No. 20 Canes determined to end nine-game skid to FSU
One measly little point. That is what separated the Miami Hurricanes and Florida State Seminoles men’s basketball teams last season.
Both games between UM and FSU were decided by a single point, and the Seminoles won both, extending their win streak over Miami to nine games.
Surely, that will be on the 20th-ranked Hurricanes’ minds Tuesday night as they play the Seminoles in Tallahassee.
Miami is 15-4 overall and 6-3 in the Atlantic Coast Conference after a two-point weekend road loss at Duke. FSU, which began the season 1-9, is 7-13 now and 5-4 in the conference. But anyone who has been following this heated rivalry over the years knows team records are insignificant.
In the first meeting last season, RayQuan Evans made two free throws with 0.8 seconds left to play to give the Seminoles a 65-64 win. The second time, Hurricane guard Isaiah
Wong, who scored 18 of his game-high 22 points in the second half, missed a fadeaway jump shot at the buzzer and FSU survived 61-60.
In that game, FSU rolled to a 43-19 halftime lead, and Miami rallied to outscore the Seminoles 41-18 in the second half. Despite the furious comeback, the Hurricanes fell short.
Miami went on to reach the Elite Eight in the NCAA Tournament. Florida State didn’t make the tournament.
“We blew them out in two games last year by a total of two points,” FSU coach Leonard Hamilton said Monday morning. “I would venture to say [the Hurricanes] don’t want to pick up the paper on Wednesday and see that they’ve lost 10 straight times to Florida State. They’re going to have exceptional motivation. They’ve been extremely competitive in the league with everybody, and this will be our biggest challenge so far this season.”
Miami has several veteran players on its roster, and Hamilton says that gives the Canes an advantage
over his inexperienced squad, which includes six freshmen and two transfers.
“They have a core of experienced guys returning that have set the table for the new guys,” Hamilton said of UM. “No doubt they have improved over the years. They have a Hall of Fame coach [Jim Larrañaga]. This is the least experienced team we’ve had in 20 years with no
junior or senior leadership and we’ve faced a lot of adversity.”
The Seminoles lost nine of their first 10 games this season, including losses to Stetson, Troy and Siena. But they showed potential in a late-November 10point loss to then-No. 5 (now top-ranked) Purdue, a game in which Matthew Cleveland and Darin Green Jr. stood out. They then lost their ACC opener by just five points to thenNo. 3 Virginia.
FSU has been up and down since then and is coming off back-to-back road wins over Notre Dame and Pitt heading into Tuesday’s game.
“We are still trying to dig out of this ditch,” Hamilton said.
The Hurricanes are 11-0 at home and 3-3 on the road. Two of their three road losses have been by two points — 83-81 in overtime at North Carolina State and 68-66 at Duke.
Miami scoring leader Wong was “sick as a dog” with a sinus infection over the weekend, Larrañaga said, and it showed against Duke. He had just one point midway through the second half, played 25 minutes and finished with seven points after hitting a pair of late-game threes. He is on medication and was feeling a bit better Monday.
“He’s been under the weather and as a result we were almost playing without him on Saturday,” Larrañaga said. “I had to take him out in the first half because he wasn’t feeling good. In the second half, he finally made a couple of shots, but his energy level ... it was hard for him to breathe.”
The UM coach expects another tough battle Tuesday.
“FSU’s got a terrific program. Last year it came down to the last possession in both games,” he said. “In one we were on defense, in one we were on offense. Didn’t complete the play. Hats off to Florida State. Hopefully, we can turn that around Tuesday night.”
It will be the second of three road games in a row for Miami, and Larrañaga said his players need to be prepared for a hostile environment.
“I thought the [Duke] Cameron Crazies really ignited them, especially late in the game, when the shot clock was winding down and [Dariq] Whitehead threw in a half-court heave that banked in, the crowd went absolutely nuts and kind of took the air out of us,” he said.
“You have to be at your best on the road.”