Miami suffers yet another setback after falling to Florida State Wednesday evening: "It comes down to discipline"

Despite the Miami Hurricanes men’s basketball team’s 12-5 record, this has been a season filled with ups and downs. In some outings, the Hurricanes have shown flashes of what brought the team to the program’s first Final Four last season, and sometimes this season they have left many scratching their heads. 

As Hurricanes head coach Jim Larranaga and his squad hosted bitter rival Florida State Wednesday evening, his team had the chance to either take a step in the right direction toward building for another March or otherwise take two steps back as the loser of three out of its last five contests.

it was the latter as Miami was swarmed all night by FSU and the Seminoles’ Warchant rang through the Watsco Center as they downed Miami 84-75 for their sixth straight win on the Hurricanes’ home court.

“I have to give Florida State a lot of credit for coming here and playing the way they did,” Larranga said. “Their size just bothers us. They’re just so long and athletic. Anytime we were not able to put pressure on them, they threw the ball right to the rim and laid it in. Overall, towards the end of the game, we couldn’t keep them off the foul line.”

And when the Hurricanes went to the line themselves, it was a struggle. They missed 10 free throws.

“For us, a team that really needed to make those free throws, that was unfortunate because we’ve been a great free-throw shooting team all season long,” Larranaga said.

Throughout the contest and this season, little things have hurt Larranaga’s squad, and it did so once again Weednesday night. Whether it was missing 10 free throws, committing 14 turnovers, or getting outrebounded 41-35, Miami could not put it all together against the Seminoles.

Another big issue was bench production, which proved crucial in the contest. While the Seminoles’ second unit provided the team with a much-needed spark off the bench with 40 points, Miami’s 14 bench points were simply not enough, with freshman Kyshawn George scoring nine of those 14. 

While the Hurricanes starting five has been very competitive this year, Larranga’s bench has been one of the worst in the country. They are currently 341st out of 351 with 12.19 bench points per game.

“When you look at a 40-14 discrepancy from the bench, that’s hard for us to overcome because our bench is not going to score those kind of points,” Larranaga said.

From the opening tip-off, it seemed as if the Seminoles were the aggressor, as the Hurricanes fell behind early and at no point in the contest held an advantage over Florida State. 

Larranaga said that was due to the style of the game with FSU exploiting size and depth advantages. Florida State jumped out to its first double-digit lead of the contest, 30-20, with just under 10 minutes remaining in the first half. 

Eerily similar to their contest against Virginia Tech on the road last weekend, the Hurricanes struggled from behind the three-point line in the first half, which has been an area in which the team has flourished this season as they entered the contest with the third-highest three-point percentage in the country at 40.69 percent. 

After a sloppy half of play where the Hurricanes committed eight turnovers and shot 2-of-14 from behind the three-point line, Miami found itself down 45-35 at halftime.

“I couldn’t tell you why,” Miami guard Nijel Pack said of the Hurricane’s slow start. “As a leader on this team, everybody respects everybody; it just comes down to getting on people. We’ve got to be better starting the game, we’ve got to be better throughout the entire game, and we’ve just got to finish the game well. We had chances, we missed free throws, and we didn’t grab rebounds when needed, and that’s what it came down to. I feel like we’ve got to pick it up there, and I feel like we put ourselves in a good chance.”

In the early goings of the second half, Miami continued to struggle as it fell behind by as many as 16 points. Needing a spark, Miami guard Bensley Joseph came alive and helped the Hurricanes cut the Seminoles lead to just two at 59-57 after a string of strong defensive possessions that saw Florida State held scoreless for a two-minute stretch.

“The first half, we were on our heels, and then we turned into the aggressor, which changed the game for us,” Pack said. “We started picking up full, guarding, and flying around like we know how to do. We were able to get them on their heels and had the chance right there. We’ve got to convert on that. We’re going to watch film and figure out what we did wrong, do better, and continue to get better. We’ve got a lot of games left but need to begin to pick it up as of now.”

Although Miami continued to fight, bringing the contest within one possession multiple times, Florida State had a counter for every blow the Hurricanes landed.

According to Pack, who finished with a team-high 19 points, the biggest difference for the team not only in this game but the entire season has been discipline.

“It comes down to discipline at the end of the day,” Pack said. “We have every key piece on offense. We can stop guys on the defensive end, but it comes down to discipline. Can we grab rebounds we need to grab rebounds, but we didn’t tonight. Can we make free throws when we need to, we didn’t tonight. It comes down to our discipline. We’ve got a lot of leaders and older guys but it comes down to, we’ve know what we’ve got to do but need to do it when it matters.”

Despite troubles in his first game against his former club Florida State, Larranaga has the utmost confidence in Hurricanes forward Matthew Cleveland who ended his evening with just two points on 1-of-8 shooting. 

“I’m not going to worry too much about Matthew Cleveland,” Larranga said. “He’s having a great season and coming into the game I think he was the leading scorer in the ACC. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

Hurricanes forward Norchad Omier who finished with 15 points and 15 rebounds shared a similar message and is looking forward to seeing how the team responds with a tough road ahead. 

Following the loss, Miami now sits in sixth place and 3-3 in ACC play with a two-game road trip ahead. The first stop is Saturday at Syracuse (12-5, ACC 3-3)  and the following game is at Notre Dame (7-11, ACC 2-5) next Wednesday.

“I just want to see how the team responds to adversity,” Omier said. “No matter what league you play in you’re going to face adversity and how the team responds is going to say a lot about us. We’ve just got to pull it together, keep working, and focus on one game at a time.”