Miami wants ‘identity’ to be defense. It’ll determine whether UM can make Tournament push
The Miami Hurricanes have found their “identity,” Kameron McGusty said Monday, and it isn’t necessarily what outsiders might expect.
With non-conference play complete and Miami riding its longest winning streak since 2019, the Hurricanes have a legitimately good offense and still an oft-porous defense, yet their defense is why they have faith they can make a real run at the 2022 NCAA Tournament.
“Our defense has improved,” coach Jim Larranaga said Monday, not many caveats necessary.
The offense, led by three dynamic guards in the backcourt, has been good all year long, even averaging 73.3 points per game while Miami (9-3, 1-0 Atlantic Coast) was dropping three of its first seven. The defense was awful then — allowing 74.6 points per game — and better now.
On this five-game winning streak, the Hurricanes are averaging 74.6 points per game and allowing 66.0. They have a conference win against the Clemson Tigers and beat the Penn State Nittany Lions in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge. They go into the meat of ACC play as a top 100 team, according to KenPom.com, with the No. 54 offense in the nation and No. 164 defense, in terms of adjusted efficiency.
The most obvious aspect of their identity is their efficient offense. They needed better defense to make it work, and they’ve been heading in the right direction since a pair of ugly losses to the Dayton Flyers and then-No. 10 Alabama Crimson Tide at the ESPN Events Invitational.
“We kind of got beat up a little bit, but, at the same time, we needed that,” McGusty said Monday. “That helped us a lot. I’m a big believer in we don’t lose games. We take it as a lesson. I don’t take L’s personally. None of our teammates do. We don’t address it as a loss. We take it as a lesson, so I think that’s something we’ve taken head on and we’ve embraced.”
The big lessons came on defense.
Against Alabama, Miami only trailed by three at halftime, then gave up 63 in the second half to get blown out in Kissimmee. Three days later, the Hurricanes beat Penn State in State College, Pennsylvania, despite only scoring 63 points.
It taught the Hurricanes, McGusty said, that their identity had to be on “the defensive end, realizing that we need to lock in a little more there.”
There’s still a long way to go, of course, and Monday provided a reminder, as Miami could never quite bury the Stetson Hatters and had to settle for a not-as-close-as-the-score indicated 82-72 win in Coral Gables.
Stetson stayed alive by going 13 of 26 from three-point range and shooting 49.1 percent from the field. It was a setback for the Hurricanes’ defense, but also an excuse for another lesson.
“They used a lot of ball screens,” Larranaga said, “and we didn’t help off of the ball screen nearly as much as we need to.”
The offense is trending in the right direction, too, and players chalk much of the across-the-board turnaround up to the chemistry they’ve had to build on the fly.
McGusty and star shooting guard Isaiah Wong are the only two starters who suited up for Miami last year. Fellow guards Charlie Moore and Jordan Miller are both transfers, and forward Sam Waardenburg missed all of last season with an injury.
Of the four bench players the Hurricanes used Monday, two are true freshmen. This was always going to be a team that had to improve as the year went on.
Right now, Miami is showing signs of it.
“I feel like we’ve improved a lot,” Moore said Monday. “It’s a lot of people’s first year here at the University of Miami playing as a team. At the beginning of the season, we were still trying to get our chemistry together, learning how to play with each other and over these last couple games and games that we’ve played have helped us improve.”
