Miami Basketball Wins Exhibition Opener 106-79
The Miami Basketball team won its exhibition opener 106-79 over Division II Newbury on Wednesday night. Sophomore guard D.J. Vasiljevic led Miami with 30 points.
Vasiljevic and his backcourt mate Bruce Brown led Jim Larranaga’s Miami basketball team. Brown added 19 points as they combined for nearly half of Miami’s points. The Hurricanes backcourt tandem combined to make 18-25 shots from the floor in the victory.
Newbury presents a challenge with a very uptempo pace. Vasiljevic was efficient with his 30 points. He was 10-14 from the floor and 8-11 on threes. Brown picked up where he left off last season with another all-around game. He made eight of 11 from the floor and three of his five threes. He also added eight assists and five steals.
Any exhibition against a sub Division I team has to be taken with a grain of salt. Sophomore Dewan Huell’s performance was encouraging, however. Huell is being counted on to be Miami Basketball’s best player in the frontcourt this season. He averaged only 5.8 points per game and 3.1 rebounds per game last season.
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Huell finished with 12 points, five rebounds and three blocks in the victory against Newbury. Vasiljevic, Brown and Huell were the only three Hurricanes in double figures.
Freshman Lonnie Walker who was playing in his first game coming off a torn meniscus in July played 17 minutes. He finished with eight points, four rebounds, four assists and three steals on four of seven shooting.
Junior backup Center Ebuka Izundu also played well. Izundu should challenge Huell and Junior Anthony Lawrence for playing time and a chance to start up front for the Miami basketball team. He had nine points and two rebounds on three of four from the floor.
Lawrence finished the night with six points, six rebounds and eight assists. Lawrence started with Huell up front.
Walker’s classmate Chris Lykes struggled. He finished with just five points on two of eight from the floor and one of four made three-point field goals. He also had four turnovers and fouled out.
The points were the most Vasiljevic has scored in his career. He spoke about his performance after the game.,
"“It’s the game we needed as a team…They play a different style of tempo, so it give us a lot of conditioning, a lot of running, we just needed to get the cobwebs out and we did that, so now it’s time for the season opener.”"
Larranaga echoed what Vasiljevic said:
"“Just what the doctor ordered…They’re a team that played very hard and pressured us and forced us into a lot of mistakes. It’s something we’ve been working on, but obviously we have a lot of work ahead of us.I thought that the first group did a great job. DJ got us off to a great start. The guys just found him and he buried shots, so we were able to get kind of a commanding lead early in the game. They made a nice run at us and we did a good job of holding them off in the second half.”"
Miami will next play its regular season opener a week from Friday. The Hurricanes will host Gardner-Webb at the Watsco Center.