Miami Hurricanes falter down the stretch and fall to Virginia Tech Hokies on Senior Day
Six points in five games.
That’s been the difference between the Miami Hurricanes and Virginia Tech Hokies in their past five men’s basketball games at the regulation buzzer.
That includes Charlie Moore’s miracle half-court buzzer-beating three-pointer to break the hearts of Virginia Tech on Jan. 26.
Exactly one month later, the Hokies exacted cruel revenge, rallying from eight points down in the final 1:42 to defeat Miami, 71-70.
“Losing is painful,” Miami coach Jim Larranaga said. “The way we lost today was even more painful.”
Miami (20-9, 12-6 ACC) lost its second straight home game, finishing 10-5 in its arena this season while falling on Senior Day.
Indeed, the Hurricanes honored seniors Moore, Kameron McGusty, Sam Waardenburg, Deng Gak and Rodney Miller.
But that was before the game.
There were no celebrations after Miami lost a four-point lead with just 25 seconds left.
Among the issues:
▪ McGusty missed the front end of a one-and-one free-throw chance with 2:29 left.
▪ With 44.6 seconds left, Waardenburg — who is 6-11 — allowed Sean Pedulla (10 inches shorter) to hit a floater over him, plus a foul. Pedulla completed the three-point play.
▪ On the ensuing in-bounds play, Moore slipped, and Pedulla picked his pocket. Pedulla flipped to Keve Aluma for an easy dunk, cutting Miami’s lead to 67-66 with 40 seconds left.
▪ The Canes followed with a good play, a run-out to Jordan Miller on a great in-bounds pass by McGusty. But Miller, who made the layup and drew a foul, missed the free throw.
▪ Moore then stole the ball from Pedulla, drawing a foul. But Moore made just 1 of 2 free throws.
▪ With 17 seconds left, Miller was overly aggressive on Pedulla, who spun around the coverage and made a layup, cutting Miami’s lead to 70-68.
▪ With the shot clock off and the Hokies out of timeouts, all Miami had to do was in-bound the ball and make free throws to win. However, McGusty’s in-bound pass was deflected by Hunter Cattoor. The ball bounced over Waardenburg’s hands and right to Darius Maddox, who took a step-back dribble and drained a three-pointer to give Tech a 71-70 lead with 10.3 seconds left.
The irony is that earlier in the game, McGustry embarrassed Cattoor, bouncing the ball of his back on an in-bounds play. That resulted in a McGusty reverse layup.
On the game’s final play, Moore had the ball but fumbled it and then dished to Waardenburg, who missed a desperation three-pointer to end the game.
“I didn’t know how much time there was left when I got the ball,” Waardenburg said. “I didn’t catch it all really.”
Virginia Tech (18-11, 10-8) has won eight of its past nine games. The Hokies have also won four straight road contests. Against Miami, Tech has won three of those past five contentious games. Two of them have gone to overtime.
“It doesn’t surprise me,” McGusty said. “Every time we play them, it comes down to the final seconds.”
McGusty led Miami with 15 points, Isaiah Wong had 14 points, and Moore added 12 points and a game-high nine assists.
Miami shot 50 percent from the floor, including 6-for-16 on three-pointers (38 percent). Miami also had a 15-4 edge on steals, forcing 18 Tech turnovers.
But the Hurricanes were outrebounded 31-22, and they allowed Tech to shoot 22-for-27 (81.5 percent) on two-pointers.
In addition, those four potential points on free throws that Miami missed out on — plus those two turnovers — proved crucial in the final two-plus minutes.
With Miami preparing to play at Boston College on Wednesday and at Syracuse next Saturday, McGusty was philosophical when asked about his team’s psyche.
“What happened tonight, we’ve been on the other side of that,” he said. “We’ve hit the winning shot and been happy.
“Fifteen years from now, we’re all going to still be in contact. We’ve grown so close. Everybody was in our locker room [after this game] saying, ‘Keep your head up.’ We still have two more [regular-season] games and then the ACC Tournament.”