Miami Hurricanes Basketball: Six Thoughts On Miami’s Start

As many people expected, the Miami Hurricanes won their first two games and will head to Puerto Rico with a chance to make a national statement.

While both opponents can’t be labeled as world-beaters, there are certainly a lot of positives to take into this weekend especially considering all the upsets and chaos around college basketball.

Before we approach perhaps the Hurricanes biggest and most important non-conference stretch, we’ll first take a look back at my six thoughts from Miami’s first two games.

1. Angel Rodriguez has looked much more composed.

When analyzing Angel Rodriguez in the first two games, it’s easy to dispute this thought if you just looked at the box scores.

Yes, he had 18 points, five rebounds and four assists on Monday, but what about Friday’s game with just five points on 2-of-10 shooting? Well, if you’ve watched him closely these two games, I think we’ve seen a Rodriguez that is more selective and more inclined to dish it in tough situations.

Even in the season opener, the redshirt senior was generally taking good shots, they just weren’t falling. The same goes for his assist total that night which hit seven, but could have gone well into double-digits if not for a cold shooting streak in the first half.

On Monday night, his stats actually reflected how well he’s played so far.

Rodriguez only shot 4-of-11 from the field, but was 2-of-6 from three-point range and 8-of-11 from the free throw line. Now I know 2-of-6 might not sound that good, but last year at times that attempts number would continue to rise because of the pressure he felt to try and carry the team. This year though, that is long gone.

Whether it is the coaching staff or just his basketball IQ, I think Rodriguez now knows he can rely on the tremendous talent around him if he’s not having a good night.  He can kick to the open man if he’s slightly contested or look for the dribble-drive but dish it if he runs into trouble in the paint.

When Rodriguez isn’t forcing, this offense is so much more efficient and you saw that against Louisiana-Lafayette on Monday night.

As he heads home to Puerto Rico to play in front of family and friends, let’s hope this continues on as the opponent talent level increases.

2. Miami’s balance on offense has been their biggest weapon thus far.

In both games thus far there has been one common theme, balanced scoring.

Last Friday, five Hurricanes finished the game with double figures in scoring while six finished with double figures on Monday. In addition, no player has attempted more than 11 field goals in either game to start the season.  If that isn’t balance, I don’t know what is.

As we just talked about with Rodriguez, this team has to know that there are so many scoring options on this team that each player can be trusted to score if the team needs it.

Last year, the scoring basically fell on Rodriguez and McClellan and if opponents could clamp down on those two, it was lights out for the Canes.  This year, you have nine players as of now that have shown they can score the basketball.  For any team no matter how talented, that’s impossible to prepare for and defend.

Besides the number of players that can score, they have also shown they can put up points in many different ways. Almost every one of these guys besides Tonye Jekiri can shoot threes and even Jekiri can hit a long jumper as he showed Monday night. Then they also have shown an ability to deal with contact on the inside and finish around the rim.

With so much versatility and so many options, this Hurricanes team is going to be difficult to guard and as the Ragin’ Cajuns found out on Monday, they are impossible to guard when they are hitting their threes.

3. Davon Reed is this team’s unsung hero.

He doesn’t get the spotlight like an Angel Rodriguez or Sheldon McClellan, but Davon Reed is so crucial to this Miami Hurricanes squad.

In the first two games, the junior from Ewing, NJ has averaged 16.5 PPG and has been the leader on the defensive end as well. No matter what the Canes will need going forward, Reed will certainly be able to deliver.

Even if Reed’s scoring production drops a bit as the season goes on, his value reaches much farther than points.

Last season, Reed’s “left lower extremity” injury limited him for the beginning part of his season in December and January and it likely took him longer than that to get fully settled in. You could tell last year that we weren’t seeing the real Davon Reed, but maybe with much of the attention and defensive focus heading towards Rodriguez and McClellan, the junior could put up some serious numbers this year.

If he’s as efficient as he was Monday night when he shot 6-of-8 from the field including 4-of-5 from three and a nasty dunk, he might get into that spotlight as the season wears on.

4. If Lawrence can play like he did Monday, watch out.

He probably didn’t have the type of debut he would have liked, but his second showing might have made up for that.

After looking a bit nervous last Friday night, Anthony Lawrence Jr. came back with a bang on Monday as he finished with 12 points, six rebounds and four assists against Louisiana-Lafayette.

The improvement is obvious especially after totaling just one point and two rebounds in the first game, but just watching his decision-making for a freshman was impressive to watch.

The 6’7” forward is such a mismatch for defenses as well because of his solid shooting ability. If you rush out to defend him on the perimeter where he’s clearly a threat, he’ll just drive past you and then is physical enough and has enough athleticism to either lay it up or even jam on you.

After Monday’s game Coach Jim Larranaga said, “”Amp” is someone we can trust.”  To me, that sounds like a real ringing endorsement that should certainly pay dividends as we move on in the season.

Lawrence won’t have the safe confines of the BUC to lean back on in Puerto Rico, but maybe there we can see him blossom and continue to build off of Monday’s performance.

5. The Canes need Kamari Murphy back.

Maybe the only real negative from this early going is Miami’s interior play and specifically the defense. Tonye Jekri hasn’t had the first two games Larranaga would have hoped for, but the seven-footer has found himself in foul trouble in both games.

When Jekiri has been forced to leave the game, the first two opponents have poked a real hole in Miami’s defense with no true threat to stop them inside. Maybe eventually that could be Ebuka Izundu, but for the moment, the Hurricanes need Kamari Murphy back to be that guy.

Hopefully for the Canes it won’t cost them as Murphy will miss just one more game against Mississippi St. and currently the Bulldogs are coming off a loss to Souther University and play a guard-heavy lineup. As we get closer to the ACC, but even later in this Puerto Rico Tip-Off, Larranaga is going to need more than just Jekiri to hold his own in the post and on the glass.

Potential NBA prospect Shawn Long had 21 points and 13 rebounds on Monday night, but again that’s a player that is likely to get drafted next June.  Even in the opener though the two UT-Rio Grande Valley big men combined for 28 points and 11 rebounds.

Miami might get away with no consequences from Murphy’s three-game suspension, but there is no doubt the Canes need him back as quickly as they can get him.

6. It’s still early, but the Hurricanes look to have gotten that inconsistency from last year out of their system.

The Miami Hurricanes know why they missed the NCAA Tournament last year and this year they will do anything to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

The whole “trap game” idea comes when you aren’t at your highest levels of concentration and are playing a worse opponent, but early on the Canes have said again and again how much the ups and downs of last year hurt. So far they are backing that up.

UT-Rio Grande Valley is a first-year team and it was unclear what was to be expected from them. While the Canes struggled mightily in the first half, they came out with everything they had in the second half.

On Monday in a real impressive performance, the Hurricanes easily dispatched a team with an NBA prospect and a team that many think will come out of the Sun Belt Conference and make an NCAA Tournament appearance this year.

We will have to see if this continues, but I think those crazy losses against the likes of Eastern Kentucky, Georgia Tech and Wake Forest really left a mark on this team.  They’ve made it a point to talk about how it won’t happen again this year and right now, how could you doubt that.

After Puerto Rico, the Canes could be favored in every non-conference game the rest of the way. Theoretically, you could say that they should win every game, but anyone that watches college basketball knows that’s hard to do. If the canto through this run unscathed, you’ll know this is a changed team.  They will pick up a bad loss along the way because it happens to 99.9% of teams in college basketball. What’s important though is making sure it’s just a loss and not losses.