Sloppiness Characterizes Miami Victory

Miami gave what had to be considered its poorest performance of the season the the second half of an 85-63 victory over lowly North Florida on Thursday Night. Leading 46-23 at the half, Miami clearly took the pedal off the metal so to speak in the second stanza and even worse began to show a casual, showboating attitude on offense which we have not seen all season. While the first half play was the sort of workmanlike effort we have come to expect from this Miami team, the second half was unacceptable.

Matt Killcullen's Osprey team played very hard in the second half and I must say was much more fundamentally sound in how they ran their offense than the two other lower tier D1 teams from the state Miami has played this season: Florida International and Stetson.

I know what Killcullen's teams can do. He was the coach of Jacksonville University when they came into Gainesville and upset the then #8 Gators in 1994, 68-67. (A game where Jason Anderson, the Gator Shooting Guard decided to go for a stylish dunk instead of simply laying the ball in the basket late in the game and ended up missing badly.) North Florida doesn't have the horses JU did in those days, although having Tom Hammonds son isn't a bad thing. But Killcullen's team despite their 1-8 record were peskier and ultimately smarter opponents than the teams I named earlier. Perhaps it comes from Killcullen's work with Digger Phelps both at Notre Dame and later on the Basketball for Dummies book. More likely it comes from being a truly experienced coach.

Hopefully the Canes play better on Sunday versus North Carolina A&T a team that has already upset DePaul this season. My guess is that they will play better with Frank Haith getting his team fired up and pointing out the sloppiness of the second half, a sloppiness that led Haith inspite of a the lead that never went under twenty to take two timeouts during the flow of play which is uncharacteristic of his coaching in these sort of "creampuff" games.

Notes:

• Anthony King has become incredibly tentative around the basket the past few games. I don't understand why he isn't charging the basket the way he did in the early part of the season.
  
• Ray Hicks has played nicely in both his starts this week for the injured Jimmy Graham and may have earned more playing time going forward.
• Brian Asbury played some great defense in the first half but was often beaten in the second.
  
• The team was so shaky that walk on Jonathan Stratton, a fan favorite didn't enter the game until :17 seconds remained, unlike Monday when he came into the game with 5:00 remaining against Stetson.
  
• UNF's 63 points are the third most conceded by Miami this season.