UM basketball teams back in ACC action this week. Here’s what you need to know
The University of Miami basketball teams were on a roll in mid-December, the men on a five-game win streak and the women on a three-game run. Then the Omicron cloud rolled in.
Coach Katie Meier’s team had a few players test positive and was forced to postpone games against No. 15 Duke and North Florida. The men’s team hasn’t had any cases of yet, but the new COVID variant led coaches to change their players’ holiday travel schedule and tighten practice protocols.
Both UM teams will try to stay COVID-free and continue their winning runs this week as ACC play resumes. The men (9-3 overall, 1-0 ACC) play at home against North Carolina State (7-5, 0-1) on Wednesday at 9 p.m. (ESPNU). The women (7-3) are on the road against Virginia (3-8) on Sunday.
“It’s really hard, some of our players were quarantined and could not go home [for the holiday break],” Meier said. “Physically everybody’s going to be just fine, but emotionally and mentally nobody was ready for another year of rescheduling, who are we playing, games postponed, forfeits, canceled, are we playing this opponent or not?
“We were coming off an 86-point performance (against Robert Morris), playing great, we’re rolling, ready to start the ACC, fired up, got through finals and right when we had a chance to ramp it up, we got shut down.”
Meier and Larranaga hope the disruptions won’t be as severe as last year because of new CDC and ACC recommendations reducing the quarantine days to five instead of 10 in asymptomatic cases.
The last time the UM men played on Dec. 20, they beat Stetson 82-72 and had a huge performance from Kam McGusty, who scored 27 points on 9-of-12 shooting, including 6-of-8 from beyond the arc. Larranaga said McGusty is playing with “supreme confidence” this season. Point guard Charlie Moore added nine points and a season-best eight assists. The Hurricanes combined for 20 assists.
Larranaga is hoping for similar unselfishness and tenacious defense against the Wolfpack, which has four players averaging double figures. Dereon Seabron (19 ppg), 10.3 rpg) is the ACC’s leading rebounder and third-leading scorer.
“N.C. State is loaded with offensive talent,” Larranaga said. “Seabron is a super talent in the ACC and nationally. He’s going to be in consideration for player of the year, but he has a lot of help. The freshman (Terquavian) Smith is on fire. I think we match up well with them, hopefully we’ll defend and rebound well and share the ball like we did in our previous five games.”
The men’s team plays again at home on New Year’s Day at 6 p.m. against Wake Forest, which at 11-1 is tied with Duke for the best record in the ACC. Miami’s 9-3 record is third best in the league.
This story was originally published December 28, 2021 at 4:04 PM.