For any team no matter how talented or highly-ranked, the season opener can always be tricky. For the Miami Hurricanes on Friday night vs. Texas-Rio Grande Valley, that was exactly the case.
Against a school playing their first competitive game, the Canes pulled out a 86-59 victory behind 18 points from Sheldon McClellan and a second half barrage of three-pointers. While the game ended in a lopsided scoreline, it wasn’t always that comfortable for Coach Larranaga’s talented squad.
With the announcement that transfer Kamari Murphy had been suspended for three games due to his violation of team rules, it seemed more than ever the Canes would have to rely on the three-point ball. Unfortunately for the Hurricanes, they just couldn’t buy a bucket from the outside to start the game.
With shots not falling, the Hurricanes began to overpass and as the half wore on, the sloppiness and forced shots became even more prevalent.
If it weren’t for the scoring ability of McClellan or an aggressive driving mentality that led to 12 first half free-throws, the Canes might have actually found themselves in some trouble against the Vaqueros.
“We are going to make the emphasis to get to the free-throw line every night,” Coach Larranaga said. “With the way the officials have been told to call the game we want to keep attacking and get to the foul-line as much as we can.”
Even with the aggressive Canes cashing in on the free-throw stripe, shooting 11-of-12, the team continued to attempt three-pointers and finished the half at an ugly 1-of-11 with just a 28-20 lead.
While the story of the first half was Miami’s struggles from behind the arc, the story of the second half was completely the opposite.
With all the opening game nerves out of the way, the Canes began a barrage of threes that absolutely overwhelmed UT-Rio Grande Valley. The ball movement that ultimately came up empty in the first half was now producing results, and the Canes used nine second half three-pointers to pull away from the resilient Vaqueros.
“I think early it was just those first game jitters,” McClellan said of the team’s early struggles. “In the second half though we settled in, got more comfortable on both ends of the court and it was just a matter of breaking ourselves in for this new season.”
Perhaps one of the biggest, but not surprising takeaways from the second half was the play of Ivan Cruz Uceda who finished with 16 points. Now we know he can shoot and he certainly displayed that tonight, but overall I think the Spaniard fit fairly well in the offense. Shooting 5-of-9 overall and 4-of-7 from three-point range, the 6’11” forward put the first step forward in a battle with Kamari Murphy for the starting power forward spot.
Although Cruz Uceda only managed two free throws on the night, I was extremely impressed with how Miami as a whole really took it in aggressively on the inside. Even against a team like Texas-Rio Grande Valley, getting to the line 33 times in one game and making 24 of them is a pretty big accomplishment.
While it was against a “weaker” opponent, the Hurricanes also displayed a balanced scoring attack that saw five Miami players reach double-digit scoring with Davon Reed chipping in with 14 points and James Palmer and Ja’Quan Newton finishing with 11 points each, adding to McClellan and Cruz Uceda’s efforts.
After the game though, while many fans and even the coaches privately may admit it was a fairly easy opponent, the Hurricanes reinforced that this year they won’t overlook any team no matter the circumstances.
“We didn’t look at this game as one against a “easy” opponent like we did sometimes last year,” McClellan said after the game. “We look at every game like it’s a big game and if we continue to improve defensively, everything will take care of itself.”
Overall, there’s not much more you can ask of a team on opening night. No, it wasn’t the prettiest game you’ll see all season, but it’s good to get that first win under your belt. Now with a tough Louisiana-Lafayette squad coming into town Monday night, the Canes will have to refocus and hope they can eliminate those first half shooting woes.
While it was a bit tricky, the Hurricanes did their job and to start any season, that’s all that matters.