Everything you need to know as 13th-ranked UM men’s basketball team opens season Monday
Two years in a row the University of Miami men’s basketball team began the season unranked and ended up making history, reaching the Elite Eight in 2022 and the Final Four in 2023, both program firsts.
This year, the Hurricanes are finally being taken seriously from the get-go. Miami tips off the 2023-24 season ranked No. 13 in the AP preseason poll and No. 2 in the ACC preseason rankings behind favorite Duke. It is the top preseason projection for UM in school history.
“We have a big target on our backs now,” said returning guard Nijel Pack, the team’s leading scorer last season.
Three starters return from the team that made the unexpected Final Four run, Pack (13.6 ppg.), energetic forward Norchad Omier (13.1 points, 10 rebounds) and sharpshooting guard Wooga Poplar.
The biggest question as the team opens the season Monday at home against New Jersey Institute of Technology is who will fill the void left by the departure of guards Isaiah Wong and Jordan Miller to the NBA?
“You remove Isaiah Wong and Jordan Miller, all of a sudden everything is different,” UM coach Jim Larrañaga said. “That’s our leading scorer and our second-leading scorer. Who’s going to step up? I don’t know. The games will tell how guys really play under game conditions.”
Larranaga said the team’s defense still needs quite a bit of work.
“We’re not where we’re going to need to be defensively in order to compete with the best teams in our league and some of the best teams in the country,” Larrañaga said.
He is also concerned that some of his players are looking too far ahead to the NBA. His message of the day on Thursday was about living in the present. “We don’t want them to look too far down the road and we don’t want them to live in the past, we want them in the present,” he said.
BREAKOUT PLAYER: Wooga Poplar
Anybody who has been around the UM basketball program the past few years knows that no player spends more time practicing his shot than Poplar.
“He’s fantastic,” Larrañaga said of the junior guard. “He’s got this year and one more, but I’m not sure we’ll be able to hold onto him. He’s definitely an NBA prospect.”
NBA scouts have been showing up to the Hurricanes’ preseason practices, and Poplar is one of the players they are focusing on. He has been honing his defensive skills. Larranaga compares him to former UM guard Bruce Brown, who is now in the NBA.
But it is Poplar’s pull-up jumper that Larrañaga is raving about most, calling him “maybe the best pull-up jump shooter in the country.” He scored 31 points in a recent scrimmage, many of those off midrange jumpers.
“His pull up jump shot is as good as any in the NBA,” Larrañaga said. “I’ve been around a lot of players. A lot of guys don’t have a mid-range game. He does.”
Guard Bensley Joseph, the team’s vocal leader, predicts Wooga will be “off the charts” this season.
From the moment Poplar arrived on campus from Philadelphia, Larrañaga has been urging him to use his pull-up jumper as a weapon. He is finally listening.
“He’s gotten older, a little more physically and mentally mature, emotionally mature,” Larrañaga said. “And understanding what I was saying. Last year at this time, every time he shot a pull up jump shot I cheered for him, was like `Yeah, that’s what you should be looking for.’ And then there would be days he didn’t shoot any. I might text him and say, `You passed up pull up jumpers to shoot layups. No, you got to get better at pull up jump shots and now he’s as good as it gets.”
TRANSFER: Matt Cleveland
Former FSU guard Cleveland, who broke the Hurricanes’ hearts last season with a game-winner at the buzzer, was so high on UM’s list that assistant coach Bill Courtney urged Larrañaga to visit Cleveland in Tallahassee, at a restaurant across the street from the FSU campus. Courtney and Larrañaga visited twice, and Cleveland was sold.
The junior said he was drawn to Miami by the program’s success with transfers and postseason runs.
Larrañaga has asked him to work on his efficiency.
“Matt has so many skills, and we’re going to ask him to use all of them,” the coach said. “You might see him handle the ball in the fast break, shoot some threes, he’s very, very fast in the open court and can get layups, and he’s a very good defensive rebounder.”
Cleveland was the team’s third-leading rebounder in the preseason, behind Omier and 6-10 freshman Michael Nwoku.
“Matt is going to be a big factor for us,” said Joseph. “He’s been in the ACC, so he knows what to expect from every team we play and he’s willing to lay it on the court.”
FRESHMEN: Kyshawn George and Michael Nwoku
George, who is 6-8 and looks even taller with his tall mop of curls, was born in Switzerland and spent the past few years playing in a second-tier professional league in France, where he faced “men in their 30s and 40s, many with kids and families,” he said. That experience is already showing in the preseason as he is adapting quickly to the college game.
It also helps that his father, Deon George, played at St. Francis (Pa.) and played pro in Europe.
Nwoku, 6-10, is a Canadian center who impressed on the AAU circuit and is a ferocious dunker. His biggest challenge: “Getting used to the speed of the game,” he said. “It definitely caught me off guard.”
PROJECTED STARTING LINEUP: Omier, Pack, Poplar, Joseph, Cleveland.
MUST-SEE GAMES: Nov. 10 vs. UCF (Final Four banner will be raised). Nov. 13 vs. FIU (crosstown rivalries are always fun). Dec. 2 at Kentucky (ACC/SEC Challenge). Jan. 17 vs. FSU (Matt Cleveland vs. his former team). Feb. 5 at Virginia. Feb. 10 vs. North Carolina. Feb. 21 vs. Duke (ranked No. 2 in AP preseason poll). Feb. 26 at North Carolina. Mar. 9 at FSU.
This story was originally published November 2, 2023 at 2:57 PM.