Keys to a win over Kentucky

Whats crazy is they are missing 7 foot 5 star players.. wtfff
Yea idk how good that 7 foot 3 European kid. But there’s a lot of hype about Bradshaw. Legit 7 footer that can shoot and defend the rim. Some places had him #1 overall in the country. Tough to tell what Onyenso can do, played sparingly last year behind Tshibwe. But they are playing at this level with out them and Justin Edwards (top 2 recruit in the country) hitting his stride. The are going to be a problem.
 
Advertisement
Miami laying an egg the last 2-3 minutes of the first half did help at all. Definitely thought they’d come out ready to start the second half.
No scoring for the final 3 minutes and go from being up 4 to down 5. If we were up at half we could have beaten them. Lost the game right there.
 
Advertisement
What the heck were we thinking? I mean Kentucky has at least 4-5 guys who will be future 1st round picks. How in the heck did we expect to roll into Big Blue Nation and get a W? All kidding aside, we ran into a buzzsaw tonight. Kentucky was on their "A" game and there wasn't much we could do about it. Our defense was exposed tonight. Not that it's been a strong suit of ours but our guards did a **** poor job of protecting their front yards (staying in front of opposing ball handlers) and keeping their guards out the house (out of the paint). Not sure if I missed it but would've liked to have seen Miami go zone. Just to give them a different look, if for nothing else. Transition defense was just as bad. Kentucky ran all night long and we did nothing to slow them down. Not sure what to make of the eggs laid by Pack, Cleveland and Poplar. One thing about Poplar though, whether he's on his game or not he's going to play hard. Pack and Cleveland on the other hand just didn't seem to be in it tonight. Very disappointed that there just didn't seem to be much fight in them. Reed Sheppard is the real deal! Haven't seen a player, let alone a freshmen kick our butt like that in years. Kid isn't a one trick pony either. Can play on both ends well. Just a good all around player. If there's one positive to take from tonight, it looks like our freshmen (Nwoko & George) and Watson took a step in the right direction. Hopefully, it starts to click for them going forward. All in all, I think we'll be alright. Won't face too many teams as talented as Kentucky. This was a good wake up call. Let's get ready for Saturday. GO CANES!
 
Problem is we dont even recruit them and when mentioned its dismissed. Yet Coach L in his post game was saying we are soo much smaller than them at every spot by many inches..
IKR its always in Coach L we trust when someone says he needs to recruit bigger players.

There's a big kid at Norland right now that Coach L will probably overlook who'll end up someplace killing it while we get some 6'5 kid from Philly. smh

In any event Kentucky seemed highly motivated from start to finish.
 
Advertisement
Now we know how valuable Jordan Miller really was for miami. Cleveland isn't close to the player Miller was for us last year especially against good competition.
Him and Wong were so elite. They had their off nights against teams they shouldn’t have too, but they didn’t fold in the big games usually. They rose up to the competition
 
1 6-5 center isnt gonna cut it...... I get the blue bloods grip on the 7ft kids but to not trim that deficiency by adding as much strength as possible is a miss
We cant say its bluebloods when FAU and when we played fiu both have 7 footers.. and not saying they even have to be 7 ft. but we needed a big man from portal to provide depth badddd.. ok we got away with it last season and we still had success but no reason to voluntarily go thru that again
 
Advertisement
Hung with them for a half. Kentucky shot the lights out and put a clinic on in the second. Too much for our Canes. That baby faced assassin that came in off the bench for Kentucky had himself a game.
 
We got our *** kicked by the most talented team in the country, on the road, after 9 days off.

Can everybody relax? Absolutely no one is gonna hold that loss against us on selection sunday. That might be the #1 overall seed by then.

Watson, George and Nwoko are on the way now.

Let’s sweep December and roll into January
 
All my concerns about this team showed up yesterday

We need another guy we can rely on to create shots for everyone and himself. Wong could get down hill and get a bucket or bend the defense, Jmiller can get u 15 in the mid post and was a high iq glue guy.

We’re gonna need guys to emerge or we will have to rely to heavily on our 3s to fall at a high clip. I love omier heart but he shouldn’t have to score 20 for us his focus should be defense,rebounding and playmaking as a hub on offense.

Also we have to find a way to get pack clean looks and leverage his shooting gravity into open shots elsewhere. He doesn’t look comfortable and he’s our best scorer.

Defensively we are bad at the point of attack defense so guards can get easy drives because omier has to hedge hard and then it gives teams easy outlets..Basically how uconn killed us, they had us in constant rotations all game.

Its still early and we have a great coach so i believe we can figure it out but the ceiling might not be as high as we thought
 
Advertisement
We cant say its bluebloods when FAU and when we played fiu both have 7 footers.. and not saying they even have to be 7 ft. but we needed a big man from portal to provide depth badddd.. ok we got away with it last season and we still had success but no reason to voluntarily go thru that again
Agree. This whole notion that we cant get size because the bluebloods have a monopoly on every 7 footer is silly. This has been an ongoing issue with our teams under Coach L for the past few years. This is not hate btw
 
Everything went against Miami in this game. Long layoff. On the road. Final 4 team that is ranked top 10 coming into their house, they had full attention and motivation. Omier gets 2 cheapies early that really hurt Miami, then Bensley gets fouls that cost us early. We missed open shots we usually hit, Wooga hardly ever misses free throws, missed 3, Cleveland missed both Technical foul shots, Wooga and Bensley missed open 3's. We had 2 put back dunks we missed, we had an alleyoop layup pass to Nwoku who bobbled it, and turned it over. Our guys played timid on the defensive end IMO because they were scared of fouling, because the refs called some BS early put our guys on their heels.

Then of course Kentucky is very good, very athletic, executed their game plan, shot the ball very well.

It was one of those nights.

I think though you can take some positives from the a** whipping. Reality check and a focus getter especially to become better defensively.

Also I think Watson and George showing the moment wasn't overwhelming to them. Nwoku was little shaky, but it was a good growing experience from him.


Again, in our ACC title year and sweet sixteen year of 2013, we got blown out by Arizona by 19 early in the season.

In our elite 8 run in 2021, we got blown out by 32 by Alabama early in the season.

In our final 4 run last year we got blown out by Maryland early in the season.

I do think George showed some ability to bring the ball up the floor. This could allow Pack to be more of a 2 guard, and get his shot.

George, Watson, Nwoku if they can continue to improve Miami is going to be fine.
 
The one thing that stood out for me was the fact that we are not a very good 2nd half team, K State also outplayed us in the 2nd half of that game but the lead was just too big for them to overcome! I don't know if its lack of adjustments or just coming out flat but need to figure it out ASAP!
 
Advertisement
Back
Top