If the University of Miami is feeling any pressure from its first top 10 ranking in 14 years, it wasn’t evident Tuesday night.
Rion Brown broke out of a shooting slump and matched his career high with 22 points off the bench as the eighth-ranked Hurricanes (18-3, 9-0 ACC) won their 10th consecutive game with a 72-50 trouncing of conference cellar-dweller Boston College at the BankUnited Center.
Despite the hoopla resulting from the team’s meteoric rise in less than a month from unranked to the top 10, UM’s players kept their focus against the lowly Eagles. UM never trailed and led by 28 points in the second half while beating Boston College for the sixth consecutive time.
“We have a senior-laden team, and those guys are very hungry,” UM coach Jim Larranaga said. “None of the guys on this team have been to the NCAA tournament. We’re trying to put ourselves in position to get a bid.”
Barring a complete collapse, earning a bid to the NCAA tournament is a certainty. The only unknown is how much better the Hurricanes, who haven’t played in the NCAA tournament since 2007-08, can get.
With Florida’s loss to Arkansas on Tuesday night, Miami is the only team from a major conference without a loss in league play.
“They’re a team with an incredible amount of confidence,” BC coach Steve Donahue said. “And it’s a team that’s starting to believe if they do some little things and work hard, that they can be really, really good. They are talented, older with not a lot of weaknesses.”
UM, with four senior starters, dominated the youthful Eagles inside the paint, holding a 26-16 advantage. But the Hurricanes also found their stroke from the outside, knocking down 11 of 22 3-point shots.
Brown was 5-of-7 on 3s, emerging from a shooting slump in which he had averaged only 4.4 points over his previous seven games, including zero points in UM’s 79-78 win against No. 19 North Carolina State on Saturday.
“My teammates did a great job of finding me,” Brown said. “They kept passing it to me, and I kept knocking it down.”
Brown had plenty of help. Three teammates finished in double figures, with Kenny Kadji contributing 16 points and eight rebounds.
With nine games left on the conference schedule, UM has already matched its single-season high for ACC wins and increased its lead in the standings over Duke to 2 1/2 games. The Blue Devils (19-2, 6-2) face N.C. State on Thursday.
The Hurricanes’ 10-game win streak is four short of the school record set in 1946-47 and matched in 2001-02.
While the Hurricanes are the ACC’s hottest team, Boston College (10-12, 2-7) is headed in the other direction. The loss was the sixth in the row for the Eagles, who narrowly fell to UM, 60-59, in Chestnut Hill, Mass., on Jan. 16.
“I think our giving them a scare at our place was great motivation,” Donahue said. “They were definitely ready.”
Miami will look to extend its winning streak and improve on its national ranking Saturday at home against North Carolina. The Tar Heels lost to UM on Jan. 10, 68-59, in Chapel Hill.
Saturday’s game is sold out, marking the Hurricanes’ third capacity audience in its last four games. Tuesday’s game against Boston College drew a crowd of 5,149.
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