Out like a lamb, the Miami Hurricanes exited March Madness in the most forgettable of ways, playing tight, shooting as if blindfolded and generally performing as if they had no business trying to win a national championship.
This 71-61 loss to Marquette is in no way indicative of Miami’s true might, but there’s no use blaming the rancid result on the absence of 6-foot-10 senior Reggie Johnson because of knee surgery. The only way rotund Reg would have made a difference Thursday night is if he had totally lost his mind and started pouring in 3-pointers.
On the other hand, the Hurricanes, 1-for-11 from long range in the first half and 8-for-26 overall, could hardly have done worse. Any other day, Miami’s senior-soaked lineup would have been hotter than that in a game of Horse.
There will be no other days and no chance to fix a Miami team that is about to come completely apart due to graduation and, in the case of ACC Player of the Year Shane Larkin, potential promotion to the NBA.
“You never want to give up,” said Larkin, whose modest contribution of 14 points led the way for Miami, “but we just couldn’t hit shots and that’s frustrating. We just couldn’t hit the shots we previously hit in games.”
At times like that, national title contenders find another gear. The low kind, for climbing mountains and hauling trash. Marquette has it, as demonstrated in a buzzer-beating 59-58 win over Davidson in the tournament’s opening round.
Coach Buzz Williams, who has won eight of 12 career NCAA tounament games with the Golden Eagles, won’t have the sizzle of whoever comes next in Saturday’s Elite Eight matchup, but he wins with stouter stuff, like 40 points in the paint against Miami.
Referring to an ESPN article that ranked Marquette the worst of the Sweet 16 teams, Williams said, with a snarl, “We will be dead last when we wake up on Saturday, too. I guess we will be eighth out of eight.”
There’s perception and there’s the balled fist of reality. Durand Scott, for instance, is the ACC’s Defensive Player of the Year, supposedly capable of dousing any star in a one-on-one power struggle. At the end of the first half, however, Marquette guard Vander Blue dribbled out high for the longest time, stalling for the final shot while Scott slammed the floor with his hands in challenge. When the clock said go, Blue charged hard, then stepped back to drill a long jumper from near the top of the key.
That made it 29-16 Golden Eagles at the half, and that forced Miami into overplaying on defense the rest of the way, hoping for turnovers and quick points. The Hurricanes’ game plan was gone, and soon the dream was, too.
“What we did this year was lay a foundation for what the program could be like,” said Jim Larranaga, who in his second season as Miami coach got the Hurricanes into the second Sweet 16 in school history. “We’re not anywhere near where I’d like to be.
“We did this with a lot of holdover players and with upperclassmen. … Now we have to replace them and replenish the talent. That’s going to take some time. Doesn’t happen overnight, but in the ACC you are able to recruit talented kids and hopefully we’ll be able to replace these guys with some very good incoming freshman and a transfer or two.”
And so the switch is flipped to next season, and the locker room lights are flipped off on the best team in Miami history, 29-7 and good enough to win both the ACC regular-season and tournament titles. Single-elimination leaves a scar on the loser that never quite fades. Marquette, on the other hand, took its most humiliating loss in November, an 82-49 laugher at Florida. Does anybody care now?
“It’s astonishing to me that we could score just 16 points in a half,” said Miami’s Rion Brown, who made five 3-pointers in the last round against Illinois but only one Thursday. “Does this take away from what we did this season? Not at all. What we did for our program, for our school and our fans, we’ll never forget and they’ll never forget.”
While we’re at it, forget the final 10-point margin between these teams, too. It was nowhere near that close.
That’s the NCAA tournament for you, though. A knockout in the first round feels bad, but getting decked way down the line somehow feels even worse.
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