It’s all about bragging rights to start season
New-look Miami set to open with challenging ACC matchup against No. 5 Louisville
CORAL GABLES — The Miami Hurricanes men’s basketball team enters the 2019-20 season looking to get contributions from several new players, but the overhauled roster won’t have much time to get acclimated before facing an ACC powerhouse.
Starting the season against a much softer nonconference slate isn’t the case for the Hurricanes this year, as they open against No. 5 Louisville in a 6:30 tip at Watsco Center on Tuesday night. It’ll also be the first men’s basketball game broadcast on the new ACC Network.
“Playing a top-five team with a lot of returning guys and a good recruiting class — certainly any time of the year — is difficult, but to start the season presents some challenges,” said assistant coach Chris Caputo on Monday, filling in for coach Jim Larrañaga, who wasn’t at the facility due to a personal matter.
Larrañaga is expected back for Tuesday night’s opener.
“It’s more of a braggingrights start to the ACC,” said senior guard DJ Vasiljevic. “Our team is looking forward to it, we’re excited. Just trying to win to show everybody we mean business this year.”
Significantly undermanned last season, the Hurricanes are now capable of rotating nine players. That number will grow with the impending return of redshirt senior forward and Florida transfer Keith Stone, who is coming off rehab for a torn ACL.
After a disappointing season a year ago, the Hurricanes are eager to take the next step.
“We want to win,” Larrañaga said at the team’s media day two weeks ago. “We want to compete with the best players and best teams, but we want to beat them. It’s not like there’s any moral victories.”
Miami will be tested early to see how a new support group complements the returning backcourt of Vasiljevic and junior Chris Lykes, last year’s leading scorer at 16.2 points per game.
“You get a feel for where you’re at as compared to the competition in the league,” Caputo said.
The Hurricanes also have redshirt junior guard Kameron McGusty available this season after he sat out last year due to NCAA transfer rules, coming over from Oklahoma.
“I think we mesh very well,” said McGusty, who led Miami with 20 points in its exhibition win over Flagler on Wednesday. “We bring different dimensions and have different games, but over the summer and getting those games in [an offseason trip to] Italy really helped us gel and helped us figure out, ‘Okay, he likes the ball here’ or ‘these are the types of shots that he’s going to be able to get.’”
McGusty has been nicknamed the “silent assassin” around the team.
“He doesn’t say much, but he goes out there and performs every day, comes to practice wanting to compete,” Vasiljevic said. “He’s a competitor, great offensive player and even better defender.”
Redshirt junior center Rodney Miller is a player Larrañaga has said could be the ACC’s Most Improved Player after he took a redshirt last year in order to condition himself and develop his game. Miller lost 45 pounds in the process.
The Hurricanes have freshman guards Isaiah Wong and Harlond Beverly, who were highly touted recruits and can contribute off the bench, along with first-year forward Anthony Walker.
“Each of those three guys has their own path as to how they can best make an impact,” Caputo said. “They have some gifts and they have some things that they can do that hopefully can translate, but like most freshmen, they’ve got to learn how to play as hard as they can. They’ve got to learn how to defend their position. They’ve got to learn how to play through adversity. This will be a totally new experience for them [Tuesday].”
With redshirt junior forward Sam Waardenburg a projected starter, redshirt sophomore Deng Gak is also back in the frontcourt mix after returning from a knee injury that cut his sophomore season short.
The Hurricanes also expect a boost to the frontcourt once Stone, a Deerfield Beach native and Zion Lutheran High grad, is able to return.
“He’s progressing, so we’re assuming we’ll see him, certainly in the nonconference and hopefully sooner rather than later,” Caputo said. “He’s been on the court doing what we would consider dummy offense and non-contact type stuff, but he has been on the court doing some things.”
Louisville was picked to finish third in the ACC this season. The Cardinals went 20-14 last year, 10-8 in the conference and reached the NCAA Tournament. Louisville junior forward Jordan Nwora, the reigning ACC Most Improved Player and conference’s Preseason Player of the Year, is the league’s leading returning scorer at 17 points per game.