What to know about Notre Dame men’s basketball vs. Miami
Notre Dame welcomes Miami into Purcell Pavilion on Wednesday, and this Hurricanes team looks a whole lot different from the version that beat the Irish 62-49 on Dec. 2 in Coral Gables, Fla.
That Miami team was ranked No. 8 in the nation by the Associated Press and had only one blemish on its resumé: a road loss to what might be Kentucky’s best team in years. The current edition has dropped in four of its past five games, including an unthinkable home loss to Louisville.
“They’ve lost a few now, so they’ve made some changes and injuries have caused them to change a little bit,” Notre Dame head coach Micah Shrewsberry said Tuesday. “They’re very good. They have great spurtability, especially because of how good they are in transition.”
Miami still likes to run, still loves to shoot and still has as many dangerous scorers as any team in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Losses to both Louisville and Notre Dame would look very, very bad on its NCAA Tournament resumé, so the Hurricanes — with their Final Four run this past March still fresh in their minds — will bring everything they have against the Irish.
“They’re a team that’s desperate for a win,” Shrewsberry said. “Same as we are. We’re desperate for a win. The one thing is having our group and having our home crowd behind us. Got some students back for the first time in a long time. … That little extra boost, hopefully, is what we need to really push us over the top.”
Notre Dame vs. Miami game information
- Teams: Notre Dame (7-11, 2-5 ACC) vs. Miami (12-6, 3-4 ACC)
- Date: Wednesday, Jan. 24
- Location: Purcell Pavilion in South Bend
- Time: 7 p.m. ET
- Television: ESPN2
- Streaming: WatchESPN
- TV announcers: Doug Sherman (play-by-play), Cory Alexander (analyst)
- Radio: 960 WSBT-AM in South Bend
- Radio announcer: Tony Simeone
Matchup notables
• Miami’s big four is junior forward Norchad Omier and junior guards Wooga Poplar, Nijel Pack and Matthew Cleveland. Each of them average at least 14 points per game.
• Cleveland is the one newcomer, having transferred from Florida State, but he’s been carrying the load for the Hurricanes in recent games. The exception was a 1-of-8 stinker against his former team this past Wednesday, but he has three 20-point outings so far in January and two more with at least 16.
• As Shrewsberry said, Omier, Pack and Poplar have all been various levels of banged up as of late, and their injuries have come at different times. Pack missed two buy games in December, but Poplar was absent for an overtime loss to Wake Forest and Omier missed a three-point loss to Syracuse on Saturday.
• Hurricanes head coach Jim Larrañaga hopes Omier — Miami’s leading scorer at 17.2 points per game — will play in Wednesday’s game, but his status is up in the air as of Monday. He missed the Syracuse loss with an ankle injury.
• Poplar and Pack are the Canes’ dangerous shooters, draining 46.1 and 41.4 percent of their three-pointers, respectively. Shrewsberry said the Irish did a poor job of sticking to them off of screens in their first outing, instead choosing to go under or around them. When the defense does that, they’ll pull the trigger.
