’Canes still in waiting mode
CORAL GABLES — As the Miami men’s basketball team begins preparing for games against Rutgers and Yale this week, the Hurricanes still don’t know when they’ll have one of their top players on the floor.
Less than an hour before Miami’s Nov. 9 season opener against Lehigh, the school announced it was holding junior forward Dewan Hernandez out of competition as it worked with the NCAA to investigate his eligibility, after Hernandez’s name was linked to one of the defendants in the college basketball corruption trial that played out in New York this fall.
Hernandez, a former McDonald’s AllAmerican, hasn’t played since.
On Tuesday, Miami coach Jim Larrañaga said he, Hernandez and the Hurricanes are still in a holding pattern as to
when the junior could return.
The Hurricanes, who are coming off a tough 83-81 loss to Seton Hall in the championship game of the Wooden Legacy, host Rutgers on Wednesday as part of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge before facing Yale on Saturday at the Hoophall Miami Invitational at the American-Airlines Arena.
“Don’t know anything,” Larrañaga responded when asked if he expected to have Hernandez back at any point this season. “I don’t think there is a timetable. I don’t think the NCAA works that way.”
Earlier this month, ESPN reported that Hernandez was one of 19 players listed in an email by Christian Dawkins, who worked as a runner for NBA agent Andy Miller.
In that email, Dawkins reportedly detailed plans to pay Hernandez $500 a month from September 2017 through January 2018, then $1,000 a month until April 2018. ESPN’s report stated that if Hernandez left UM after last season, he wouldn’t have had to pay the money back. But if Hernandez opted to return to Miami, the payments would be converted to a loan.
After meeting with a handful of NBA teams and going through part of the draft process, Hernandez — who started all 32 of Miami’s games last season and averaged 11.4 points and 6.7 rebounds — decided to return to school.
When he’ll rejoin his teammates in a game, though, remains unsettled. UM athletic director Blake James told the Sun Sentinel the school is in regular communication with the NCAA regarding Hernandez’s situation.
The junior did not travel with Miami to California last week, though he has practiced with his teammates when the Hurricanes have been home.
On Tuesday, Hurricanes guard Zach Johnson — who played high school basketball with Hernandez at Miami’s Norland High — said he and the rest of the Hurricanes have worked to keep Hernandez involved and in good spirits as he waits to learn his fate.
“It’s tough. Imagine being told you can’t play and it’s devastating,” said Johnson, a transfer from Florida Gulf Coast who is averaging 13.8 points and has quickly become one of Miami’s key players. “We’re trying, as a team, to be there for him and continue to just talk to him and be a shoulder for him. I think he’s doing pretty well, though.”
And while they’d like to have Hernandez back sooner rather than later, so far, the Hurricanes (5-1) are playing about as well as Larrañaga expected they might without one of their top players.
Miami opened the year with five wins in a row before coming up short in the championship game of the Wooden Legacy. Sophomore guard Chris Lykes is averaging a team-high 19.3 points — one of five players averaging double figures in scoring.
But with Hernandez out, rebounding has been an issue, and in a 78-76 win over Fresno State in California, the Bulldogs outrebounded Miami 43-29.
Center Ebuka Izundu has been Miami’s go-to presence inside but has dealt with foul trouble, an issue Larrañaga said the Hurricanes are working to fix, especially because the rest of Miami’s bigger players are relatively young.
“We’re playing without our best big man. Yeah, that does have an impact. Dewan is capable of being an All-Conference performer, and without him, a lot of things have changed,” Larrañaga said.
“We’re missing [Hernandez] defensively, defensive rebounds, scoring-wise, offensive rebound-wise. That’s a lot of categories to be missing a key element to your offense and defense. … Right now, we’re about as good as we can be without Dewan and we have to hope, at some point, we get him back, but until then, we still have to play the games.”