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WINSTON-SALEM, NC--Reggie Middleton, Robbie Dreher and Andre Jones combined to score 54 points to lead Winthrop to a 83-74 win over Wake Forest in the NIT Season Tip-Off Consolation bracket Monday night and give Eagles' head coach Randy Peele his 100th college coaching victory.

The win over the Demon Deacons evens Winthrop's record at 2-2 while Wake drops to 2-3.  Winthrop will now face Belmont on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m.   The victory also is Winthrop's first in Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum after going 0-6, including four losses to Wake Forest.  The Demon Deacons become the fourth ACC school to fall to Winthrop in the last nine years.  The Eagles own wins  over Clemson, Georgia Tech, Miami and Wake, and had been 0-6 against the Demon Deacons.

The guard trio of Middleton, Dreher and Jones connected on a combined 19 of 29 field goals.  Dreher, who was playing his first game of the season after sitting out a four-game suspension, went shot 6 for 7 overall and was 3 of 4 from long distance to score a career-high 20 points.  Middleton had a total game with 19 points, eight assists and nine rebounds while Jones finished with 15 points.

Winthrop turned in its most impressive offensive performance in some time by scoring 83 points and shooting 51.6 percent overall from the floor (32-62) and 54.5 percent from behind the arc (6-11).

"I am very proud of how our guys played tonight," said Peele.  "Robbie (Dreher) was a huge lift for us.  He played a tremendous game.  I've always said you either get better or you get worse when you go to the bench.  The mark of a good team is to get better with the guys coming off the bench and that certainly was the case tonight."

Wake led early 12-6 after Ari Stewart connected on a trey at the 16:44 mark of the first half, but Winthrop battled back on the strength of its shooting and halfcourt defense to overtake the Demon Deacons 25-24 on a baseline jumper by Jones with 6:50 left in the opening period.  Winthrop never trailed again and led by as many as 11 at 39-28 with just two minutes on the clock when Dreher nailed a jumper.

The Eagles led by as many as 18 in the second half at 65-47 on a layup by Gideon Gamble with 11:32 left in the contest.  Winthrop still had a comfortable 16-point advantage (75-59) with just over six minutes remaining when Wake went on a 11-0 run to get to within five points at 75-70 with 2:27 left.  Trailing by five, Wake got the ball into the lane only to have Jones strip the ball away and feed a wide open Dreher for a dunk that seemed to ice the game with 1:35 remaining.

Wake Forest placed four players in double figures led by Gary Clark who came off the bench to score 23 points on a 9 for 11 shooting performance.  He was 5 for 7 from behind the arc.  Ari Stewart added 17 while Travis McKie and Carson Desrosiers scored 10 each.  Wake connected on 23 of 50 field goals (46 pct.).

Winthrop won the rebound battle 35-25 behind Middleton's game-high nine.  George Valentine pulled down seven for the Eagles while Stewart led Wake Forest with seven.