Happy Monday, everyone.
Hope your March has gotten off to a great start. With conference tournaments taking place this week and the Big Dance starting the week after, it’s a great time to be a sports fan. Unfortunately, your Miami Hurricanes will not be taking part, finishing 16th in the ACC and missing the conference tourney. However, there’s a new man in charge looking to keep that from happening again anytime soon.
As such, let’s get to it.
1) First, I want to talk about Saturday. Miami men’s basketball finally won another conference game, and it was against a notable opponent and in exciting fashion.
The Canes, as usual, found themselves down big at half, this time 41-31 to NC State, who was the ACC’s representative in the Final Four last year. However, the Wolfpack fell on their faces this year, finishing 5-15 in conference play and also missing the ACC tourney.
As such, this was the final game for both teams’ seasons, and it looked like it was going to be a sour ending for Miami. Trailing 70-62 with 3 and a half minutes left, the Canes went on a 10-0 run to end the game. Big threes by Matthew Cleveland and A.J. Staton-McCray pulled Miami even at 70 with under 2 minutes left. Then, after a turnover, Cleveland drove the basket, missed, and Brandon Johnson slammed it home with one second left for the win.
An ugly, gross, no-good season at 7-24, but one that ended with another positive.
2) And the hope now is that Jai Lucas can take the nose diving Canes and steer them back towards the top of the heap in college basketball.
I’d add a tweet here about Miami’s welcome to their new coach, but Twitter/X is completely in the toilet today. They’ve been glitchy with their feeds, and the tweets apparently won’t embed either. Oh well. Go to the Canes’ basketball page and check them out.
At least YouTube is functional, so here’s Lucas’ presser today, for those who might have missed it.
A lot was said, but what stood out is what Lucas said about his expectations for being able to get the program back to a competitive level.
“It’s going to be a big overhaul,” Lucas told the gathered media. “My expectation coming in was that I’d need to get thirteen new players just because that’s the way it is now. But you never know of the opportunity of people coming back. It could be a little bit lower.
“I’ve dreamed of this moment my whole life, so this is amazing,” Lucas said when he first took the podium.
3) What I love about Lucas is a key role he held at Duke, and that was in recruiting.
Lucas was a key part of the recruitment of some of the top players in the country for the Blue Devils, so he knows what it’s like to go into the living room of a top talent and what to say to get them to come to his program. He’s not going to be nervous or intimidated by any player or any situation.
Of course, Miami isn’t Duke on the hardwood, but there’s plenty to sell in Coral Gables for the Hurricanes. Weather, facilities, NIL, business/marketing opportunities, playing in a top hoops conference that gets a lot of exposure. The University of Miami should be very easy to sell.
And Miami now has a guy who’s been a terrific salesman. Have to like the possibilities here.
4) I also love that Jim Larranaga was there at Lucas’ presser.
And he was there with his wife, Liz. You really do have to love the commitment of Larranaga to the university. I missed seeing him on the sideline one last season, but he’d earned the right to walk away on his terms. Hopefully, Lucas can get the Canes back to the level that Larranaga had them at from 2021-23.
5) As for Canes’ baseball? Bleh.
A series loss to UConn where they gave up 30 runs over the weekend. THIRTY! To a UConn team that was 2-7 coming into the series. I don’t care that they beat Vandy before coming here. 2-7.
That’s what I get for being mildly encouraged by the pitching early this year. I guess we’ll see how conference play goes, which starts on Friday at Wake Forest, but man……I am not feeling good about this team as they head into their ACC slate.
May they prove me wrong. Not holding my breath though.
Go Canes!