Canes On Cruise Control at Pharmed Arena

Final scores of College Basketball games are often very misleading. Miami's 14 point final margin of victory at Pharmed Arena over Florida International Saturday Night was actually the Hurricanes smallest lead of the second half. After racing out to a 12-0 lead the Canes struggled a bit and FIU cut the lead at one point to 18-13. But Miami quickly built the lead back into double digits and led by 16 at halftime, after three poor offensive possessions to close the half. Pharmed Arena was filled with Orange and Green with a limited mix of gold and blue in between. Despite not having much regard for Florida International I couldn't help feel bad for their team as their fans were badly outnumbered in their own gym. Of the 4,121 at the game I'd say at least 60% and perhaps as many as 75% were Miami fans.

The game honestly felt like a home game for the Canes with all of the normal chants coming from the student section and after Raja Bell's number was retired at halftime by FIU, Miami stormed out in the second half on an 7-0 run and led by 23 points at 45 to 22. From this point on Miami's offensive execution was poor and defensively while forcing the Golden Panthers into poor shots many what I call ticky tac fouls were called by the official who clearly seemed to be favoring the team down by twenty plus points. I don't like to impugne the motives of officials and typically will not but to me about six or seven of Miami's first ten team fouls of the second half were the types of things officials normally do not call. With the game well in control and the lead at 23 when the under 4:00 timeout came, Frank Haith felt comfortable pulling his starters and disaster struck. Miami allowed FIU to cut the lead from 23 to 14 in just over two minutes through sloppy ball Miami handling against the full court press, poor free throw shooting and and lackadaisical concentration. After Villanova's comeback the other day against LSU no coach in the nation is quitting on a game even with just over two minutes remaining. Miami learned that last night the hard way.

Frank Haith has one major concern going into the game against Mississippi state in Starkville Thursday Night: Ball Handling. It's getting poorer and poorer by the game and ultimately could be Miami's downfall. I don't know how many times today FIU's guards tried to swipe the ball away from Jack McClinton and were almost successful. In addition, Eddie Rios decision making again for the second straight game was very poor. Some other thoughts:

• Jack McClinton is finally beginning to look for his teammates when he brings the ball up the floor.
  
• James Dews led the Canes in scoring and also fouled out because in today's second half anything that was aggressive defensively was construed by the officials as a foul.
  
• After a much hyped start to the season, Eddie Rios once again looks like a Freshman who shouldn't be counted on. His moves to the basket and penetration in the half court offense is outstanding but in transition he makes more mistakes than solid plays and his shooting touch is completely non existent, so even when he gets to the basket he more often than not misses lay ups. Keep in mind Rios wouldn't be counted on so heavily had Denis Clemente stayed out of trouble and not been forced to transfer to Kansas State.
  
• Anthony King was off tonight. That's alright considering we didn't need him.
• Villanova's epic comeback victory over LSU Thursday Night in the SEC-Big East Invitational combined with Vanderbilt's come from behind win over Wake Forest Wednesday likely means Miami spends another week just outside the AP Top 25.
  
• The Pharmed Arena at FIU is a badly dated facility that needs a serious upgrade. Considering FIU just raised and spent a boatload of money on a state of the art Football Stadium, you'd think they'd have some money left in the budget for Basketball.
• I saw only two players on FIU that could play for Miami, Florida, Florida State or South Florida. They are #2 Galindo who appeared to be a combo 3/4, and #32 Hicks who was playing at Center. The rest of the team looked like left over scraps, no offense to any FIU fans who may read this site.
  
• While the Big Three in Football has now become perhaps the Big Seven with FIU pushing Miami to leave the basement among Florida programs, Basketball is still multi tiered with the Four schools in power leagues (Florida, Miami, FSU, USF) still clearly better than the one mid major program, UCF who is clearly much better than the rest of the schools in what I would term low major leagues. (FAMU, FIU, FAU, B-CC, Stetson, JU, UNF, FGCU)