Miami Hurricanes Basketball: Canes Travel to Slumping Virginia Looking For 3-0 ACC Start
By Austin Sapin
The 2014-15 Virginia Cavaliers were a juggernaut. An ACC Regular Season Title, a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament and a 30-4 record. It was a year that could only have been improved upon if they had cut the nets down in Indianapolis. But for all that they built last year and with all the hype they brought into this season, the 2015-16 Virginia Cavaliers seem to be a different story.
After losing two straight ACC games at Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech, the 12-3 Cavaliers welcome the 13-1 Miami Hurricanes to Charlottesville Tuesday night looking to get their season back on track.
With a preseason ranking in the Top 5, expectations soared for Tony Bennett’s squad. Those expectations haven’t translated to success on the court so far though, as Virginia’s topsy-turvy year included some impressive wins, but a few odd losses as well. They have beaten Villanova, West Virginia and Cal, but they’ve lost to George Washington and the two Tech’s of the ACC.
In Miami’s last game, I expected a desperate Florida St. squad looking to avoid an 0-3 ACC start at the hands of their rivals, but the Seminoles were extinguished pretty early on. Against a much more talented Virginia team, we might see the best they’ve got come Tuesday night and if that’s the case, we might be in for a thriller like we saw in the last meeting between the two. That thriller ended in a Miami 89-80 defeat in double overtime that handed them their third loss in four game and a whole lot of misery. Well, now it’s Miami’s to turn to dish out that misery.
Perhaps the biggest key to a Miami victory will be shutting down Virginia’s top duo of Malcolm Brogdon and Anthony Gill. The 6-5 Brogdon has been phenomenal in his senior season and looks poised to be selected in the 2016 NBA Draft. The do-it-all guy for the Hoos has averaged 16.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 2.9 assists a game this season and should be a tough matchup for either Sheldon McClellan or Davon Reed. In last season’s game though, the Canes seemed to do a pretty good job on him as he finished with just eight points.
On the interior, 6-8 Anthony Gill is the one to watch for, as the senior has reached double figures in scoring in all 15 games this season. Gill is averaging 15.1 points and 6.1 rebounds a game and should be an interesting matchup against Kamari Murphy and at times, Ivan Cruz Uceda. The Hurricanes might have figured him out last year just like Brogdon though as he finished with just six points in the game last January.
The big threat in that meeting happened to be London Perrantes, who finished with 26 points to lead the Cavaliers. His scoring is up this season and it’ll be important for Angel Rodriguez to at least make an impact on that end so Virginia’s point guard is somewhat neutralized. The matchups all over the court are fascinating and pretty equal across the board.
On Miami’s side, we’ve seen explosions from Sheldon McClellan and Ja’Quan Newton in the second halves of games recently, but Miami will need those types of performances for 40 minutes in a tough environment in Charlottesville.
Despite that tough environment and some real good players, this isn’t last year’s Virginia, this is a new and very-beatable Virginia, now Miami just has to take advantage.