Courtesy of Navy Athletics Communications

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- Juke Harris led five Wake Forest players in double figures with 26 points and added five assists as the Demon Deacons (18-16) defeated the Navy men's basketball team (26-8), 82-72, Wednesday evening at the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Winston-Salem, N.C. in the first round of the National Invitation Tournament.

The Mids, who won the program's first outright Patriot League regular season title (17-1 record) since 1997, were making their first trip to a postseason tournament since 1998 and played in the NIT for the first time since 1962.  The 26 victories by the Mids tied them for second for the most in a single season.

"I thought in the second half Wake Forest did a really good job of running their actions," said Navy head coach Jon Perry. "Juke Harris is a handful, whether it is shooting threes or driving the ball to the basket, we didn't have an answer.  But they also had five guys in double figures."

Wake Forest jumped out to an early 9-2 lead thanks to several possessions with it grabbing multiple offensive rebounds and then scoring.  Navy drew to within two points at 13-11 before the Demon Deacons regained a 20-11 advantage.  Back came the Mids and they tied the game at 24-24 on a three-point basket from Jordan Pennick.  The teams traded scoring possessions (26-26), then Wake scored the next five points from the foul line to take a 31-26 lead.

Navy again rallied and made it a 33-31 game with 3:15 remaining, but Wake Forest regained a 38-31 lead before another triple from Pennick with three seconds left made it a 38-34 game through 20 minutes.

"We tried to play inside out, but they did a good job of taking away Aidan Kehoe, which opened some things up for Jordan Pennick and Austin Benigni," said Perry.

Rebounding and free throws were the difference in the first half.  Navy made more field goals (14-11) and three-point field goals (3-2), but Wake Forest was 14-14 from the foul line and the Mids were 3-5.  The Demon Deacons also held leads of 20-14 overall on the glass and 10-6 on the offensive boards.  That gave the home team a 14-9 lead in second-chance points.

Wake Forest took a 47-39 lead early in the second half, but soon Pennick had a three-point shot that would have tied the game at 49 with 14:18 left in the second half.  However, it missed, and the Deacons scored the next five points to take a 54-46 lead.  Back came Navy to make it 54-50 game, but Wake soon built a 63-54 lead with 8:30 left on the clock as it was outshooting Navy 56%-29% from the floor in the first 12 minutes of the second stanza.

The Deacons soon opened up a 70-56 lead with five minutes remaining to essentially seal the victory.

Navy shot 41 percent from the floor in the second half and finished the game with an overall mark of 43.1 percent.  Wake Forest went from shooting 38 percent in the first half to 59 percent in the second half and ended the game at 48.2 percent.

The Mids did a better job on the glass after halftime as they finished with a 15-14 lead in offensive rebounds and were behind 38-31 in overall boards.  Navy also tallied just 11 turnovers and forced 13.  

"The game got away from us a little bit in the first three or four minutes of the second half," said Perry.  "But we had more fast break points than them in the second half and we got on the glass.

"They made enough threes; they were eight for 30, which is 27 percent. We had some open looks ourselves.  When you are playing a power four team on the road, you have to make all of those open shots and unfortunately we didn't."

Benigni capped his storied career with a 19-point effort to raise his career total to 1,923 points, the third-highest total by a Mid.  Pennick, who will return for his senior year in the fall, drained four three-point field goals on his was to scoring 18 points.

Additional Mids to wore the Navy uniform for the final time were Kehoe, who missed his 20th double-double of the year by one point (10 rebounds, nine points) to finish with 897 points and 758 rebounds and a Navy-record 66.9 percent career field goal percentage; Donovan Draper, who recorded eight points, six rebounds, three assists and three steals tonight to post 859 points, 773 rebounds and 178 steals in just three years; and team captain Mike Woods, who snared four rebounds tonight and accrued 563 points and 372 rebounds over the last four seasons. 

"Really proud of these four seniors and those 17 guys in the locker room and what they do every day and the sacrifices they make for our country," said Perry.  "All of us can know that they will go on to go out and protect our country when they graduate and become great officers.