#3 Virginia Steamrolls Wake Forest, 68-45

Third-ranked Virginia built a 22-point lead in the opening minutes and never looked back, steamrolling visiting Wake Forest, 68-45, at John Paul Jones Arena Tuesday night.

The Cavaliers (17-1, 5-1 ACC) had five players in double figures, defeated the Demon Deacons (8-10, 1-5) for the seventh straight time and extended their home winning streak to 12 games, all while keeping pace at the top of the conference standings.

UVA held its eighth opponent of the season under the 50-point plateau, and limited the Deacons to just 3 points over the opening 11-plus minutes — while scoring 25 behind a crowd-igniting Cavalanche — and Danny Manning’s squad had to fight like hell just to keep it respectable the rest of the way.

Virginia junior Mamadi Diakite scored the game’s first seven points with an and-1 move, a jumper in the lane and a running hook shot, and De’Andre Hunter added a triple to give the Wahoos a quick 10-0 edge in just 2:15, causing Manning to burn an early timeout.

Down by a dozen, Wake finally got on the board on a Brandon Childress 3-pointer at the 16:20 mark after missing its first five shots, and then the ‘Hoos rattled off another 13 straight and pushed it to 25-3 (on eight straight points from Jay Huff off the bench) with still 11:44 left in the first half.

Huff got it started with a block on one end and then drilled a 3-ball after receiving a near-impossible assist from Guy, who drew the attention of all five defenders as he drove in the air, and then blindly dropped it off behind his back to Huff at the top of the key.

Huff then pumped from beyond the arc and got three the old-fashioned way before throwing down an oop off a perfect assist from Ty Jerome, and the ‘Hoos stayed in control throughout.

During the scoring spurt, Guy moved into 8th on Virginia’s career 3-pointers list with his 186th as a Wahoo, passing Malcolm Brogdon. Guy, who extended his streak of games with at least one trifecta to 18, sank two more from long range in the second half.

Wake used a 14-4 run over the final five minutes to draw within 36-23 by the break, nailing four 3-pointers during that stretch. Childress scored eight points during the spurt and was pretty quiet otherwise the rest of the game.

It didn’t take long for the Cavaliers to extend the lead back to 20, where it stayed for much of the remainder of the lopsided contest.

The Wahoos shot 39 percent from the field and held Wake to 31 percent, limiting the Deacons’ top three scorers — Childress, Jaylen Hoard and Chaundee Brown — to a combined 18 points on 7-of-29 shooting. Childress led the team with 12 points, with just one of those coming after halftime. Olivier Sarr was the only other Deacon in double figures with 11 to go with his 8 rebounds.

Huff (in just 13 minutes) and Guy both finished with 12 points to lead the way offensively, while Hunter and Diakite each dropped in 11 and Jerome added 10. Guy and Jerome shot a combined 7 for 23 from the field (5 of 12 from downtown), but got plenty of help from their teammates.

Senior big man Jack Salt offered 7 points and team-best 8 rebounds. Diakite, Hunter and Braxton Key each hauled in 7 boards as the Cavaliers won the battle on the glass by a margin of 41-37.

Guy also became just the 48th player in UVA history to reach the 1,000-point mark wearing the orange and blue.

UVA travels north to face Notre Dame (11-8, 1-5) Saturday at 1 p.m. on CBS.