UM bounces back with 99-72 win over Elon, all five starters in double figures
The Miami Hurricanes entered Thursday’s home game against Elon inspired and hungry after losing to 10th-ranked Florida four days earlier. They took it out on the Phoenix.
All five starters scored double figures as Miami cruised to a 99-72 victory.
Freshman Shelton Henderson and transfers Tru Washington and Tre Donaldson each scored 18 points. Henderson was 8-of-12 from the field. Washington was 7-of-9 and added a game-high 10 rebounds. Donaldson had a team-high five assists and a crowd-pleasing behind-the-back driving layup.
Malik Reneau, the Indiana transfer, added 17 points, five rebounds and four assists. Freshman and Miami native Dante Allen chipped in 14 points and five rebounds.
“We had to bounce back; we took an L and had to come out fighting,” Washington said. “Teams should be afraid to play us after an L. Hopefully, that’s our last L.”
Henderson added: “We had to forget about that loss quick, our first loss of the season, we had to come out swinging, so that’s what we did, and it showed.”
The Hurricanes shot 54 percent as a team and outscored Elon 54 to 28 in the paint. Miami is averaging 49.6 points in the paint through five games.
“Miami is a well-coached, physical team, obviously very hungry coming off a loss, but I though our guys were up the challenge for a lot of the game,” said Elon coach Billy Taylor. “Their physicality wore us down, which caused some of our rebounding and turnover issues…you don’t see a lot of teams with that kind of size, physicality and speed.”
UM outrebounded Elon 38-22, forced 18 turnovers, and scored 25 points off those turnovers.
Miami coach Jai Lucas was pleased to see his team recover and learn lessons from the Florida loss.
“It’s the dog fight part of the season right before Thanksgiving because everybody’s looking around the corner,” Lucas said. “We had some residuals from the Florida game that lingered…the first half was shaky, but in the second half we did a good job adjusting on the fly and found a way to get over the hump.”
The Hurricanes led by just seven at halftime and then outscored Elon by 20 points in the second half.
“We learned from the Florida game that we’re better than we thought,” Donaldson said before the game. “That’s a team with four returning starters from the national championship team, so we know what that looks like now and we have to continue putting it together.”
Lucas echoed Donaldson’s takeaway from the UF loss.
“The Florida game was a good measuring stick for us to see where we are and what we need to do,” Lucas said. “The one thing I really wanted to get out of the Florida game was to see if we were at the competitive level that I felt we needed to be, and we were there.
“Of course, we missed every layup and free throw, but we got midway through the second half and it was a six-point game, so we’re right there after an awful first half. Seeing that made me feel good about where we are but showed me what else we need to do. We have a long way to go.”
Miami center Ernest Udeh Jr. missed Thursday’s game with an unspecified lower body injury. Lucas said he got injured at practice and it doesn’t appear to be anything serious. He had started in all four games this season, averaging a team-high 9.3 rebounds to go along with 7.3 points. The team did fine without him, utilizing guards’ speed to make up for his brawn.
“Obviously, you take a 6-11 and 260-pound guy out of the lineup with that kind of physicality, but they go with more speed, so they had even more speed, more athleticism, more pressure on the basketball,” Taylor said.
Henderson agreed that UM was able to use more speed with four guards and run out of transition.
Holding a comfortable lead late in the game, Lucas put in all three international players Timotej Malovec (Slovakia), Noam Dovrat (Israel) and Salih Altunas (Turkey), who led the bench players with seven points and four rebounds.
The Hurricanes are back home Sunday at 1 p.m. against Delaware State and then they head to Orlando for a Thanksgiving Day game against No. 9 ranked BYU in the Terry’s Chocolate ESPN Events Invitational.
This story was originally published November 20, 2025 at 10:30 PM.