Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Another nail-biter for UM
Lykes helps ’Canes win their fourth straight close game
CORAL GABLES — In more than four decades of coaching, Miami Hurricanes men’s basketball coach Jim Larrañaga acknowledges he’s seen a little bit of everything.
But having one of his teams win four consecutive games that all came down to the final possession? That may be a first, even for him.
That experience came Saturday afternoon.
With just three seconds left in a tied game, Hurricanes freshman Chris Lykes hit one of two free throws that helped lift Miami to a 69-68 win over Virginia Tech in the Hurricanes’ regular-season finale at the Watsco Center on UM’s campus.
The victory came just days after a stunning 91-88 upset of No. 9 North Carolina in Chapel Hill, a 79-78 thriller over Boston College and a 77-74 win at Notre Dame — games that all but assured the Hurricanes a spot in the NCAA Tournament later this month.
Now, the Hurricanes have to wait and see how things will shake out for them in the ACC Tournament, where they could secure a double bye if Duke notches a win over North Carolina late Saturday night in Durham.
But that was almost a secondary thought in the afternoon as the Hurricanes walked off the floor after another thrilling win, this one coming on a day when Miami honored its three seniors Ja’Quan Newton, Mike Robinson and Chris Stowell.
“I told the team they’re like the cardiac kids. They somehow are enjoying being on the edge at the end of these games,” Larrañaga said. “I’ve coached for 46 years and I can never remember four consecutive games ending on the final possession, and winning all four. Guys did a tremendous job. A lot of credit goes to Virginia Tech for the way they played in the first half. I thought they were very, very good and then I thought our team really responded at halftime, came out and played great the whole second half.”
While all three of Miami’s seniors started Saturday, it was the underclassmen that gave the Hurricanes (22-8, 11-7) a needed spark.
Miami, which trailed, 39-32, at halftime, opened the second half on a, 15-3, run that gave them their first lead since the opening minutes. During that stretch, sophomore Dewan Huell would connect on three consecutive possessions, while Lykes, fellow freshman Lonnie Walker and junior Anthony Lawrence all hit from 3-point range.
And though Virginia Tech would rally during a 3-minute Miami scoring drought and even take the lead on the strength of two free throws from Chris Clarke with 1:13 left, Walker and Lykes responded.
It was Walker’s jumper with 55 seconds left that tied the game at 68 and Lykes’ free throw that eventually gave the Hurricanes the win.
“Just try and make one,” Lykes responded with a smile when asked his thoughts heading to the free throw line in that moment. “I really wasn’t trying to think about anything. That’s how you miss. We shoot free throws every day, so I just tried to go up there and make them both. … We talk about it every time before the game, it’s just poise down the stretch. … I think those past games have helped us. We can come back whatever the score may be at that point in time, but we’ve really just had a lot of poise down the stretch these last four games.”
Added Walker, “We’ve been through so much so the way we approach it and how calm and collected we are, it’s been a big deal. Situations like that, we know what we can do, we know what we need to do and the past four games, we’ve been kind of figuring that out and approaching it pretty well.”
Sharp-shooting sophomore DJ Vasiljevic, who was 4 of 6 from 3-point range, finished with a teamhigh 16 points, while Lykes added 15 points and seven assists. Walker finished with 12 and Huell added nine points.
Justin Robinson had a team-high 18 points for Virginia Tech (21-10, 10-8).