King's status up in the air; Canes Return to AP Top 25

On a day when the Hurricanes returned to the AP Top 25 after a one week absence, the team got some very bad news. Anthony King whose return for a fifth reason thanks to a medical redshirt put Miami in a position to contend in the ACC is questionable for the next several games, which happen to be Miami's first in the ACC. The Hurricanes big man rotation which looked so formidable at the beginning of the season is now very thin, with Jimmy Graham still not 100% and Dwayne Collins despite having a great game last week versus Penn still not developing into the beast in the pain he should be. Ray Hicks can provide some minutes at the power forward spot but at 6'7'' (and that's his official height. I believe he is more like 6'5'' and 1/2) Hicks athleticism and strength cannot completely make up for an obvious lack of size inside.

Miami must beat Georgia Tech on Saturday to have a good shot of making the NCAAs. Losing at home to a team that already has six losses would be devastating and the bottom line is the committee can nit pick Miami's schedule because since leaving Puerto Rico, Miami's accomplishments have been minimal given how poor Mississippi State and St John's have played, and the loss to Winthrop the only other decent opponent Miami has faced since beating three decent teams in four days in mid November.

Joe Lunardi's latest bracketology on ESPN.com (click on the link from the ESPN Miami Basketball widget on the right hand margin of our home page) has both Miami and Florida State as #9 seeds while Florida misses the NCAAs outright in his projection. In other words, non-conference wins and scheduling do matter in the NCAA selection process and of the four BCS league teams in Florida, Florida State and USF have scheduled well while Miami has scheduled poorly and Florida, well they have the 3rd weakest non conference schedule in the country according to RPI.

JACK McCLINTON NEEDS HELP FOR MIAMI TO BE SUCCESSFUL

Should King miss Saturday's game versus Georgia Tech, Miami would likely have to give some three guard looks with Eddie Rios or Lance Hurdle running the point and Jack McClinton and James Dews playing the 2 and the 3. Brian Asbury would have to show more aggressiveness going to the basket, and Collins would have to play really big in the middle. Georgia Tech for their part are missing RaShaun Dickey out for the season and have looked like a good team for 38 minutes in many of their losses, but they lack a ball handler or decision maker at the point to close the deal. The Hurricanes do not want to be in the situation they were in against Mississippi State and Winthrop where Jack McClinton has to score 30 points and take every shot down the stretch to give the Hurricanes an opportunity for the win. McClinton has been asked to run the team, be the primary scorer and a shutdown defender in a man to man set at the other end and as good as Jack is, their is only so much one player can do. Despite starting this season well and being ranked nationally, the Hurricanes are still when it comes down to it overally reliant on one player. Statistics tell a different story, I know that the Hurricanes are more balanced than last season when they relied entirely on McClinton and finished last in the ACC. But stats lie and have been skewed by games against the sisters of the poor where Jack has scored 8 points and other players have had nice scoring nights. But in big games where the teams are evenly matched, McClinton going back to last season has been forced to take every critical shot in addition to his point guard responsibilities which are due to the dismissal of Denis Clemente from the squad.


My biggest concern heading into the ACC portion of the schedule (or the real season as I like to call it) is that the UM offense will break down, ball movement will become static and McClinton will be forced to just keep popping threes partly because his team-mates stop moving towards the ball or setting decent screens, etc. Let's hope King's injury isn't a precursor to this potential calamity taking hold again this season as it did last year when the Hurricanes were at times down to five scholarship players. (three of whom were Freshman)