Miami Hurricanes Basketball: Lawrence’s Career-High 18 Points Leads Miami Past Notre Dame

The first Wednesday of every February is known as National Signing Day and the end of football recruiting across the country. This year though, the biggest pickup for the Miami Hurricanes athletic program wasn’t a prized recruit from the gridiron, it was another quality victory on the hardwood and a spectacular performance from an unexpected source.

Behind a career-high 18 points from freshman Amp Lawrence, the Canes eased to a 79-70 victory over Notre Dame and improved to 17-4 on the season.

Coming into the game, the 6’7” forward from St. Petersburg, Fla. was averaging just 3.8 points a game and was finding playing time quite hard to come by in ACC play. Despite those lack of minutes, Amp entered the game with 12:32 against the Fighting Irish Wednesday night and looked like one of the best players in the country .

Just a few seconds after entering the game, Lawrence nailed a three-pointer to give the Canes a 16-15 lead with 11:40 left in the half. Despite being a solid, but not spectacular shooter from deep, the freshman just couldn’t miss from the outside.  Lawrence hit two more three-pointers in the half and finished with 11 points on 3-of-3 shooting from deep.

While the freshman was impressive scoring the basketball, the team’s defense led the way. The Fighting Irish came into the game as the No. 2 offense according to KenPom and had four players who averaged at least 11.7 points a game, but after perhaps their worst performance of the season, Miami wasn’t going to get run all over on again.

Besides Bonzie Colson’s 13 first half points, the Notre Dame offense was stifled and their two biggest threats Demetrius Jackson and Zach Auguste were held to just four combined points as Miami took a 45-33 to the break.

In the second half, the formula was almost identical.

With Lawrence starting in the second half in place of Murphy, the freshman looked the most confident player on the court and continued to poor it in from deep.

“I had been playing well all week in practice and once I saw that first one go down tonight I had the confidence and just kept shooting,” Lawrence said of his hot shooting against the Irish. “My teammates kept finding me in open spots and I was just knocking down shots.”

With Lawrence giving the Canes a shot in the arm, Miami was almost unstoppable with its’ usual set of stars putting in a solid performance as well. Throughout the second half, Notre Dame never got close and despite losing by just nine to the Canes, the victory was far more comprehensive than that.

“You have to give credit to Miami, I thought they played great,” Notre Dame coach Mike Brey said after the game. “The physicality and the seniority of the Miami group was just too much for us to deal with tonight.”

While the victory was a big one for this Miami team looking to beef up its’ tournament resume, no one could stop talking about the performance from Amp Lawrence Jr., especially after his lack of playing time over the last few games.

“I’m very, very proud of Amp [Lawrence Jr.],” Coach Jim Larranaga said. “There was a period when he wasn’t playing much, but in the last few practices he was terrific and he got rewarded for that.”

To put Lawrence’s career-high 18 points and four three-pointers in perspective, the freshman had scored just six points in the last ten games and had made eight three-pointers all season. For a young player to put in that type of performance after struggling to get minutes shows a lot about his character, and his teammates have seen that.

“The thing I like about [Amp] is whether he plays or not, you won’t see a difference in his body language or how he carries himself,” Angel Rodriguez said of the freshman. “He hasn’t been playing much, but he proved tonight that when given the opportunity, he’s ready to perform.

Now, Lawrence hasn’t made much of an impact of late, but across many recruiting sites the freshman from St. Pete fell somewhere into the Top 100 prospects. This kid is capable of big things and while he may not be the lead-man this season, he showed tonight that’s he can certainly give this team quality minutes down the stretch.

All around the country and all around Miami, fans waited around their TV’s and computers to see the pickups the Hurricanes could make on signing day. While they weren’t pulling in recruits like the football team, the Canes basketball team picked up what they needed most, a quality win and a confidence-boosting performance from a freshman. Sounds like a few good pickups to me.