WINSTON-SALEM – As the seconds ticked away, North Carolina coach Roy Williams slumped to one knee and was steadied by two of his assistants.

The brief blackout – a recurrence of a medical condition dating to his teenage years, according to Williams – came as the Tar Heels finished taking advantage of Wake Forest’s shooting blackout for the second straight game.

Sparked by a career-high 16 points from reserve freshman guard Leslie McDonald, UNC prevailed 77-68 at the Joel Coliseum as the Demon Deacons shot a season-low 29.7 percent from the field by missing 52 of 74 attempts.

Will Graves added 13 points and Larry Drew II had 10 as every Tar Heel who saw action scored and UNC (15-14, 4-10 ACC) avoided dropping below .500. Wake, losing its third straight game, fell to 18-8, 8-6.

Williams said he decided to give McDonald more minutes based on his improved play in practice.

“We got a good effort out of everybody who got in the game, but we were fortunate that Wake missed a lot of shots,” Williams said.

Ari Stewart led the Deacons with 16 points, followed by L.D. Williams with 14 and Ish Smith with 12. But the trio went 14 of 50 to do it, sometimes shooting wildly as Smith missed 16 of his 21 shots and Williams failed on 10 of 13.

Wake’s inside game was almost nonexistent as UNC clogged the lane. Al-Farouq Aminu took just seven shots and scored seven points. Tony Woods started at center and saw little action after scoring eight points in the first half. Chas McFarland had just two points.

The poor shooting came a week after Wake hit just 23 of 66 shots as it lost to N.C. State. Wake had not played since then.

“We’re just not scoring the ball well enough to win,” Wake coach Dino Gaudio said. “We’re guarding well enough. We held them to 40 percent shooting, and we had just 11 turnovers. But we’re not shooting well. We’ve got to come to practice Monday and screen better and run our offenses better.”

The performance was so bad that Gaudio said he sat down with his players in the locker room after the game and delivered a message: “I told them this game isn’t that complex,” Gaudio said. “When you lose on a consistent basis, you are not doing the fundamentals.”

As poorly as the Deacons shot, they managed to lead 42-41 on Aminu’s foul shot with 12:56 left. UNC then took control for good with a 16-5 run that began with a 3 from McDonald that put the Heels ahead 44-42.

With a late spurt, Wake got as close as 71-68 on Williams’ 3 with 55 seconds left. A layup by McDonald and four free throws sealed the victory, the first by UNC over someone other than N.C. State in its last 13 games.

gsmith@hpe.com | 888-3519