Miami basketball moves up two spots in final regular season polls

The Miami basketball team moved up from 16th to 14th in the AP Top 25 and from 15th to 13th in the USA Today Coaches Poll this week. This is the highest Miami has been ranked in the final regular season poll since the Hurricanes were 10th prior to the start of conference tournaments in 2016.

In 2016 the Miami basketball team finished 13-5 in the ACC tied with Virginia for second, one game behind North Carolina. This season Miami and Virginia tied for the ACC Regular season title with 15-5 records. After beating Virginia in December, Miami will be the number-one seed in the ACC Tournament.

The Miami basketball will play its first 2023 ACC Tournament game on Thursday at noon versus the winner of Syracuse and Wake Forest who play on Wednesday. The 13th ranking for Miami in the AP Poll ties for their second-highest this season. Miami was 12th in the poll on January second and 13th on February 20.

Miami received 761 points in the AP Poll this week. Virginia is one spot ahead of Miami in the AP with 791 points. Xavier is 15th with 641 points. Miami received 381 points in the USA Today Coaches Poll. Kansas State with 409 points is 12th in both polls this week. The Wildcats have 409 in the USA Today Coaches Poll.

Connecticut is 14th in the USA Today Coaches Poll with 367 points. The rankings are a good guide to where teams are nationally but are not utilized by the NCAA Tournament committee for the selection of at-large teams or seeding teams. Miami is currently 35th in the NCAA Net Ratings which are partially used by the committee.

Who you defeated and played and when is more important than the net rating. Miami is 6-4 versus quad one opponents this season and 5-0 versus quad two opponents. The Miami loss versus Florida State was a quad four defeat and at Georgia Tech quad three. The ACC quarterfinal will be a quad two or three.

Syracuse is 126th in the Net Ratings and Wake Forest is 91st. The NCAA defines quadrant one as neutral site games versus teams ranked one through 50, quad two as 51-100 and quad three as 101-200. Duke (24), Virginia (30), North Carolina State (41) and North Carolina (49) are the only other ACC teams ranked in the top 50.

Duke is the only one of the ACC teams ranked in the top 50 on the Miami half of the bracket. The Blue Devils will play either Florida State, Georgia Tech, or Pittsburgh in the quarterfinals at 2:30 on Thursday. If Miami can live up to the number one seed in the ACC Tournament it would likely add two more quad one wins to its resume.