Canes Ready to Start
By Carter Toole
HurricaneSports.com
NEW YORK – As snow blanketed the Big Apple Wednesday, the Hurricanes managed to put up shots on both sides of the East River as they continued preparations for the 2018 ACC Tournament.
Miami had a shoot-around at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center in the morning before heading back to Manhattan for a late breakfast and another practice session.
That’s when New York’s latest snowstorm hit, forcing the Hurricanes to call an audible. The prep school where they held practice yesterday closed due to the storm so the team instead trekked a few miles to the Boys & Girls Republic in East Village.
Back in Brooklyn, the tournament itself tipped off in earnest today with four second-round matchups. The Hurricanes are the third seed this year, which means they don’t play until approximately 9:30 p.m. tomorrow night.
That’s when Miami will look to continue a remarkable streak. The Hurricanes have won at least one game in each of their last eight ACC Tournaments. The last time Miami dropped its first contest of the conference tournament was in 2009 to Virginia Tech. This also marks the third time in the past six years Miami has earned a double bye into the quarterfinals.
So while the Hurricanes get an extra day of rest, they will no doubt be acute observers of tonight’s final game as they await the winner between sixth-seeded North Carolina and No. 11 seed Syracuse. The image of senior guard Ja’Quan Newton’s buzzer beater in Chapel Hill in still fresh in every Miami fan’s memory, but you might have forgotten that the Orange were the last team to beat the Hurricanes – a 62-55 win at Watsco Center on Feb. 17.
Since then Miami has won four straight games by a combined total of eight points, displaying poise and toughness in the final moments each time out.
“Situations like that, we know what we can do and we know what we need to do,” freshman guard Lonnie Walker IV said. “The past four games we’ve kind of been figuring that out and approaching it pretty well.”
Sophomore guard DJ Vasiljevic agrees.
“Poise down the stretch is one of the emphasis on the board before pregame,” he said. “Our team has shown a lot of heart towards the end of games and we’ve won.”
Whether tomorrow’s matchup comes against Syracuse or the defending national champions, Miami appears to be playing its best basketball at the best time of year.
“We know how to play with each other so well to the point where it’s finally starting to click,” Walker said. “We clicked at the right time and that’s going into the tournament. Hopefully this confidence and how we’ve been playing these past few games kind of transfers over.”
