Miami basketball should have elite 2024-25 perimeter with Nijel Pack return

The Miami basketball team should have an elite backcourt in 2024-25 with Nijel Pack announcing Thursday he is returning to the Hurricanes next season. Miami signed five-star Jahlil Bethea and four-star perimeter shooter Austin Swartz in the 2024 class. Bethea and Swartz should take pressure off of Pack in the backcourt.

Pack is the first key player for Miami returning off the 2023–24 roster. Guards Kyshawn George and Wooga Poplar and forwards Matthew Cleveland and Norchad Omier have yet to decide if they will return to Miami next season. George is a projected NBA first-round pick. Poplar is a potential late-first or early-second NBA Draft pick.

Cleveland and Omier are not projected to be NBA Draft picks but could play professionally overseas, enter the transfer portal, or return to Miami. Five Miami players entered the transfer portal after the Hurricanes' season ended. Guard Bensley Joseph is the most significant Miami transfer.

Pack averaged 13.1 points per game, but had the lowest outputs of his career, shooting 39.8 percent from the floor, 35.3 percent on three-point attempts and 77.6 percent from the free throw line. A knee injury caused Pack to miss eight games this season. Pack struggled at the end of the season when he did play.

Miami finished the season with 10 straight losses. Pack scored 18 points on 7-16 from the floor and 3-7 on three-point attempts in the season-ending loss to Boston College. Pack was held scoreless in his last two regular-season games and had two in an early February loss at Virginia.

After February 3, Pack played in only seven games. George, Joseph and Poplar were the primary guards for Miami with Pack out. Pack should be expected to return to the form he exhibited during the 2022-23 season when he was named the Midwest Region's Most Outstanding Player as Miami reached the Final Four.