They crushed No. 1 Duke, won the ACC regular-season basketball championship and continued their unlikely season by defeating North Carolina on Sunday in the ACC tournament final.
Tar Heels coach Roy Williams was so impressed by the Miami Hurricanes that he waited outside the team’s locker room after the game to congratulate UM’s players and coaches.
But not everyone was so taken by UM.
Three hours after the top-seeded Hurricanes (26-6) were crowned ACC champs by beating North Carolina 87-77, the announcement came that UM will open the NCAA tournament as a No. 2 seed and will face Pacific (22-12) in Austin, Texas, on Friday (2:10 p.m., TNT).
Miami becomes the first team to win outright ACC regular season and tournament championships and not receive a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament.
“I couldn’t care less,” UM coach Jim Larranaga said. “The (NCAA selection) committee has a very challenging job to figure out who should be the No. 1 seeds and where they should play. I’m more happy that we play on Friday than about any seeding.”
By playing Friday instead of Thursday, UM will get an extra day of rest. That’s something the Hurricanes can definitely use, especially after a bruising tournament final Sunday that left the backcourt duo of Shane Larkin and Durand Scott physically battered.
The No. 2 seeding matches that of UM’s 1998-99 team that was eliminated in the second round of the NCAA tournament by Purdue.
The Hurricanes, making their first NCAA appearance since 2008, seemed a contender for one of the four top seeds awarded Sunday, but those went to Louisville, Kansas, Indiana and Gonzaga.
“We don’t take that as any disrespect at all,” senior center Julian Gamble said. “I mean we’re a two-seed, which is one of the top eight teams in the country. It’s a lot of respect, in that aspect.”
Once the butt of jokes, the Hurricanes’ program turned into basketball bullies this season.
If you don’t believe that, ask North Carolina. On Sunday, UM beat the Tar Heels for the third consecutive time this season and became the first ACC school since 1974 — outside of conference superpowers North Carolina and Duke — to win the regular season and conference championships.
The thought that UM might one day celebrate an ACC title in basketball seemed as distant as putting a man on Mars. But that fantasy became reality in Sunday’s game, which ended with the Hurricanes’ snipping the nets at Greensboro Coliseum before a packed house of mainly disappointed North Carolina fans.
“We want more,” said Gamble, who contributed a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds. “After we clinched the outright regular-season title at home and we (cut down the nets), we were like, `Wasn’t that the funnest thing you’ve ever done?’”
As usual, the catalyst for UM’s win was Larkin, the high-energy sophomore point guard who shot, passed, stole and rebounded his way to tournament MVP honors. Larkin was at his best against the Tar Heels, filling up his stat line like a glutton at meal time — 28 points, seven assists, five rebounds and two steals while playing all 40 minutes.
“Shane Larkin is hard to handle,” lamented Williams, who lost his third consecutive ACC tournament final. “He’s phenomenal. He really is.”
Larkin received plenty of help Sunday, particularly from guard Trey McKinney-Jones. The senior scored a career-high 20 points and knocked down 6-of-9 three-point attempts.
Miami made 12-of-22 three-pointers and shot 50.8 percent overall for the game.
At the buzzer, confetti rained down on the Hurricanes as UM’s band played the school fight song. Coach Jim Larranaga later told his players: “You’re the best team I’ve ever coached.”
That didn’t seem likely back in November when UM opened the season with an exhibition loss to Division II St. Leo then suffered an embarrassing one-sided loss to Florida Gulf Coast in the season’s second game.
“The whole season has been surreal,” senior forward Kenny Kadji said. “Losing to Florida Gulf Coast at the start, we would never have imagined all this. We kept fighting. But we have more to do.”
Pacific, champions of the Big West Conference, has played in the NCAA tournament eight times and made its last appearance in 2006, losing in the first round to Boston College.
If UM wins Friday, it will face the winner of the Colorado-Illinois game on Sunday.
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