Survive and Advance Time
By Carter Toole
HurricaneSports.com
GREENSBORO, N.C. — After 30 games across 17 weeks in 15 arenas covering 11 states, a brand new season beckons for the Miami Hurricanes.
“The regular season is one season,” head coach Jim Larrañaga said after UM capped its regular season with an overtime win over Syracuse. “You put it behind you. The postseason – the ACC Tournament and beyond – is like a whole other season.”
How long will this new season last? That remains to be seen and therein lies both the thrill and peril of March — if you survive one day your reward is simply to advance to the next.
What we do know is that the Hurricanes, as the ninth seed, will face eighth-seeded Clemson in the second round of the ACC Tournament at Greensboro Coliseum Wednesday at noon. For now, the Tigers (also 15-15) are the sole focus for Miami.
“We’re not at home and we’re not at the opponent’s home court either,” Larrañaga said after the Hurricanes concluded a practice session at UNC Greensboro. “On a neutral site there’s not the tough environment you play on the road or the great environment that you have at home so it’s really about executing the game plan. You know what the opponent is going to do – you’ve already faced them.”
The Hurricanes have indeed faced Clemson but if it seems a while back, well, it was last year – New Year’s Eve to be precise. Miami rallied from a 10-point second half deficit to force overtime and eventually pull out a 73-68 win at Littlejohn Coliseum. Four Hurricanes played 40-plus minutes and junior guard Chris Lykes scored 27 points, just one off his career high. The Hurricanes landed back in Miami just a few hours before 2020 arrived.
“We’re constantly going to show our players the updates of what Clemson was doing then and what they’re doing now,” Larrañaga said. “We will tweak what we do based on the most recent observations of what Clemson is trying to do against their opponents.”
The first ACC season with 20 conference games was a bizarre one to say the least. Only five teams finished with more conference wins than losses. Three teams went 10-10. And only one win separated Miami, the 10th place team, from North Carolina, which finished 15th.
Clemson is a poster child for this roller-coaster ACC campaign. The Tigers pulled off wins over then-No. 3 Duke, then-No. 5 Louisville and then-No. 6 Florida State. But they also dropped four games to teams behind them in the standings – and all of those top 10 wins came in the cozy confines of Littlejohn.
“What concerns us most is when they shoot the three very well, they’re very hard to beat,” Larrañaga said. “They are a very good two-point shooting team and an inconsistent three-point shooting team but are very, very capable of getting it going. Sometimes they’re cold in one half but red hot in the other half so you’ve got to have the persistence and perseverance to really overcome how they’re playing.”
The winner books a Thursday afternoon date with top-seeded Florida State, which captured the regular season crown for the first time since joining the league in the 1991-92 season. This is the first time since 2015 the tournament is in Greensboro, where the Hurricanes have a 9-5 overall mark, including the 2013 tournament championship.
This is the 17th ACC Tournament for Larrañaga, who remembers when the event only had eight teams and didn’t have to start until the quarterfinals on Friday. Now with 15 teams (14 this year with Georgia Tech ineligible) play gets underway on Tuesday before culminating with the championship game on Saturday night. Miami’s win in its home finale secured a first-round bye, which Larrañaga believes is critical.
“One of the things I’m very proud of this team is we got a bye and don’t have to play until Wednesday so we can prepare a little bit better,” he said. “When you have 14 teams playing in the tournament there’s so much that is really unknown, like who’s injured or who’s playing really well.
“In these games it often comes down to somebody making a big play, stepping up and making a big free throw, a big block or rebound.”
The Hurricanes have plenty of candidates to do just that.
Senior guard Dejan Vasiljevic scored 17 points on Senior Night and nailed the game-winning free throws. Freshman guard Isaiah Wong is averaging 14.7 points over his last dozen games. Junior guard Kameron McGusty has hit double figures in points in 14 games. And if Lykes, who missed the Syracuse game with face injuries, plays Wednesday it gives the Hurricanes another potent scoring option.
“I think we need to just approach it the same and have fun with it,” Vasiljevic said. “We’re trying to get as far as possible. It’s my last one so I’m going to leave it all out there on the floor.”
