WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — What a difference two games can make.

Eleven days ago, Syracuse was thoroughly embarrassed on the glass by Pittsburgh. The Panthers grabbed 16 offensive rebounds and outworked the Orange 35-24 overall.

But in SU’s last two games combined, its out rebounded Miami and Wake Forest by a combined margin of 94-59.

Wednesday’s performance, a 55-35 walloping, helped catalyze No. 2 Syracuse’s (20-0, 7-0 Atlantic Coast) 67-57 win over Wake Forest (14-7, 4-4).

“It was a rough shooting night for our team as a whole,” SU forward Jerami Grant said, “so we definitely wanted to get some second-chance points in order to get some points on the board.”

Eight Orange players finished with at least four rebounds, led by Grant who had 12 in what was his fourth double-double of the season. C.J. Fair and Baye Moussa Keita grabbed eight misfires each, while Rakeem Christmas hauled in seven in just 20 minutes.

While the rebounding edge only led to two additional second-chance points for SU, it kept the Demon Deacons from optimizing their offensive opportunities.

“You can’t get outrebounded by 20 and then expect to win,” WFU forward Travis McKie said. “They had 10 extra possessions.”

Grant, Christmas and Co. put on a box-out clinic in the first half, holding the Demon Deacons to just two individual offensive rebounds — three times the ball deflected off an SU player out of bounds.

Then in the second half alone, Syracuse hauled in eight offensive rebounds to the Demon Deacons’ nine defensive boards. WFU’s leading board-getter Devin Thomas (8.3) managed just five on the night.

“We knew they weren’t a great rebounding team so we definitely wanted to attack their offensive rebounding and defensive rebounding,” Grant said.

Throughout the years, SU has always been at a mild disadvantage in rebounding coming out of a zone. But against the Demon Deacons, Syracuse got to experience the benefits from the other side.

Wake Forest ran a 3-2 roughly half of the game, and the unmarked Orange bigs feasted on the 35 bricks the team shot during the game.

“Our rebounding was good, but it was probably good because both teams kept missing, SU head coach Jim Boeheim said.

Syracuse crowd surprises Boeheim

From the second Wake Forest won the opening tipoff, it was clear there were plenty of Syracuse fans among the 12,523 who filled Joel Coliseum on Wednesday night.

They stood and clapped from the corner of the court until Rakeem Christmas dunked 1:25 into regulation.

“I was shocked,” Boeheim said. “In Florida, we had about 4,000, but they all live down there. They’re all from Syracuse. I don’t know where these people came from.”

The SU fans made their presence known throughout the game, hollering out the regular batch of chants as their team fought to beat Wake Forest 67-57 and snap the Demon Deacons’ 13-game home winning streak.

The last time WFU lost at home was March 2, 2013 to Maryland.

“I was really shocked,” he continued. “I was looking around a little bit. We go places. Philadelphia or Washington. There’s a lot of people there. But here, I was shocked that there were that many people here.”

Published on January 30, 2014 at 2:50 am

Contact Stephen: sebail01@syr.edu | @Stephen_Bailey1