Hurricanes cruise by Notre Dame
Lawrence leads No. 17 UM to 79-70 win.
CORAL GABLES Anthony Lawrence Jr. has had a quiet start to the new year.
The freshman, a reserve who didn’t see the court against Duke last week and hasn’t played more than 12 minutes in a game since Miami began conference play last month, had a career-high 18 points to lead the 17th-ranked Hurricanes men’s basketball team to a 79-70 win over Notre Dame on Wednesday night.
“I’m very, very proud of Anthony Lawrence Jr.,” Miami coach Jim Larrañaga said. “We call him Amp, and Amp had gone through a period where he was not playing at all, not playing much. Yet in the last few practices, he was terrific … He did a great job tonight. He made some threes. He was our leading scorer, but we’re going to need him to rebound better so we can play him. But overall, a great team effort.”
It didn’t take long for the crowd at the BankU-nited Center to notice Lawrence, the son of former Hurricanes letterman Anthony Lawrence, was putting together a special performance, one that had the reserve on the court to start of second half.
As the points started piling up thanks in part to Lawrence hitting five of the six 3-pointers he took Wednesday, fans cheered when he subbed in and out of the game. And throughout the night, the soft-spoken freshman delivered for them — and Miami (17-4, 6-3).
“I’ve been playing good all week in practice and once I sawthe first one go down, I had the confidence already, so I just kept shooting,” Lawrence said. “My teammates kept finding me in open spots and I was just knocking down the shots. … I was just playing, running the offense, and playing defense.”
Lawrence was one of five Hurricanes to finish in double figures on a night where Miami controlled the tempo and thoroughly dominated a team that gave them so many problems last season.
Angel Rodriguez, Sheldon McClellan and Ja’Quan Newton each had 12 points while Kamari Murphy added 11 in a balanced scoring attack that had the Hurricanes build a lead that grew to as many as 20 with 8:06 left in the second half when McClellan hit a 3-pointer.
And though Notre Dame (15-7, 6-4) made a run at the end to cut the deficit to single digits, this one never really seemed in doubt and the Hurricanes bounced back from their tough loss to N.C. State on Sunday.
Still, for the second straight game, Miami was outrebounded — a fact that bothered Larrañaga.
Saturday against the Wolfpack, the Hurricanes saw N.C. State pull down 41 rebounds to their 23. Wednesday, the Irish held a five-rebound edge, a trend Larrañaga wants to see Miami change.
They were all over the glass. They had 17 offensive rebounds, which again, becomes a major concern for me because that’s two games in a row where we’ve given up a lot of second shots,” he said.