Longhorns can’t survive Miami’s furious finish, lose to Hurricanes in Elite Eight
For 31 minutes of its NCAA Tournament Midwest Regional final game against fifth-seeded Miami on Sunday, second-seeded Texas looked unstoppable, excelling on both ends of the court against the powerful Hurricanes and looking a trip to the Final Four dead in the eye.
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Then the Longhorns couldn’t close out The U, coming apart over the final nine minutes to lose 88-81 to Miami in Kansas City.
The Hurricanes advance to play third-seeded Connecticut on Saturday in the Final Four in Houston’s NRG Stadium. Ninth-seeded Florida Atlantic and fifth-seeded San Diego State will play in the other semifinal, with the winner to square off on Monday for the national championship.
Only Connecticut has played in the Final Four in the past, as the even-wilder-than-normal NCAA Tournament produced three first-time semifinalists.
The Hurricanes (28-7) made 15 of their 16 free throws over the last 8:09 of the game while Texas (29-9) missed eight of their final 12 shots and had three turnovers in that pivotal stretch.
“(The game turned) when Miami started trying to get downhill, just started to put their heads down, going one-on-one a little bit, trying to spread us out,” Texas interim coach Rodney Terry said. “And they really did a good job of getting into the paint and drawing fouls.”
Jordan Miller played a virtually perfect game to lead Miami, scoring 27 points on 7 of 7 shooting from the floor and 13 of 13 at the free throw line.
“No one wanted to go home,” Miller said afterward. “We came together. We stuck together. We showed really good perseverance and the will — the will to just want to get there.”
Wooga Poplar added 16 points for the Hurricanes, with Nijel Pack scoring 15, Isaiah Wong hitting for 14 and Norchad Omier contributing 11. Miami shot 59.2 percent from the floor and was 28 of 32 from the charity stripe.
Marcus Carr led Texas with 17 points while Timmy Allen had 16 and Sir’Jabari Rice tallied 15 points off the bench.
For most of the game the Longhorns looked as if they would make their first trip to the Final Four since 2003 but those chances faded with the finish line firmly in sight.
Texas led by eight at halftime and by 13 points six and a half minutes into the second half before the Hurricanes forged their inevitable comeback, moving to a 77-75 lead after two free throws by Miller with 3:57 to play.
Rice tied the game with a driving floater with 3:24 left. Miller answered with two more free throws with 2:20 to play to put Miami up by two then Carr got into the paint for a turnaround jumper that re-tied the game at 79 with 1:26 remaining.
Omier sank two free throws with 1 minute to play and then stole the ball from Carr with 42 seconds left. After a Carr foul with 34 seconds remaining, Wong converted two free throws to put the Hurricanes up by four, and Miller added two more from the line with 23 seconds left.
Miami waltzed home from there, scoring its final 13 points at the line over the game’s last four minutes while the Longhorns managed just six points over the final five minutes.
“(The officials) were calling it tighter the second half, and we made had some fouls early in the half that put Miami on the line late, and that hurt us,” Allen said.
The Hurricanes roared through the first two and a half minutes, building a 7-0 lead and then a 9-2 advantage on a series of drives to the basket and one-and-done defense. Texas answered with a 7-0 run that featured a 3-pointer by Rice and a layup by Brock Cunningham and tied the game in advance of the first media break at the 14:55 mark of the opening half.
Texas took its first lead of the game coming out of the time out on a jumper by Rice. The rest of the half was played at a frenetic, back-and-forth pace, with two ties and two lead changes, the last of which came with 7:50 to play in the first half when a 3-pointer by Carr put the Longhorns ahead at 23-21
The Hurricanes, who hit 11 3-pointers in their semifinal win over Houston, didn’t have one until Pack, the former Kansas State guard, hit a contested shot from the corner with 5:34 to play in the half.
The Longhorns’ strong bench play continued through the waning minutes of the half as Arterio Morris canned back-to-back 3-pointers, the latter with 2 minutes to play, to help Texas expand its advantage to 39-33.
Texas scored on eight of its final nine possessions of the half, including on two free throws by Carr with 3 seconds remaining, and carried a 45-37 lead into the break.
Miller led all scorers in the half, racking up 13 for Miami as it shot 64 percent over the first 20 minutes of play thanks to 20 points in the paint.
Allen and Carr paced the Longhorns with 10 points each; Texas limited the Hurricanes to just nine total rebounds and its bench players outscored Miami 21-2 before halftime.
The Longhorns got a dunk by Dillon Mitchell on its first possession of the second half to go up by 10 points and were able to weather Miami’s initial comeback attempt, actually expanding their lead to 13 points on a layup by Tyrese Hunter with 13:29 to play.
Texas supporters had to hold their collective breath when Carr went down with an left quad injury after a foul by Omier with 11:06 to play. Miami pulled to within 67-58 after two free throws by Miller with 10:01 remaining and to within 70-64 when Poplar converted a pair from the charity stripe two minutes later to set the stage for the furious finish.
Texas ended up with its deepest finish in the NCAAs since 2008, won the Big 12 tournament, and posted the third-most wins in program history.
“They were truly a team,” Terry said about the Longhorns. “They embodied everything about a team on and off the court. They carried themselves with class and just had a laser-focus on trying to achieve a common goal. These guys, more than any group I’ve worked with in 32 years of coaching, have embodied staying the course and being a team.”
Texas went 22-8 under Terry after the discarding of Chris Beard in early December after which the Longhorns became what Terry called a “player-driven team.”
“(The way this ended) was very upsetting,” Cunningham said. “This team dealt with a lot of trials and tribulations. But it’s just the family that we are and, you know, you want to keep playing with your brothers for as long as possible.
“Unfortunately, there’s only one happy team at the end of it. I wish the game would have finished differently – just a lot of emotions.”
