Miami Basketball: A National Program Finally after Twenty Years of False Starts?

Miami Basketball has had plenty of success over the past twenty some odd years. I recall the program being so highly touted in the mid 1980s that several Hurricanes games were on broadcast TV nationally: 1986 vs Arizona (CBS), 1987 vs Navy (CBS), 1988 vs Kansas and DePaul (NBC). It seemed the networks expected Miami to break through in Basketball because of the success in Football coupled Assistant Seth Greenberg's massive coup in signing Tito Horford considered to be the nation's top recruit in 1986. But the breakthrough never happened. Despite winning 19 games in the 1988-89 season including a win over defending national champion Kansas, the Canes were not invited to the NIT. Head Coach Bill Foster and leading Assistant Seth Greenberg bailed for head coaching jobs elsewhere and when Leonard Hamilton took over Miami's window of opportunity had firmly closed.

At that point Sam Janckovich always a big proponent of Basketball glided Miami into arguably the nation's best league, the Big East. The results initially were disastrous. Miami was totally uncompetitive it's first year in the league and after showing some false hope it's second season with seven wins in sixteen league games (A season that had me believing Miami would make the NCAAs the next year) the Hurricanes crashed and burned in their third Big East season: Zero wins, and one of the worst teams ever in the history of any power league.

The next season was the breakthrough we had been looking for, finally. The Hurricanes won nine Big East games and were invited to the NIT, the school's first post season appearence in over thirty seasons. However, the Canes blew a huge lead at Penn State and lost in the NIT opener. The next two years the program treaded water. Invitations to the NIT and first round losses. The Hurricanes had to take the next step, we had to make the NCAAs.

The Canes did make the NCAAs in 1998, and 1999 and 2000, and 2002. In fact Miami was a #2 seed in the 1999 tournament, until Florida received a #1 last season the highest seed ever for a program from the state of Florida. Miami won the Big East regular season title in 2000 and advanced to the Sweet 16 in the Tournament. Yet, Miami Basketball was still an anonymous program nationally. Despite the remarkable success of U Conn, the heyday of the Big East had come and gone. The Big East consistently produced better Basketball than the Big Ten, SEC or Big Twelve yet got less national attention. Miami was still below the radar nationally, still an anonymous program very few people locally or nationally paid attention to.

The move to the ACC was filled with risk. Florida State has been in the ACC for fifteen years and despite some decent showings here and there and frequent victorys over Duke, ACC people I speak with view FSU's presence in the league as a complete joke. Perhaps it was FSU's ability to beat every single ACC school in its first two years in the league that made other ACC people resentful. Or perhaps it was after those first two years that FSU became the most frequent bottom feeder that any major league has save the Pac 10 and Oregon State that made the other ACC fans simply write off and ridicule the Noles? Whatever the case, Miami was not going to be accepted easily into a Basketball club that looked down on both the Big East and state of Florida.

The hiring of Frank Haith, an ACC guy whose close ties to Rick Barnes and Dave Odom made him more acceptable to the conference snobs than let's say Pat Kennedy was, helped for sure. But for some reason Miami seemed to integrate pretty quickly into the culture of the ACC in Basketball (something that quite honestly may never happen in Football.) Miami's students began to embrace ACC like behavior which is to say they stand the whole game, scream obscenities and occasionally need to be warned by the P.A. announcer to shut up. Miami's fans began to take conference games and conference foes very seriously and began showing up for games in the league, something that never happened in the Big East. Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel said he finds its incredible a team can be as good as Miami playing in front of so few fans. What Bianchi fails to realize or fails to acknowledge is that Miami's attendance is skewed by meaningless non league games where you'll be lucky to find 1,000 fans in the Bank United Center. The reality is this season as was the case in Miami's first two years in the league, over 80% seats of full for EVERY ACC game, and obviously in the case of Duke, Carolina and Maryland the arena is always full.

Now Miami is getting the sorts of opportunities success in the Big East never brought. An invitation to next season's John Wooden Classic has been extended as an upcoming home and home series with Kansas is in the later stages of being completed. The University is also adding 3,000 seats to the Bank United Center as well as a new replay screen and other scoreboard related enhancements. Miami is ready to capitalize on success in a way the University never did or cared to do after repeated tournament appearances while a member of the Big East. The ACC gives programs the exposure and credibility to take the next step forward into the national spotlight. Miami, unlike Florida State has the institutional commitment to make that next step. While Miami Football continues to fall flat on its face year in year out in this football crazed state, Miami looks ready to challenge Florida, a two time National Champion as the big dog on the block in Basketball.