When’s the last time anything actually lived up to the hype?

No need to think too long, because now there’s a new answer — Monday night’s College World Series matchup between Wake Forest and LSU fit the bill.

The top 2 teams in college baseball for the majority of the season, the Demon Deacons and Tigers may have been meeting in the second round, but it was hyped as a championship series-caliber showdown.

Was it ever.

There was a little bit of everything — fly balls lost in the setting sun, runners stranded in scoring position, a clutch and close play at the plate — but at the end what mattered was a 3-2 Wake Forest win that puts the Demon Deacons in the driver’s seat to reach the championship series.

Wake is just the fifth No. 1 national seed to start 2-0 in Omaha since 1999, which is an ideal start for a team seeking to become the first top seed to win it all since Miami in ’99.

If the Deacs do finish the job, the name Bennett Lee will surely go down in Wake Forest lore. Perhaps even in the same paragraph as Arnold Palmer and Tim Duncan.

At the very least, Lee deserves a mixed drink named in his honor. Because without him, LSU’s week-long celebration would still be going strong.

Lee is the glove that saved Wake Forest.

Things were looking grim at best for the Deacs when the Tigers put runners on the corners before recording an out in the top of the eighth inning.

LSU just needed a fly ball to take the lead, and power-hitting Cade Beloso was a capable candidate for the task of simply getting a ball to the outfield. Instead, Beloso produced something even better — a weird squibber down the third-base line that ate up Deacons star Brock Wilken near the bag.

Wilken had only one play — to the plate. But he struggled to get the ball out of his glove cleanly, and then double-clutched before sending the ball home to Lee.

Wilken’s throw home spiked in the dirt before one-hopping into Lee’s glove. In one smooth motion, Lee snagged the ball and somehow applied a tag on LSU’s Tre Morgan with Morgan’s hand mere inches — centimeters? — above home plate.

“I’ve done a ton of training on picks, and it just took over,” Lee told ESPN reporter Kris Budden after the game.

Wilken more than made up for the near muff with a smoothly turned 5-4-3 double play that ended the inning and LSU’s threat.

Lee, meanwhile, spent the bottom half of the inning enhancing his legend.

Bennett Lee, legend-in-the-making

One of baseball’s urban legends is that the guy who makes a big defensive play will deliver a big hit in his ensuing at-bat.

We all believe it — or at least we want to believe — but a quantifiable deep dive into the phenomenon would probably produce disappointing results.

Thanks to Lee, we can keep the myth alive.

LSU was unable to cash in on Morgan’s leadoff double in the top of the eighth. But Wake did not have the same issues in the bottom of the inning.

Danny Corona’s opposite-field double on an 0-2 pitch set the stage for Lee to again play hero. Only Lee appeared to think he was starring in a comedy rather than a drama.

Lee called timeout, huddled up with third-base coach Bill Cilento to share a chuckle, then stepped back into the batter’s box to deliver the go-ahead single.

It was not unlike Joe Montana walking into the huddle, telling his team, “Hey, isn’t that John Candy?” and then leading the San Francisco 49ers to a Super Bowl-winning drive.

The definition of cool under pressure.

The importance of the driver’s seat

History shows you can’t really overstate the significance of starting 2-0 in Omaha.

Of the past 32 national champions, 27 won their first 2 games in the College World Series. Even getting to the final is difficult from the losing side of the bracket. Since 2009, only 6 of the 26 teams to play in the championship series began the CWS by splitting their first 2 games.

Thanks in no small part to Lee’s glove and bat, Wake Forest is on the preferred path.

And though stats tell us a lot, the manner in which the Deacons won feels every bit as significant.

Starting pitcher Josh Hartle was not nearly as sharp as usual, issuing 4 walks — 16.6% of his season total. He missed the strike zone — or at least the strike zone as it was perceived in this game — with 46 of his 107 pitches.

But things didn’t get away from Wake early, and the Deacs fought back from a manageable 2-0 deficit.

And now they’re the team that has a lead to protect.