Hurricanes show promise as basketball season opens
CORAL GALES — The buzz was building throughout Friday at the University of Miami. ESPN was readying the set for its first ‘College GameDay’ broadcast from the campus as a prelude to the most important Hurricanes football game in more than a decade.
The Hurricanes men’s basketball team tapped into the vibe to get the high-octane weekend started with a season-opening 77-45 romp against Gardner-Webb at the Watsco Center, though the crowd was lacking. Already lining up for a choice spot for at Saturday morning’s ‘GameDay?’
The November focus is understandably on football, but Jim Larranaga’s crew gave a first glimpse of intriguing possibilities for the winter. Their ranking, at No. 13, is the highest UM has ever occupied in the preseason poll.
Talented but very young, Larranaga took the wraps off what may be the best recruiting class UM has ever had.
Much of the high regard with this young but talented team is tied to Lonnie Walker IV, the five-star freshman from Reading, Pa., who expected to be a one-and-done lottery pick in the next NBA draft.
Walker appeared poised and fluid while scoring 10 in his debut.
Speculation already has Walker and returning sophomore Bruce Brown as the top two shooting guards in the draft.
Let the record show that Walker’s first basket for UM came on an alleyoop feed from Brown. A couple of minutes later, Walker nonchalantly drilled a 3-pointer from the top of the key to give Miami its first lead with 11:38 remaining in the half.
Later, the 6-foot-5 guard who plays bigger, swooped in for a rebound and lay-in.
Brown finished with 10 points, while Ebuka Izundu and Dewan Huell led Miami with 14 apiece.
Although they handled GardnerWebb with relative ease in their first meeting ever with the unranked Big South opponent, the ’Canes were in early November form.
After slogging to a 27-23 lead at the intermission, the Hurricanes asserted themselves with a 14-0 surge to open the second half. They pushed the advantage to double digits on a dunk by Huell. The sophomore forward tallied eight of those points while hitting 4 of 5 shots.
The second half was a much better indication what this Miami bunch is capable of as the passes were crisper and the shots fell with more regularity. They shot 64 percent in the second half after a paltry 33.3 percent in the opening 20 minutes.
Huell and senior point guard Ja’Quan Newton led the way as Miami asserted its dominance in the second half.
Gardner-Webb freshman Nate Johnson, a Sun Sentinel first-team All-County choice from McArthur High, made his college debut with four points.
Hurricane Women: Miami 77, FIU
69: With three of their top scorers from a season ago lost to graduation and another key contributor sidelined for the season with a knee injury, the Hurricanes women’s basketball team knew there would be some growing pains as they started a new season Friday night.
What the Hurricanes discovered though, in their opener, was that some of their new faces — players who a season ago were playing high school basketball — have the potential to be pretty special players.
Freshman Mykea Gray had a game-high 27 points and fellow freshman Endia Banks added 15 points as Miami opened the season with a 77-69 comeback victory over crosstown rival Florida International University.
But as pleased as she was with their respective abilities to score the ball, Hurricanes coach Katie Meier couldn’t help but notice Gray and Banks led Miami with four and five assists, respectively, too.
“I’m sitting here with two freshmen and I leaned on them the whole game,” Meier said. “It seemed like my upperclassmen — and I love them and we already talked about it — they didn’t start the game with the composure we need. … They can’t be the last-year versions of themselves. … They have to evolve, and these guys were in high school last year. … I was not panicked, uncomfortable, upset, but we do have to evolve and Mykea was scoring good and Endia can really score even more than she showed tonight, but I’m proud of their scoring and they led us in assists, too.”
The Hurricanes, who were 24-9 last year and hosted the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament, struggled early and didn’t manage to put FIU away until the final minutes.
Miami, which trailed by as many as 7 points in the second half, closed the game on a 14-3 run that gave the Hurricanes their first win in what will likely be a season of transition.
The only Hurricanes veteran to finish in double figures was Erykah Davenport, who had 11 points and a team-high nine rebounds.
Both the Hurricanes and Panthers showed some of the typical early season rust issues, the teams combining for 43 turnovers.