{"id":123102,"date":"2026-01-18T20:23:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T20:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/123102\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T20:23:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T20:23:13","slug":"wiggins-leads-seminoles-against-wake-forest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/123102\/","title":{"rendered":"Wiggins Leads Seminoles Against Wake Forest"},"content":{"rendered":"

TALLAHASSEE \u2013 The Florida State men’s basketball team fell to conference foe Wake Forest by a final score of 69-68 on Saturday night at the Donald L. Tucker Civic Center.<\/p>\n

The Seminoles (7-11, 0-5 ACC) could not outlast the Demon Deacons (11-7, 2-3 ACC) in a game that saw five ties and 11 lead changes.<\/p>\n

Three Seminoles scored in double figures, with senior forward Chauncey Wiggins<\/a> leading the effort with 15 points. Senior guard Robert McCray V<\/a> followed with 12 points and led the team with five assists while recording six rebounds, one block and one steal. Wiggins and McCray V each went a perfect 5-of-5 at the free-throw line. Freshman guard Thomas Bassong<\/a> rounded out the three with 11 points and five boards.<\/p>\n

Senior guard Lajae Jones<\/a> pulled down a season-high and team-leading 10 rebounds in the loss. He would finish the night with seven points and one block.<\/p>\n

Florida State shot 37.9 percent from the field (22-of-58) and a strong 89.5 percent from the stripe (17-of-19) while outrebounding Wake Forest 44-28.<\/p>\n

Four three-pointers in the first six minutes courtesy of Somerville, McCray V, Bassong and Jones helped Florida State to a hot start while their opponent struggled to break into double digits. Miles and Swinton would also find the hoop from beyond the arc, creating an 8-point lead and forcing Wake Forest into a timeout at 9:41.<\/p>\n

The break would prove fruitful for the Demon Deacons, who generated an 8-0 run to tie the contest at 24-24 with 8:36 remaining. A scoring drought saw a stalemate between both sides until a pair of free throws from Somerville broke the ice. Wake Forest would continue to answer and pushed ahead briefly at 3:52, yet a layup and-one by McCray would recapture the lead for the Seminoles, 30-29.<\/p>\n

Despite pushback from the Demon Deacons, strong defensive effort from the Seminoles kept their conference foe off the board through the final two minutes of the first half. A go-ahead jumper from Wiggins coupled with two more makes at the free-throw line by Somerville sent the Seminoles into halftime with a 34-31 edge.<\/p>\n

Somerville led the scoring effort with seven points, scoring from all areas of the hardwood highlighted by a perfect 4-for-4 mark at the stripe. Jones recorded seven rebounds while McCray V led with three assists as well as the lone block of the first half.<\/p>\n

As a team, six different Seminoles recorded a triple and edged Wake Forest in first half rebounds (25-17), assists (8-4) and first half field goal percentage (39.3 percent to WF’s 34.2 percent).<\/p>\n

A corner three from Bassong and subsequent dunk by Steen saw a strong second half open for FSU, yet Wake Forest \u00a0was quick to find their footing. Wiggins worked the paint while a mid-range jumper from Somerville saw the Seminoles work right back into the lead at 50-48 with 11:17 to go.<\/p>\n

Fighting the lead back once more at 10:13, the Seminoles generated a 7-0 run by dominating the free-throw line alongside intermittent layups from Jones and Swinton.<\/p>\n

Wake Forest drew close with their own free-throw shooting prowess as Florida State fought to maintain their lead as what was a nine-point gap at 4:26 quickly became just a one-point game with 24 seconds to go. The Demon Deacons would take advantage and edge ahead 69-68 in the final seconds.<\/p>\n

Florida State will travel to Coral Gables to face in-state and ACC rival Miami on Tuesday, Jan. 20 at the Watsco Center. The game will air on ESPNU at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE \u2013 The Florida State men’s basketball team fell to conference foe Wake Forest by a final score…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":{"0":"post-123102","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tallahassee","8":"tag-tallahassee","9":"tag-tallahassee-headlines","10":"tag-tallahassee-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}