Big Dreams Start in Big D
By Carter Toole
HurricaneSports.com
DALLAS, Texas – The journey began back in late September in Coral Gables when this group of Miami Hurricanes assembled for the first time. They’ve reached one of their major goals. And now the season starts anew.
One day before the Hurricanes’ NCAA Tournament first-round game against Loyola Chicago, Jim Larrañaga’s squad soaked up the surroundings at American Airlines Center, the home of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, during a brief shoot-around that was open to the public. Miami then held a practice five miles up the road at SMU’s Moody Coliseum before heading back to the team hotel.
The Hurricanes, the sixth seed in the South Region, and the 11th-seeded Ramblers tip off Thursday at approximately 3:10 p.m. Eastern (2:10 p.m. local time) on truTV. The winner of that game will play the winner of the Tennessee-Wright State game in the second round on Saturday.
“Once I set foot and committed to the University of Miami, this is definitely one of the goals that I expected this team to accomplish, and that was to make March Madness,” freshman guard Lonnie Walker IV said. “I’m very excited and I can’t wait to step on the court.”
As is the case for most teams that have punched their ticket to March Madness, Miami has navigated a roller coaster of a route to get here. The Hurricanes have battled injuries, lost leads, mounted comebacks, hit buzzer beaters, jumped in and out of the rankings, traveled far north — and even farther west. And through it all this young team came together, winning 22 games and finishing tied for third in the toughest basketball conference in the country. The reward is an opportunity to keep playing when the stakes are highest, an opportunity not lost senior point guard Ja’Quan Newton.
“This being my senior year and back in the tournament is everything I imagined from the beginning of the year,” Newton said. “Competing at a high level and competing against some great competition. I have to be vocal and lead by example, especially on the defensive end. You really have to get after it, get up under guys and really send out a message to (your) teammates that you’re going to defend and do whatever it takes to win.”
This is the third consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance for Newton and juniors Ebuka Izundu and Anthony Lawrence. Sophomores Dewan Huell, DJ Vasiljevic and Rodney Miller got a brief taste of the tournament in last year’s first-round loss to Michigan State. For Walker and fellow freshmen Chris Lykes and Sam Waardenburg, this is their first exposure to the sport’s biggest stage.
“I’m definitely excited to be here, definitely excited to have this type of opportunity,” Lykes said. “Not many people get to play in March Madness as a freshman. I’m going to definitely take advantage of it, give 100 percent when I’m on the court. I know the rest of my teammates are going to do the same.”
The Ramblers, champions of the Missouri Valley Conference, are making their first NCAA Tournament appearance in 33 years. But this is an experienced squad which starts two seniors and two juniors — one a redshirt junior, Clayton Custer, who transferred from Iowa State and leads the team in scoring at 13.4 points per game. He’s one of five players averaging double figures in scoring.
“I think the whole key is in Loyola’s case they’ve got a lot of experienced guys,” Larrañaga said. “They’ve just got a really, really skilled basketball team at both ends of the court. They play very good team defense. They play very good sharing of the ball team offense.”
The Ramblers have become a trendy pick as college basketball pundits start poring over their brackets and look for double-digit seeds that could pull a surprise or two. And Larrañaga knows better than anybody how much damage an 11 seed can do in the tournament – the George Mason that he led to the Final Four in 2006 was an 11 seed. But Miami’s head coach isn’t concerned with seeding as much as preparing the Hurricanes to play their best against a tough opponent.
“Well, as far as I’m concerned, my experience is the seeding doesn’t mean much,” Larrañaga said. “It’s how well you play. The challenge for our Miami team is we need to play at a very, very high level to compete with them. They’re actually the favorite in terms of if you read all the prognosticators, they’re calling them the Cinderella team already. And we’ve got to be sure that we understand the caliber of our opponent has earned an awful lot of respect.
“And there’s only one way for us really to earn that same kind of respect, and that’s to play great tomorrow.”
NOTES
- Tomorrow marks Miami’s 10th NCAA Tournament appearance. The Hurricanes are 8-9 all-time in the Big Dance, 4-3 under Larrañaga.
- Miami had the fourth shoot-around slot of the day at American Airlines Center, sandwiched between Tennessee and Texas Tech.
- Spero Dedes, Steve Smith and Len Elmore will call tomorrow’s games for truTV. The trio was also in Dayton, Ohio, for last night’s First Four games.
- This is the Hurricanes’ first game against Loyola. Miami is 6-4 all-time against current teams from the Missouri Valley Conference.
- Loyola athletics director Steve Watson played two seasons (1989-91) at Bowling Green during Larrañaga’s stint there as head coach.
- Loyola’s last visit to the NCAA Tournament wasn’t a brief one. The Ramblers defeated Iona and SMU to advance to the Sweet 16 in 1985, eventually falling to Patrick Ewing and top-ranked Georgetown 65-53 at the Providence Civic Center.
- Speaking of the Mavericks, Dallas head coach Rick Carlisle played at Virginia from 1982-84 when Larrañaga was an assistant coach in Charlottesville. The Cavaliers advanced to the Final Four in 1984, falling to Houston in the national semifinals.
