 64-58, but UNC point guard Larry Drew II immediately countered with a 3.

Then with less than two minutes left, Smith banked in a 3-pointer to cut it to 69-65. After Drew missed two free throws, Graves made two to give UNC a 71-65 cushion with a minute left. L.D. Williams made a 3-pointer for Wake, but McDonald buried a lay-up and Strickland made a free throw to hang on.

The Deacons, now at 18-8, 8-6 in the ACC, probably have done enough to qualify for an NCAA at-large bid. UNC (15-14, 4-10) likely needs an overall winning record to earn an NIT bid, as that tournament has never taken a team with a losing mark. So Saturday's victory helped.