Miami Hurricanes Basketball: Lineup Options For Canes Hoops After Omar Sherman’s Transfer

Late Sunday night, Canes Hoops announced that sophomore forward Omar Sherman will not be returning and will seek a transfer, effective immediately.

Sherman had been rumored to be on the way out, but the timing (school starts today), is a bit odd. It could’ve been grades related, but I don’t want to speculate anything until I know for sure.

With the departure of Sherman, that’s now three Hurricanes players that have decided to leave the team via transfer. You can view this in two ways: they hate Jim Larranaga (I doubt this), or Miami actually has a ton of depth now and they could feel their minutes diminishing.

Now Miami has to move on without one of their stretch-four’s on their roster, but Larranag has enough talent to play around this.

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Miami will start Kamari Murphy at the four this season, which is an upgrade over Sherman and Ivan Cruz Uceda. Murphy is a guy that can contribute offensively, but he’ll hustle all over the floor and play good defense, which is all Miami really needs from him this season. Cruz Uceda will be the team’s stretch-four this season, or they’ll play him at the center position to give Tonye Jekiri a breather.

While Miami will probably start games with a lineup of Angel Rodriguez/Ja’quan Newton, Sheldon McClellan, Davon Reed, Murphy and Jekiri, the Canes will probably play a healthy dose of small ball.

During the last five games last season, Miami’s third most used lineup (according to KenPom.com) was a lineup that had Reed at the four. It was Manu Lecomte, Deandre Burnett, McClellan, Reed and Jekiri. With Lecomte and Burnett no longer on the team, those spots will be replaced by Rodriguez, Newton and James Palmer.

Reed is the best all-around player on the roster, in my opinion, but Miami has a pretty skilled guy that shares some of the same skills as Reed; that’s freshman Anthony Lawrence. Lawrence’s role just increased as he’s a quick/powerful guy at 6’7 that can really provide some versatility. He can play anything from the shooting guard spot to the power forward spot.

Versatility seems to be the theme for the Canes this season. Reed can play anything from the 1 to the 4. Uceda can play the 4 or the five. Palmer can play the 2 or the 3, and the guards can play the 1 or 2. That creates a ton of problems for teams to prepare for.

A lineup of Newton, Rodriguez, McClellan, Reed and Jekiri allows Miami to have their most talented four on the roster. Then you have guys like Murphy, Palmer, Lawrence, Ebuka Izundu and Uceda available off the bench. That’s scary.

Larranaga showed no hesitation to play around with the lineups and he’ll have no problem doing that again this season. Miami will play big and they will play small, which just makes them that much more dangerous.

The loss of Sherman hurts Miami a lot in terms of depth, but it has also freed them up to play with some more athletic guys at the four spot. Look for Reed, Lawrence and McClellan to log some minutes at the four spot this season, especially against teams without a dominant big.

Be excited, Canes fans. This is going to be a really good basketball team.