I haven’t seen too much of this year’s Miami Hurricanes basketball squad this season, but what I have seen hasn’t been all that pretty.
A 13-point loss to #2 UCONN is acceptable. Early in the season. Tough foe. High expectations. Fail that early season test, but respond to the next challenge.
Instead, Miami’s ace in the hole wanted to bury his head in one, after taking a swipe and a defender. Jack McClinton got tossed early on againt Ohio State and the Canes wilted down the stretch.
A quality road win four days later hardly felt victorious. Miami hanging on, Kentucky running out of time. (UM was outscored 41-27 in the second half.) From there, a win over FIU gets lost in the shuffle.
Robert Morris makes a game out of what should’ve been a “take out your frustration on a lesser opponent” type event and tonight in the ACC season opener, Clemson puts on a clinic at BankU.
91-72? C’mon now. Bad Miami teams didn’t lose by Clemson by that margin. This team started out top 20 and is folding. In a year when people were starting to take the Canes seriously, they’re fading fast.
A few more “L”s and they’re in the running for this year’s “preseason pretender” in some sports rag’s year in review issue.
This time of year, I’m a casual college basketball observer. Football is still in the air. I don’t make the switch until after recruiting season, though I’ll make an exception this year. January 17th, an ESPN prime-time showdown at #1 North Carolina. A big game that could ignite a flat team who looks to be in some trouble and in need of a mid-season boost.
Between now and then – @St. John’s, North Florida, North Carolina Central, Florida Atlantic, @Boston College and Maryland. A half dozen chances to flip the proverbial script. Come together and become the team many predicted they’d be.
Four seniors with one last shot to make some noise. Some young talent is on board, but Miami won’t easily replace Jimmy Graham, Lance Hurdle, Brian Asbury and #33. Though tonight’s numbers won’t scare next year’s starters.
Hurdle, 0-6 from the field and 0-2 from the line. A few rebounds and a block for Graham. McClinton, a respectable 20 points, but 1-4 from beyond the arc and 8-of-14 on the night aren’t going to cut it against quality ACC teams.
Asbury came through with 10 points off the bench. Clutch, but a wasted performance when the starters don’t deliver.
Being on the wrong side of a 16-0 run. Turning the ball over 22 times. Missing 12 of your first 17 free throws. It resulted in Miami’s worst loss since third-ranked North Carolina laid a 41-point beat down on the Canes in January 2007.
As a self-admitted post-bowl-season basketball fan, I want to hear from those of you who follow it religiously. What’s going wrong and why? What will it take to fix it? Did the Canes simply turn it on late and overachieve down the stretch last season? Is Miami really 19 points worse than Clemson, at home? How will these Canes fare in the ACC this year?
Help the “Casual Fan ‘Til Jan” type fan make sense of three losses before we acknowledged that the season started.
WE WERE 12-27 FROM THE FREE THROW LINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OUR GUYS READ TOO MANY OF THOSE PRESEASON SPORTS RAGS THAT CALLED THIS A POTENTIAL FINAL FOUR OR ELITE EIGHT TEAM. IT HAS GONE TO THEIR HEAD.
I follow semi religiously (I go to Church once a month per say) and I feel as this team just became deflated after 33 got ejected and they blew the game. They haven’t been the same since. The talent is defintly there, they just haven’t begun to click yet. I feel as if once things to start to click, they’ll be a scary team, but that OSU incident really seemed to put them on tilt.
Review the 4 games that were on TV. The B ball team cannot handle the press and shoots free throws at a percentage on par with a 5th grade team. You have a coach who is a good recruiter but does not and cannot educate his players to make game day adjustments. I had high expectations for the season but have now resigned myself to a mediocre season. Until we get a first rate coach we will have a middle of the road team.
Review our football team’s leadership. We have a coach who is a man of high personal character and possesses the ability to recruit talented HS football players to attend the U. Unfortunately RS is not yet a good game day coach. Forget the 2 QB issue and the question of Nix’s OC abilities. Think of all the disorganization on the field. What would your opinion of an opposing team’s leadership be if you saw players so often out of position? What would you think of an opposing team coaching staff if they were forced to call so many time outs when players had no clue what they were supposed to be doing?
Unfortunately I have resigned myself to the days of Charley Tate and mediocre Cane football until our AD and President see the light and go out and get a first rate football coach.
From where I sit, I think this team is undisciplined and does not run a set offense. I know everyone has “faith in haith,” but the offensive sets all look dysfunctional and overlay simple, and defensively the team cannot survive unless in a zone.
Also, the transition defense was pathetic last night. Even when we scored, Clemson was down the court in five seconds with an opportunity for an open two or three.
0-1 in the ACC in a season where many of our fans were talking about finishing 2nd in the conference. Not a good start.
i was at the game last night. miami went up early with a 19 to 9 lead, but a bunch of no calls and barely there fouls turned the game into something it wasn’t. we started playing softer to avoid fouls, the whole attitude changed. it was depressing to watch the fire the game started out with be extinguished by refs who should have just let the two teams play ball. it’s a fine line between what is a foul and what shouldn’t be, but the refs weren’t letting the kids play. miami was being called for lesser offenses than clemson wasn’t being called for on the other end of the court. an obvious charge, was called a blocking foul. miami was in foul trouble early. graham got a quick 2, and was benched shortly after. i’m not excusing the loss. we shot poorly, we turned the ball over, they were full court pressuring and we were giving them open 3s. missing 12 of 17 from the line, is unacceptable, especially from a team who last year was one of the most accurate free throw shooting teams in the acc. hopefully this will be the wake up call and we can pull this thing together. we have way too much talent this year to play like this.
Denise – 22 turnovers and missing 12 of the first 1 free throws is a lack of concentration and preparation. Sounds like this one was Miami’s fault and not some overzealous refs, but you were there and I wasn’t, so I don’t know….
all canes i agree with you. there was definitely a lack of concentration, but not a lack of preparation. miami came out strong and looked like the top 25 team they were ranked at the beginning of the year. no game should be blamed entirely on refs, we played like crap, but after such a strong start, they hit a wall that was put up by the refs. even the 12 year olds next to me were yelling at them :).we made a lot of mistakes last night and didn’t deserve to win. we played sloppy. we let them get full court pressure and threw errant passes. we couldn’t get the ball up court. we weren’t playing the caliber ball that these players are capable of. let’s hope for a turn around, and soon!
Denise, I hear you but top 25 teams start and finish strong.
From the 3 games I’ve watched this year, I’ve seen big time lapses where this team seems to check out and go through the motions. Big scoring droughts. Times where they play porous defense and let the opponent run roughshot on them. Missed free throws. Turnovers.
That is 1000% on Haith and staff not having this team ready.
Starting strong is part of the battle, but you better finish. That wasn’t the case against Ohio State or Clemson and against Kentucky, it was as much their self-implosion that gave Miami that game as it was the Canes, who definitely didn’t play a complete game.
Our problems really began in the second half of that Kentucky game. Missed free throws weren’t an issue until then and now it has become an epidemic. Add that to the fact that we have no movement on offense and little or no discipline defensively when not playing in a zone and we’re in trouble.
Even in the loses to UConn and OSU I saw signs of a strong team and obviously Jack’s ejection killed us against the Buckeyes. But the Clemson game is arguably the worst performance we’ve had at home in Frank Haith’s tenure. A performance like that by a team ranked #16 in the preseason is simply not acceptable. Losing by 19 isn’t the problem, it’s not being able to break the press, missing free throws and not being able to move the ball on offense. So many problems, so little to feel positive about going into a big game at MSG against a weak St John’s team.