Miami Hurricanes Basketball: Barber Dominates as Miami Falls 85-69 at NC State

A ranked team lost on the road in conference play. No it’s the end of the world, it’s just college basketball.

Despite 18 points from Sheldon McClellan and another solid showing from Angel Rodriguez, Cat Barber’s 30 points were too much as NC State pulled off an 85-69 upset victory over Miami. The Hurricanes came in on a nice little three-game winning streak, but against the sputtering Wolfpack desperate to get their season back on track, Miami couldn’t compete.

Early on, the game was a shootout as both teams came out firing and finishing on almost every attempt. Just 4:43 into the game, both teams had combined for 19 points as the Wolfpack led 10-9.

After that furious scoring pace to start the game, both teams clamped down on defense until McClellan began his own one-on-one duel with NC State forward Caleb Martin. With only 4:47 left in the first half, Miami’s star shooting guard had been shut down, but after an alley-oop from Ja’Quan Newton, the redshirt senior and Martin both traded consecutive three pointers and the Wolfpack led was cut to 31-27.

Martin was real solid for NC State with seven first half points, but it was the Wolfpack’s main threat and the ACC’s top scorer Cat Barber that led the way. The 6’2” point guard showed why he goes by “Cat” as Miami couldn’t contain his quickness on the offensive end. In the first half alone, Barber finished with 14 points and took his team to the break with a 37-32 lead.

Despite Barber being phenomenal, the Hurricanes real disadvantage came at the free-throw line. Miami only shot three percent worse than the Wolfpack from the field, but the home team was 9-of-13 from the charity stripe while the Canes were kept completely off the line.

In the second half, the Hurricanes kept it tight for awhile as McClellan and Rodriguez tried to will their team to victory, but as Barber, Martin and Abdul-Malik Abu continued to pour it in, there was nothing the Canes could do.

With 4:33 left, Davon Reed hit a corner three to cut the NC State lead to 64-59, but as the whole second half went, the Wolfpack wouldn’t let Miami get close enough to take the lead. Barber finished with 16 second half points and with the help of some late free throws, NC State pulled away for the 85-69 victory.

Now, don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t a good loss, but in college basketball, teams just have to deal with these kinds of games. Especially this year if you look at almost any team in the country, they’ll have a bad loss or two both at home and on the road. For this Miami team it’s a bit of a troubling sign to see the inconsistency in performances, but they could have also lost those games against Boston College and Wake Forest and have been in an even worse position.

Sure this loss looks bad on its’ own, but consider the fact Miami is 16-4 after 20 games. You can also look back at that 2012-13 team that everyone raves about and see a similar set of bad losses. At No. 93 Florida Gulf Coast, versus No. 97 Indiana St., at No. 134 Wake Forest and home to No. 102 Georgia Tech (KenPom rankings). That Miami team was as talented as they get, yet they had four really bad losses over the course of their amazing season. That just happens in college basketball.

In the ACC, you can’t lick your wounds and feel sorry for yourself because the losses will then start piling up. In their next game at home against Notre Dame, the Hurricanes can get right back on track with a victory. Knowing this team and how they show up in big games, I’d expect a pretty strong effort come Wednesday night.

This loss may hurt their chances at winning the ACC regular season title and while that may have been a goal, I don’t know if this result even matters with the way North Carolina is playing this season.

Don’t get me wrong, this loss is going to probably make a mark come Selection Sunday. Life on the road in conference play is tough though and a lot of times it’ll punish you during the season, but in college basketball, it’s certainly not the end of the world.