Hurricanes fans disappoint more than team in season-opening basketball loss to Louisville | Opinion
College sports can be infamous for “soft openings.”
Um, this wasn’t one of them.
Some years, the University of Miami men’s basketball season opener might be against (for example) the Southwest Florida Institute of Photography, and a 47-point victory would ensue.
This wasn’t that night.
Tuesday evening marked the start of UM’s 70th hoops season, and it was the biggest opener in school history. What might have been a casual lap in the pool started with a dive into a shark tank. The scoreboard told you:
No. 5-ranked Louisville 87, Miami 74, in a not-nearly-that-close game that the Cardinals led by as many as 32.
This was the first time UM had opened with an Atlantic Coast Conference opponent, the highest-ranked opening foe ever, and the first time starting with any Top 25 team since No. 9 Michigan in 1987.
Why? The new ACC Network demanded premier programming for the opener.
“I would say that wouldn’t be my choice,” deadpanned coach Jim Larranaga of the tough league opener. “I’d like to start with somebody we beat by 20.”
The loss didn’t disappoint as much as the opening crowd. The loss was more understandable.
This is a Miami program that must prove itself again. And not just on the court.
Last year’s losing 14-18 season that ended UM’s run of four straight years of postseason appearances dampened enthusiasm. Season tickets did not sell out this year after doing so the previous two seasons.
Tuesday, the cozy Watsco Center, the campus arena seating just under 8,000, was not filled. For a season opener. Against No. 5 Louisville.
What, there was something can’t-miss on Netflix?
And the hundreds of boisterous, red-clad Cardinals fans made you forget at times who the home team was.
The three-fourths-full crowd included comic actor Bill Murray, whose son is a Louisville assistant coach. It just didn’t include enough Canes fans.
Miami raced to a fast start on DJ Vasiljevic’s two 3s and hung with Louisville in much of the game’s first 10 or 15 minutes before the Cardinals’ superiority took over by degrees. It was out of hand by early in the second half.
Returning Canes are led by junior guard Chris Lykes, who averaged 16.2 points last season. He opened with 18 points Tuesday, most of them rather meaningless: stat-padding garbage time buckets.
They very generously list Lykes’ height as 5-7.
“If he was 6-5 or 6-6 he’d be Michael Jordan,” said Larranaga.
Yes and if I could run the 40 in 4.1 I’d be Usain Bolt. But forgive Larranaga for seeing the glass half full. It was opening night!
Expectations for the unranked Canes have been modest following last season. Example: ESPN’s Jay Bilas on Tuesday published his top 68 teams (the number that make the NCAA Tournament), and Miami was nowhere among them.
Larranaga, who is starting his ninth season at UM and just turned 70, has gotten Miami as far as the NCAA Sweet 16 twice here, in 2013 and ‘16. The reality is it takes that kind of success to make South Florida pay attention and care about UM hoops beyond the program’s hard-core following.
Larranaga famously took little George Mason to the Final Four in 2006, but reprising that magic at Miami has proved elusive. He has won pretty consistently, but never quite enough to fully crack this tough market in any lasting way.
The Dolphins (no matter how bad), the Heat, and Canes football own Miami. Inter Miami soccer arrives next spring with the anticipation and bounce of newness.
Meanwhile, the the Marlins, hockey Panthers, UM basketball, and everything else fights for a foothold, a broad, deep following beyond just the diehard faithful.
I think the Canes will be pretty good; better than last year. We’ll begin to know for sure when the full ACC schedule kicks in beginning Dec. 31 — because the barometer of losing to a No. 5-ranked team is harsh.
But will Miami be better than teetering between sneaking into the NCAA Tournament and the consolation of the NIT? And will that be good enough for this market’s hard-to-win-over fans?
The 2019-20 Canes season began as a letdown Tuesday night, but it wasn’t the loss to a highly ranked opponent.
It was all of those conspicuously empty seats for that highly ranked opponent — and, as much, for the season’s unveiling of the Hurricanes.
This story was originally published November 5, 2019 at 9:13 PM.
