Miami Hurricanes Basketball: Why Kamari Murphy Was Last Year’s Missing Piece

Do you remember how excruciating last year’s Selection Sunday was for the Miami Hurricanes? We all watched as the field of 68 was named one by one and as each school flashed onto the screen, the dagger was pushed in farther and farther as the Canes missed out.

Why didn’t we make it? Maybe it was the losses to some bad teams or not enough quality wins against top opponents, the answer is unclear. What we do know about last year’s team is there was just something missing and in the end, that cost them.

Sure, last year’s team had some serious talent, but they were inconsistent and lacked just a bit of grit when the going got tough. What’s going to change this year you ask?

Enter Kamari Murphy.

The 6’9’’ power forward who transferred a year ago from Oklahoma St. will finally get his chance to step out onto the floor this year in Coral Gables and boy am I glad we have him. After sitting out last season, the Brooklyn, N.Y. native will slot right into the starting lineup, which unlike last year should be pretty consistent.

Whether it was Joe Thomas, Omar Sherman, Ivan Cruz Uceda or even Davon Reed in a small-ball lineup, Coach Larranaga never found a consistent power forward he could really count on to start. With Murphy, that all changes.

In 2013-14 at Oklahoma St., Murphy started the year as just a role player known for his hustle and hard work in a squad full of highly-recruited stars. At the end of the year, Murphy was a consistent starter with all those intangibles plus some solid numbers.

In Big 12 play that season, the 6’9’’ Murphy actually filled in at center despite his smaller size and was still able to put up 6.2 PPG and 8.5 RPG. Those may not seem like staggering numbers, but for a team with future first-round pick Marcus Smart and five-star sophomore LeBryan Nash, Murphy played his role perfectly.

For the Canes, they need exactly what Murphy brings to the table. Sheldon McClellan and Angel Rodriguez are terrific scorers, but at times last year they had no outlet to throw the ball to inside for easy points forcing them to take long shots from the perimeter. Tonye Jekiri has improved massively with his offensive game as well as his rebounding, but he can’t do it all on his own down low.

Both of those issues came up time and time again for the Hurricanes last season, but now there is a remedy with Murphy. The starting power forwards for Coach Larranaga in the 2015 ACC slate averaged 6.2 PPG, but only 2.4 RPG, and that’s just not good enough.

With Murphy he’ll certainly get the numbers that the Miami coaching staff needs him to get, but his biggest impact might be the toughness and leadership that he’ll provide.

There’s obviously nothing you can measure this with, but just hearing his teammates talk about him showed me the respect he’s earned despite not playing a single game yet for Miami.

“I love to play with him. He’s going to do all the dirty things you might not want to do,” Davon Reed said of the Oklahoma St. transfer. “He’s going to play hard, rebound, push the ball up the court for you and get second-chance opportunities. He’s just a great player to play with and you know he’s going to have your back.”

When talking to any player on the team they would echo that exact statement and if you asked me for a realistic player type that the Hurricanes needed last year, that would be my exact definition.

I loved Joe Thomas and he brought great energy and passion to his play, but he was a bit limited offensively with a season-high of seven points last year. Now think of Thomas and add a pretty expansive offensive game and you’ve got yourself Kamari Murphy.

The thing too that I love with Murphy is he has channeled his underdog and ‘myself against the world’ mentality into this team. After the most recent AP Poll left the Canes out of the Top 25, that’s exactly what I would want.

At media day in October Murphy said, “We have a few weeks left until the first game and once that first game comes we’re going to be more than what people expected. All the stuff with preseason rankings, that doesn’t matter because once that first game hits I think they’ll see what our potential is and we’ll only get better from there.”

That is music to my ears.

Think back again to the Canes missing the NCAA Tournament or the horrible call that stole the NIT from them last season against Stanford. Think of that chip on their shoulder coming into this year.

As polls and bracketologists continue to release their preseason rankings and predictions, let them overlook the Canes. Let Coach Larranagas’s squad fly under-the-radar because with Murphy I’ll tell you now Miami fans, this season’s Selection Sunday won’t be quite so excruciating.