Miami Hurricanes Basketball: Miami Stifled by Virginia, Fall 73-68 in ACC Tourney Semifinals

No team gets a practice run at testing the waters of the NCAA Tournament experience, but for the Miami Hurricanes on Friday night, they got pretty close.

Going against a red-hot Virginia Cavaliers team back by thousands of orange and blue clad fans, Miami fell 73-68 in the ACC Tournament Semifinals ending their run in conference play.

“They earned the win,” Larranaga said of Virginia’s 73-68 win over the Canes. “I thought they executed their game plan very well and Malcolm Brogdon is just a sensational college player who had another great game tonight.”

The Cavaliers and Brogdon got off to a hot start in front of the thousands of Virginia faithful at the Verizon Center as Virginia’s star and London Perrantes hit back-to-back three-pointers. After just 4:59, Miami trailed 10-2 and looked like a team that was playing its second game in as many days while Virginia did not.

“We were really anxious to start the game,” Larranaga said. “We didn’t do the things we planned on doing. We dug ourselves a quick hole and we were down big early on.”

After the sluggish start, the Hurricanes got an unexpected boost from Ivan Cruz Uceda. The 6’11” Spaniard didn’t play a single minute against Virginia Tech, but showed no signs of rust as he hit two three-pointers and scored eight points in six minutes off the bench.

While the Canes had finally made inroads against the rugged Virginia defense, Brogdon and the Cavaliers continued to score the ball efficiently and kept an eight point lead. After Tony Bennett’s squad extended their lead to 31-21, it was another bench player, Ja’Quan Newton, that began to inch Miami back into the game.

The sophomore point guard was the only Hurricane that consistently drove to the hole and he was rewarded with 11 first half points. Six of those came in the last three minutes and Miami went on a 6-0 run to end the half only down 36-31.

After the break, the Hurricanes were able to cut the deficit to three as Angel Rodriguez scored his first points of the game with 15:21 remaining. The redshirt senior followed with a three-pointer just a few possessions later and the Canes took all the momentum in a oddly silent Verizon Center.

Boosted by their point guard’s resurgence, Miami continued to stick around in the game that was plagued by over-officiating and touchy fouls. After Darius Thompson knocked down a free throw to make it a 53-47 game though, the Cavaliers kicked it into gear and the Hurricanes just couldn’t recover.

Virginia began to clamp down on defense as the pace slowed exactly how they like it and they jumped out to a 59-49 lead with 6:13 left in the game. Behind a roaring crowd that made it feel essentially like a Cavaliers home game, the No. 2 seed extended their lead to 63-50 with only 3:10 left.

Miami made it interesting late as they started to knock down shots and Virginia missed plenty of opportunities at the free throw line, but the deficit was just too much to overcome as the Canes fell 73-68.

Virginia certainly earned the victory and their place in the ACC Tournament Final, but Miami cost themselves with unforced errors and an uncharacteristically high amount of turnovers. While it wasn’t a season-high, the Hurricanes finished with 16 turnovers and as good as the Cavaliers are, no team can get away with that many mistakes.

“We were just trying to make passes that really weren’t there,” Sheldon McClellan said of the team’s turnover issues. “Against a team like Virginia, you have to move the ball quicker than you do against other teams and we just tried to make plays that weren’t there tonight.”

While this game certainly didn’t end the way the Hurricanes would have desired, it was tremendous preparation for the real tournament that begins in less than a week. They faced a hostile environment in a pressure-packed game and were able to realize that when you get to March, carelessness and mistakes can result in the end of the season.

There were positives like Ja’Quan Newton’s 19 points and Miami’s fight until the final seconds, but the Hurricanes have to learn from this game what it will take for them to reach the pinnacle of college basketball in March and April.

Miami won’t enter the real important tournament for another five or six days, but they got their first taste of what March Madness feels like Friday night in the ACC Tournament. Now the real fun begins.