Christian Laettner sends message to Jordan Miller after incredible March Madness feat
In Miami’s NCAA Tournament victory over Texas, Hurricanes star Jordan Miller did something that hasn’t been done since 1992. He made all seven of his field goals and each of his 13 free throws for a perfect shooting game to help propel the Hurricanes to the Final Four.
That feat caught the attention of the last person to do it.
Christian Laettner pulled off that feat during the 1992 NCAA Tournament. Of course, that game is remembered as the one where he hit “The Shot” to lead Duke past Kentucky to reach the Final Four. He took to Twitter to congratulate Miller on his accomplishment.
“Way to go @Jordan_miller11 on a perfect game,” Laettner said. “Keep up the good work! Good luck representing the @theACC at the @MFinalFour. See you there!”
Miller put together an impressive performance to lead Miami past Texas, dropping 27 points en route to the 88-81 Hurricanes victory. It was quite the time to score a season-high and help orchestrate a comeback.
Sitting next to Miller in the postgame press conference, Miami coach Jim Larranaga had some big-time praise for his star guard on both ends of the court.
“I’ve said it all season long, he’s the most underrated player in the country because he’s good at everything,” Larranaga said. “In the summertime, he had a 7:1 assist-to-turnover ratio in practices. Seven to one. That’s ridiculous. That’s better than any point guard I know. He can rebound. He defends all different-sized guys. Today he was switching ball screens at the end and keeping the guy in front of him.
“Last week, he guarded Indiana’s center Trayce Jackson-Davis, did a fantastic job on him. He can shoot the three. He’s great at driving. Straight line drive, dribble drives. He makes all of his free throws. He is a great, great player. Simple.”
Miller was a huge piece of the come-from-behind win as Miami came back from 13 points down to advance to the Final Four. In fact, at halftime, the Hurricanes shot 64% from the field and still trailed 45-37. Miller explained how they fought through that adversity to get the victory.
“First thing I would say is our perseverance,” Miller said in the press conference after the Elite Eight game. “None of us wanted to go home. Another big factor I would say is we know we’re pretty good offensively, but what’s going to decide a game for us comes down to how many stops we can get. Even though we shot that good of a percentage, they were scoring too, and we knew we couldn’t just keep scoring back and forth because they had the lead. So we had to dig deep, find a way to get stops.”