Miami Dominates Delaware State, 97-41
CORAL GABLES, Fla. – A strong defensive effort and a balanced scoring attacked propelled Miami men’s basketball to a 97-41 victory over Delaware State on Sunday inside the Watsco Center.
The win marked the first victory by at least 50 points since the Hurricanes defeated Nova Southeastern, 108-58, on Nov. 16, 2009.
Miami (5-1) got off to a hot start and jumped out to 11-2 run to begin the game before extending its lead to 25-7 with just over nine minutes left in the half. The Hurricanes led by 20, 31-11, with six and a half minutes remaining and went on a 15-2 run to lead by 33, its highest of the half before taking a 50-19 advantage into the break.
Miami dominated both sides of the floor in the first 20 minutes, shooting 64.5-percent (20-for-31) from the floor and limited Delaware State (2-5) to 7-of-25 (28%) shooting while forcing 11 turnovers.
In the second half, the Hurricanes kept their foot on the gas, opening with a 16-5 run to take a 42-point lead. Miami utilized a 22-5 run to take a 57-point lead to the under-8 media timeout.
Tre Donaldson and Malik Reneau led the way with 24 and 21 points, respectively, while shooting a combined 18-for-18 from the floor. Reneau added 10 rebounds for his third double-double of the season. Salih Altuntas recorded his first career double-double with 13 points and 11 rebounds to go along with four rebounds.
For the game, Miami shot 61.3-percent and held the Hornets to 25.9% from the floor, marking the first time the Hurricanes have held an opponent under 30-percent for the first time since 2012.
Miami hits the road to compete in the Terry’s Chocolate ESPN Events Invitational. The Hurricanes will take on ninth-ranked BYU on Thursday at 5 p.m. on Thursday.
Tickets are available for the 2025-26 men’s basketball season and can be purchased online at www.miamihurricanes.com/tickets.
Postgame Quotes
Head Coach Jai Lucas
On what he’s seen from the team since the Florida game…
“Well, you know, the main thing for me was sometimes, as a coach, you can tell them about stuff and try to give them the answers to the test, but they really don’t, I won’t say, pay attention, or they don’t understand, until they go through it. So some of those things that I talked about and told about we went through in the Florida game. I feel like going into the Elon game, we still were kind of caught up in Florida and a little bit hungover with what happened and how the game went and how we felt about it, and it was our first loss. But I feel their response from the film and everything has been good. And so, you know, we just had Florida, we had some injuries and kind of have kept us out of whack a little bit of practice and stuff like that. So hopefully we can get those guys back before Thursday and get some good practice in. And so some of the stuff we talked about, just the defensive intensity, getting back to being a high assist team and limiting our turnovers as much as we can. It’s a big part of it, too.”
On forcing 19 turnovers and the defensive effort…
“I just want to get back to where I felt we were defensively to start the year, and part of that is getting them to understand with some of these games and the scores getting out of hand is that we have to stay true to who we are, no matter what, no matter the opponent, no matter the score, what we preach and what we say we’re about, it has to show every time we go on the court. And so that’s the main thing that I’m looking at. I’m not coaching the game thinking, ‘oh, well, Delaware State has 19 points at halftime.’ I’m coaching the game, ‘are we executing what we practice and what we preach?’ And we are a little still too inconsistent for me, but we are going to work in the right direction.”
Malik Reneau, Forward, Senior
On where the group is after six games…
“Yeah, I mean, our size and our height, it gives us so much ability to do a lot of things on the court, and just getting out in space and going downhill helps us a lot, and a lot of and just being confident and stuff like that is going to be a huge step in our next step to ultimately having a better offensive skill.”
Tre Donaldson, Guard, Senior
On the defensive details after the Florida game…
“I mean making it tough for other teams. We have a really good, big and good team. It’s just being able to bother people. We’re quick, we’re fast, we’re athletic. So I mean, just using that to our advantage, and challenging passes, doing little things like that to extend offenses out and then turn them over. Like you said 19 times. That’s really good for us, and that’s something we want to do every night, no matter who we’re playing.”
