Few would have predicted, when this college basketball season began, that the Miami Hurricanes men’s team would wind up with an NCAA tournament bid locked up by Selection Sunday after reaching the ACC tournament semifinal and nearly knocking off top-seeded Duke.
But that is where the resurgent Miami team found itself Sunday evening. Surrounded by a few hundred fans and staff at the campus fieldhouse, the Hurricanes jumped out of their seats, hugged, and cheered when the words “Miami (FL)” popped up on the jumbo T.V. screens as the No. 10 seed facing No. 7 Southern California in Greenville, South Carolina, in the first round of the Midwest Region on Friday at 3:10 p.m.
The winner plays the winner of No. 2 Auburn vs. No. 15 Jacksonville State.
It is Miami’s first trip to the NCAA tournament in four years and fifth since UM coach Jim Larranaga took over the program 11 years ago.
“The U is back!” Larranaga screamed into a microphone as Canes fans roared. “We’re heading to Greenville, South Carolina to face Southern Cal! This is the best sporting event in the world, it lasts three weeks and we want to be there the whole three weeks! We’re ecstatic about how our team has played all season. We’ve had so many exciting games.”
When the season tipped off in November, Miami was considered an afterthought by most national and regional pundits, which was understandable.
The Hurricanes were coming off their third losing season in a row, finished 4-15 in the ACC last year and had lost some key players to the transfer portal. They were picked to finish 12th in the conference, third from the bottom.
All anyone knew was that Isaiah Wong, Kameron McGusty and Sam Waardenberg elected to return, and that the Canes picked up a pair of transfers – nomadic DePaul point guard Charlie Moore, joining the fourth team of his college career, and Jordan Miller, a George Mason forward little known outside the Atlantic 10 conference.
By mid-January, they were sitting atop the ACC standings for a few weeks after beating then-No. 2 Duke on the road during a 12-2 stretch during which the Canes’ only two losses were by one point to Florida State.
Moore, whom Larranaga called “a godsend” became one of the most exciting and reliable point guards in the league and Miller is “the best offensive rebounder I have ever seen,” Larranaga said in Brooklyn during the ACC tournament.
“We’re going to keep playing like we’ve been playing,” Larranaga said, adding that he and his staff are “very familiar” with USC coach Andy Enfield, who worked as a Florida State assistant coach from 2006-11 before making a national name for himself as the Florida Gulf Coast University head coach, leading the team to an unexpected Sweet 16 run in 2013.
“My staff and Andy go back a long, long way and he’s done a great job of building that program in the Pac 12 and we look forward to playing them on Friday,” Larranaga said.
He said the Trojans (26-7) have much more size than the Hurricanes (23-10) and they like to play multiple defenses and run a pro-style offense.
Larranaga added that he was pleased that the venue is in the Southeast, not too far for UM fans to travel. He also likes playing Friday instead of Thursday because it gives his team an extra day to prepare. He told his players to get their ticket requests out of the way soon and focus on the task at hand.
Earning the bid was especially thrilling for sixth-year seniors Waardenburg, McGusty and Moore. Waardenburg and McGusty had been to the tournament early in their career, Moore has never been. It will also be the first trip for Miller, who is a junior.
“Every time it feels special seeing your name come up on the screen,” Waardenburg said. “But a lot of us came back this year with a mission of getting this program back to where it was. My freshman year it was at its peak, I went to the tournament three times, but now I’m so happy the younger guys can experience it.”
Miller and Moore both said they were nervous awaiting their fate.
“I have wanted to make the tournament my whole career and I finally get that chance,” said Moore, who played previously at Cal, Kansas and DePaul. “It felt great. We’ve been preparing hard all season for this situation and we have a lot more games to play.”
Miller said: “The job is not finished. We don’t want to just make it and get out first round. March is the most exciting time of the year, but it’s a business trip and we’re on a mission. My stomach dropped, a little bit of butterflies when we were waiting to see our name on the screen…it’s one of those things I always saw, but to live it was a dream come true.”
