Miami Hurricanes Basketball: Angel Rodriguez Goes Off; Canes Upset #8 Florida Gators, 69-67

First of all…. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

You might hear this once or twice this season but Miami was saved by an Angel on Monday night. That’s Rodriguez, Angel Rodriguez. The junior transfer went OFF on the Gators in the second half and the Canes pulled off a 69-67 win in Gainesville snapping their 33-home winning streak. Rodriguez hit three after three and had 22 of his 24 points in the second half and hit the dagger with 18 seconds left with a defender draped all over him.

The Gators came out of the gates strong and put a stranglehold on Miami with a 9-0 lead to start off the game. That run was broken up by a couple of threes by Manu Lecomte and James Palmer. Miami started to hang around in the first half and trailed by only 4 after the 8 minute media timeout.

The Gators then geared down on defense and started getting easy transition points against the Canes. The Gators had a ton of success on the pick-and-pop that continuously freed up Jon Horford and Devin Robinson.

The Canes didn’t get much going offensively in the first half as Sheldon McClellan was their leading scorer with just four points on 2-for-8 shooting.

In the second half, Coach Larranaga changed up his lineup and started James Palmer in the second half over Joe Thomas, in hopes of getting more offensive production. And Palmer responded. The freshman started off the half with 7 quick points and was Miami’s best player during that stretch. He played well defensively and showed a lot of confidence in his first road game of his career.

Palmer finished with 10 points on 4-for-9 shooting.

The freshman pair of Ja’Quan Newton and Palmer really played well and helped Miami hang around for the most part in the game. Newton had some nice alley-oops to McClellan and had a nifty euro step that helped cut the Gators lead to single digits. The freshman from Philadelphia had 5 points in limited minutes.

While Newton and Palmer helped the Canes hang around, Angel Rodriguez came on and took them all the way home.

With 6:47 left to go in the game, Rodriguez hit a three that cut the lead to 9. After a defensive stop, Rodriguez came down the court and pulled up for another three. The shot hit the front rim and bounced up, but then went in. It was the start of the takeover by the Puerto Rican guard.

After a couple of missed possessions, McClellan hit Rodriguez coming off a screen and he then proceeded to hit a three right over the top of Kasey Hill. That three helped the Canes cut the lead to 3 and suddenly, they were right back in it.

Omar Sherman later got into the act of hitting threes and he hit one to cut the lead to 1 with 4:18 left in the game. After 4 Tonye Jekiri free throws, the Canes took a three point lead and they had their first lead of the game with 3:22 left to go in the game.

As good as things were going for the Hurricanes, the Gators answered back.

Jon Horford, who finished the game with 17 points for the Gators, had five consecutive points for the Gators and helped them regain the lead with a little over 2 minutes left to go.

But then, back came Angel.

If you haven’t caught on so far, this was an incredible game and Rodriguez’s performance was ridiculous. So ridiculous that he answered Horford’s five points with a three from the top of the key to give Miami the lead again.

After a Eli Carter layup with 1:03 left to go, Rodriguez had an open look at a three but he missed it. Luckily, Miami came away with the offensive rebound. Following a timeout, everyone knew where the ball was headed but Florida just couldn’t do anything about it. Rodriguez pulled up from way downtown and hit a three while falling down and it splashed in for the Canes with 18 seconds to go.

The best part of that? Eli Carter came down the floor and drove into the lane but was called for an offensive foul. Guess who drew it? Yup. Angel Rodriguez.

A free throw and a miss by Michael Frazier II later, and the Miami Hurricanes start off their season 2-0 after beating a top-10 team in the Florida Gators. And we should all go out to celebrate.

This was a HUGE win for the Hurricanes. It was their toughest test in their non-conference schedule and it’s going to look really nice on their resume come tournament time. Miami was down 15 points at one time and Coach Larranaga switching from man-to-man to a 2-3 zone really changed the game and helped Miami start chipping away at the deficit.

Coach L seems to never disappoint and we’re all lucky to have him.

Florida doesn’t schedule Miami in football anymore, so the Hurricanes decided to take it out on them on the hardwood.