Irish knocked out of ACC Tournament by Wake

GREENSBORO—Coron Williams scored a season-high 25 points and Wake Forest beat Notre Dame 81-69 on Wednesday in the first round of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament.Devin Thomas added 19 points and 10 rebounds, and Williams hit four 3-pointers for the 12th-seeded Demon Deacons (17-15).They shot a season-best 61 percent, built a 33-23 rebounding advantage and earned their first ACC tournament win since 2007 – when the late Skip Prosser was their coach.Wake Forest will play fifth-seeded Pittsburgh (23-8) on Thursday in the second round.Pat Connaughton scored 19 points for the 13th-seeded Fighting Irish (15-17), who lost their ACC tournament debut. The league newcomers shot 40 percent and had won at least one game in their previous five Big East tournaments.Zach Auguste added 14 points, Eric Atkins had 13 and Garrick Sherman finished with 12 for the Irish, who briefly made things tense in the final moments when Atkins spun in a 3-pointer to make it 68-62 with 2:10 left.Wake Forest guard Codi Miller-McIntyre then missed the front end of a one-and-one with 1:55 to play, but teammate Arnaud William Adala Moto grabbed the offensive rebound – one of two missed free throws he rebounded in the final 2 minutes – and Williams then hit two free throws with 1:52 to go.Senior Travis McKie and Adala Moto each hit two foul shots, the last of which pushed the lead back to double figures at 74-64 with 1:22 remaining.Notre Dame didn’t get closer than eight the rest of the way.