Canes Win In Atlanta; Live to Fight Another Day

Miami's season is hanging by a thread, but somehow the thread has yet to snap. After an embarrassing home loss to perennial bottom feeder Florida State the Hurricanes headed north for two difficult but potentially winnable road games. Ten days later, the Hurricanes season is back on track.

Winning on the road isn't easy in ACC play and the Hurricanes propensity to give away games late away from home sent the team into a tailspin where making the NCAA Tournament was a pipe dream, and making the NIT was even questionable. However, College Basketball in February is about winning away from home and regardless of how poor Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech played in their losses to Miami, the Hurricanes did what they had to do in order cause a meltdown for both teams on their home floor.

Jack McClinton will undoubtedly get the credit from a shallow local media whose college basketball knowledge doesn't extend beyond watching assorted games in March on TV while waiting for Spring Football, Dolphins mini-camp and the PGA Tour to hit it's annual Florida swing. So poor is the local media coverage of the sport that often times Florida papers rely on wire services to cover Miami, Florida and Florida State and simply have box scores often incorrect or aligned poorly for the other state schools. McClinton is Miami's best player and hyped consistently by the Raycom/ACC announcers as some sort of new fangled version of J.J. Reddick. While it is true McClinton has a Reddick like propensity to hit crazy shots at the end of games to lead his team to victory (...or to a near victory: the two Miami games given away on the road against Wake and NC State were only there for the giving away because of McClinton's circus shots that has erased a big deficit and had given Miami in both cases a late lead.) he is a very frustrating player for the first 35 minutes of games.

The credit for today's victory needs to go to the big men for the Hurricanes, most notably Anthony King who has been far from my favorite player this season. King played tough inside and created many opportunities for Miami to get second chance points when the offense broke down and Miami's guards took wild shots.

However one thing continues to be apparent: Miami lacks the quickness to be effective in the ACC. If and when Miami wins league games, it is in a slop fest like today. The Hurricanes lack the ability to push the pace of the game quickly or the perimeter defense to compete in this league. The only way Miami wins is by slowing the tempo and playing a game like it did back in the Big East days- brutally physical and punishing. If Miami can do this against Duke, they have a slight shot at pulling a huge upset on Wednesday.