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WINSTON-SALEM — Faced with a towering opponent from a power conference, a lot of teams would try to take their time, slow the tempo and shorten the game.

High Point is not a lot of teams.

The undersized Panthers ran, and ran, and ran some more, shuttling players in and out, shooting 3-pointers with no conscious and pushing Wake Forest — hard — for a half Wednesday night at the Joel Coliseum.

Then Wake pushed back. Even harder.

Al-Farouq Aminu finished with 22 points and 10 rebounds, and the Demon Deacons (3-0) blew open a close game in the second half on the way to an 83-60 victory over High Point (1-1).

Wake's big men — 6-foot-9 Aminu, 6-11 Tony Woods and 7-footer Chas McFarland — scored all but one point in an 11-2 scoring run to start the second half, as the Demon Deacons stretched a tenuous 42-39 halftime lead to 12 points.

"First half, we came out and executed our game plan to the best of our ability," said High Point coach Scott Cherry, who has just two players on his roster taller than 6-7. "Down three going into the half, we knew it was going to be tough in the second half. Their size &ellipses; they get it up on the rim, and if they don't score they go get it a second or third time."

McFarland finished with 11 points and 12 rebounds, and Woods scored seven of his nine points in the second half. In the end, Wake outscored High Point 44-10 in the paint.

Nick Barbour scored 15 points and Eugene Harris had 13 for the Panthers, who hit 7-of-10 3-pointers to start the game and led by as many as nine points in the first half.

Wake adjusted its defense, and High Point hit just two of its final 13 3-point shots.

"They drive, and once you go to help (on defense), they kick out for threes," Wake point guard Ish Smith said. "I think we did a great job kind of weathering the storm, because I know everybody was sitting on their hands wondering, 'Wow, what are the Deacs doing? What's going on?' But I think we did a great job dealing with that adversity. We played calm, battled back and made some adjustments."

The adjustments were simple enough. Wake stopped helping on defense. The Deacs perimeter defenders stayed put on the wings, taking away the kick-out passes from whichever High Point guard drove the lane.

"We're such a help-predicated defense," Wake coach Dino Gaudio said, "and we've been doing it since Oct. 16, so it's tough to switch gears in the first 20 minutes. But I thought we did a great job of adjusting in the second half."

And Wake is pretty good. The Deacs allowed just seven points over the first 13:52 of the second half, and used a 15-0 scoring run to stretch the lead to 25 points. Smith finished with 13 points and five assists, and freshman backup point guard fouled out with 12 points on 5-for-6 shooting.

"We had a lull in the second half where we just didn't make any shots," Cherry said. "We had some good looks that didn't go in, we turned it over a few times and gave them some easy baskets and they got away from us."

NOTES: High Point sophomore guard Nick Barbour came in off a 38-point game against UNC Pembroke in which he shot 10-for-11 from 3-point range. Wake put defensive stopper L.D. Williams on Barbour, and he was just 4-for-15. ... High Point was committed to the transition game. Need proof? After Wake's Tony Woods scored on an alley-oop dunk with 6:04 left in the first half, the loose ball rolled to Cherry on the sideline, and he rolled it quickly back to his trigger-man to speed up the in-bounds pass and force the tempo.

Contact Jeff Mills at 373-7024 or jeff.mills@news-record.com

HIGH POINT (1-1) — Law 1-4 1-2 3, Daniels 2-3 0-0 4, Barbour 4-15 4-4 15, Cox 2-6 1-2 6, Harris 5-15 0-0 13, Stroman 0-0 0-0 0, Singleton 1-3 0-0 2, Hall 0-0 0-0 0, Campbell 1-2 2-2 5, Simms 1-2 2-2 4, Bridges 3-7 1-2 8. Totals 20-57 11-14 60.

WAKE FOREST (3-0) — Aminu 8-10 6-7 22, Woods 3-6 3-4 9, McFarland 3-6 5-8 11, Smith 4-7 5-6 13, Williams 1-4 4-4 6, Harris 5-6 2-3 12, Stewart 3-7 0-0 7, Tucker 0-2 0-0 0, Bolton 0-0 0-0 0, Fowler 0-1 0-0 0, Walker 0-0 2-2 2, Godwin 0-0 0-0 0, Ingle 0-0 0-0 0, Weaver 0-3 1-2 1, Keenan 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 27-52 28-36 83.

Halftime—Wake Forest 42-39.
3-Point Goals—High Point 9-23 (Barbour 3-8, Harris 3-9, Bridges 1-1, Campbell 1-2, Cox 1-2, Simms 0-1), Wake Forest 1-5 (Stewart 1-1, Williams 0-1, Aminu 0-1, Tucker 0-2).
Fouled out—Harris, Law.
Rebounds—High Point 28 (Law 6), Wake Forest 42 (McFarland 12).
Assists—High Point 11 (Simms 3), Wake Forest 16 (Smith 5).
Total fouls—High Point 25, Wake Forest 17.
A—9,344.