Hurricanes’ ride hot shooting to road win
RALEIGH, N.C. — Miami coach and his staff spent recent practices pushing his players to whip the ball around the perimeter, keep things moving and set up each other for good looks.
The results looked pretty good.
scored 19 points and No. 25 Miami shot 58 percent to hold off NC State 86-81 on Sunday, turning in its best offensive output since November.
Larrañaga quickly pointed to one stat to explain why: his team's 26 assists — five more than its previous high — on 34 baskets.
“I wish coaching was that easy, because on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, my coaches kept emphasizing to our players: We need more assists, we need more assists, this is how you get them,” Larrañaga said. “And the players listened and executed.”
The Hurricanes (14-4, 3-3 Atlantic Coast Conference) came in averaging 67.8 points and shooting 42 percent in five league games, including just 30 percent from 3-point range to rank 14th in the 15-team conference. They blew past all those marks Sunday, from shooting 60 percent after halftime to making 10 of 19 3s for the game.
“We're a great catch-andshoot team,” Brown said. “And we have recently shot a lot of 3s off the dribble or late in the shot clock. But today it was just easy for us: drive, kick, open 3s, one more pass. It was just all in rhythm.”
The Hurricanes led the entire second half, but struggled to put away the Wolfpack (13-7, 3-4). They stayed in control by committing just 10 turnovers for the game, avoiding the miscues that can fuel the Wolfpack's pressure defense and lead to transition scores.
had 28 points for NC State.
Florida worked through ugly play against No. 18 Kentucky, and the persistent Gators eventually made the necessary shots to go ahead before holding on with several big defensive plays. On both ends of the floor,
came up big for UF.
Hudson came off the bench to score 17 points, and
and contributed clutch baskets down the stretch as Florida rallied to upset the Wildcats 66-64 late Saturday night.
The first-place Gators (14-5, 6-1 Southeastern Conference) saw their 45-37 second-half lead become a 56-53 deficit before they regrouped behind Chiozza's 3-pointer, Hayes' jumper and Stone's layup to go ahead 62-58 with 2:02 remaining. added two free throws with 44 seconds left before Hudson made two more from the line, shots that offset 3-pointers by and
Stone's missed free throw gave Kentucky a chance to tie at the end, but
and Hudson blocked shots by
and respectively before stealing the inbounds pass with 2.5 seconds left to win for eighth time in nine tries and take a two-game SEC lead on the Wildcats (14-5, 4-3).
Kentucky had won 30 straight at home against SEC opponents and 16 in a row overall in Lexington.
“We didn't take home run shots” down the stretch, said Hudson, who shot 4 of 13 overall and 2 of 8 from 3-point range. “We stayed poised.” Florida was especially calm in those final seconds as Kentucky tried to tie the game, refusing to surrender the lead.