With Omier on bench injured, Miami Hurricanes hoops battles but loses 8-point lead and falls in buzzer-beater at Syracuse, 72-69
SYRACUSE, N.Y. – The University of Miami men’s basketball team (12-6, 3-4 ACC) fell to the Syracuse Orange (13-5, 4-3 ACC) at the buzzer on Saturday as Quadir Copeland poured in a 3-pointer as time expired to give the Orange the 72-69 victory in the JMA Wireless Dome.
“We played without Norchad Omier, which obviously was a challenge, but I thought our guys fought very hard, did a good job and we put ourselves in position to win the game,” head coach Jim Larrañaga said. “We missed our last shot; they made their last shot and that’s the difference. One possession…It was a great college game.”
For the third straight game, fourth-year junior Nijel Pack poured in 19 points to lead all Miami players. Junior Matthew Cleveland tallied his fourth double-double of the season with 16 points and a team-best 12 rebounds on the afternoon.
“Matthew Cleveland was very aggressive today,” Larrañaga said. “He got himself involve early and played very well.”
In his first career start, freshman Michael Nwoko got the Hurricanes going early with back-to-back buckets to give Miami an 8-2 advantage to start the game. The Hurricanes extended their lead to as much as eight thanks to a 9-0 run in the later part of the first half, but the Orange responded with consecutive 3-pointers to cut Miami’s lead to one, 31-30, heading into halftime.
The threes started to fall for the Hurricanes in the second half as Miami shot 50 percent (7-of-14) from distance in the final 20 minutes. However, Syracuse continued to battle and took its first lead of the second half at the 3:10 mark of the frame.
Miami and Syracuse went bucket-for-bucket in the final two minutes of the game and sat tied at 69-all with 18 seconds to play. With the game on the line, Copeland knocked down just his sixth 3-pointer of the season as time expired to give the Orange the 72-69 victory.
Miami has now lost four of its last five games.
The Hurricanes remain on the road to take on the Notre Dame Fighting Irish on Wednesday, Jan. 24. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. and the game will air on ESPN2.
