The men’s team made the Final Four as a five seed, and the women’s team made the Elite Eight as a nine seed. Miami Hurricanes basketball was on the national stage like never before, and their runs will be a part of UM lore forever.
Growing up a Miami Hurricanes fan, the football team is the first thing you learn about, and rightfully so. Highlights of Michael Irvin, Sean Taylor and many other UM greats litter your YouTube history. Seared into your brain at a young age is the swagger revolution of the 1980s, the dominant football of then as well as the early 2000s and the six five national titles that make UM one of the more historically successful college football programs in the nation.
But in the shadows of the Orange Bowl and Hard Rock Stadium was a shining star in Miami basketball. While the men’s program didn’t consistently appear on the national stage until the late 1990s and the women’s until the early 2010s, hoops in Hurricane land have gone up a few notches, especially amidst the football program’s nosedive in recent years.
The first season that I started following college basketball was in 2012-13, when Miami basketball had arguably their best season ever. BankUnited Center was rocking like never before as the ‘Canes accomplished many firsts and achieved several program records that season.
They beat the number one ranked team in the country for the first time ever (by 27! And it was Duke! HAHAHA!). They won the most regular season games in program history (24) and achieved their highest ever AP Poll ranking (2). Jim Larrañaga became the first UM head coach to win AP Coach of the Year. They took home the program’s first ACC regular season and tournament championship. It was the most fun and electric squad that’d ever donned the orange and green.
The next decade would feature the best run of ‘Canes hoops in program history. Future pros like Lonnie Walker IV, Bruce Brown and Beatrice Mompremeir would grow immensely en route to becoming eventual draft picks. Angel Rodriguez and Chris Lykes each took Larkin’s role of electric point guard and became Miami legends in the process. Dangerous tournament teams were aplenty on both the men’s and women’s side.
But the star that was Miami basketball had never truly shined bright, sort of like a diamond (someone should make a song out of that). There seemed to be a metaphorical wall at the Sweet 16 that withstood the Hurricanes year after year. The men’s team broke it down last season when they made the Elite Eight, but both programs still had unpassed checkpoints to cross.
Until now.
Well, neither team won the whole thing, but both made history this past March. The men’s team made their first Final Four, and the women’s team made their first Elite Eight, with both conquering giants along the way. Even though neither team was the best their respective programs had ever seen, they were able to capture that March magic like never before en route to unexpected runs to unvisited territory.
21 programs saw both their men’s and women’s teams make the field of 68 this season; if we combined the seeds of the two programs, Miami (5 seed in the men’s + 9 seed in the women’s = 14) would rank 15th, ahead of USC (18), West Virginia (19), Mississippi State (22), Drake (24), Princeton (25) and Iona (27).
Essentially, if we were to bet which program would last the longest in both tournaments combined, Miami would’ve been one of the last picks before the madness ensued. But alas, there they were, atop the heap of rubble, battling valiantly like no Hurricane teams of the past ever had in March. Amidst the chaos of both the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments, only one program withstood a chunk of the madness the longest.
This kind of simultaneous postseason success from non-favorites is rarely seen in college basketball; the 2023 Hurricanes were the first instance of a men’s and women’s team from the same program making the Elite Eight as five seeds and lower. There are a litany of reasons why this run for both Miami squads was so incredible, with one being both programs’ aforementioned struggles in March.
In sports, “the hump” is a real thing that’s haunted many teams, especially in a sport like college basketball whose postseason structure is very vulnerable to vast variance (see: 2000, 2011, 2023). On the men’s side, for example, Gonzaga and Illinois have been top-four seeds a combined 25 times since 1985, but have zero championships to show for it.
While Miami’s postseason falterings aren’t that extreme, the men’s team had frequently been on the cusp of deep March Madness runs, but couldn’t get over the hump that was the Sweet 16. Their first few modern-day tournament appearances (post-1985) saw them either get a top seed and get upset, or get a lower seed and give higher seeds trouble. Here’s how their first five appearances played out:
- 1998 (11 seed) Loss by 3 to (6) UCLA in Round of 64
- 1999 (2 seed): Loss by 10 to (10) Purdue in Round of 32
- 2000 (6 seed): Loss by 9 to (7) Tulsa in Sweet 16
- 2002 (5 seed): Loss by 13 to (12) Missouri in Round of 64
- 2008 (10 seed): Loss by 3 to (2) Texas in Round of 32
From 2011-12 until 2020-21, the Hurricanes still couldn’t get past the Sweet 16 despite fielding some of the best teams in program history. The aforementioned 2012-13 squad fell to third-seeded Marquette in the Sweet 16. The 2015-16 squad that won 24 regular season games got smashed by two-seeded Villanova in the same round. Miami got middling seeds in the next two tournaments and lost in the Round of 64 both times, including to eventual Cinderella Loyola Chicago on a game-winner in 2018.
The women’s team kept hitting similar walls in March. Like the men’s side, Miami’s struggles weren’t as extreme compared to other programs. For example, Duke women’s basketball is championship-less despite being a top-four seed 21 times since 1995. After Stanford women’s basketball won their second national championship in 1992, they entered the NCAA Tournament as a top-two seed another 18 times and came up empty until they won it again in 2021.
However, also similarly to the men’s team, the Miami women kept coming up short when it mattered most. From 2010-11 to 2020-21, the Hurricanes went dancing eight times but never advanced past the Round of 32. Miami got a top-five seed five times and lost to a lower-seeded team every single time, including to two 12-seeds in back-to-back years. (Jon Rothstein voice) The epitome of brutality!
Last year, however, both teams threw down some sweet moves in the Big Dance. The men’s team made the Elite Eight for the first time in program history, which included an 18-point domination of an Auburn team that featured Jabari Smith Jr. and Walker Kessler, with the former getting viciously dunked on by Isaiah Wong in the defeat.
The women’s team lost to eventual national champion South Carolina in the Round of 32, but they held the Gamecocks to a season-low 49 points. Sure, the men’s team got outscored 47-15 in the second half against the Jayhawks, and the women’s team had one of their worst shooting performances of the season, but both gave college basketball’s best (literally, the eventual last teams standing) a real run for their money.
Despite the positive momentum from 2022, for the men’s team, 2023 felt like a year that might fall into the same boat as 1999 and 2002 did; a loss to an underseeded team that erased an awesome season. 2000 Tulsa was eerily similar to this year’s Florida Atlantic squad; the Golden Hurricane were a balanced mid-major powerhouse who steamrolled their way to 27 regular season wins. The 2002 Tigers had one of the best offenses in college basketball who played in a conference where half its teams made the Big Dance that season.
The 2023 Drake Bulldogs presented a similar challenge. They were victors of one of the most competitive mid-major conferences in Division I, the Missouri Valley Conference. Drake was one of the better defenses in college basketball, and five of their six best players were seniors. The sixth was their best player in sophomore Tucker DeVries, a scoring machine who’d put up double-digit points in every game except one leading up to the Big Dance this season.
A dogfight against the Bulldogs was just an appetizer. Fourth-seeded Indiana had multiple wins over Purdue and featured a superstar duo in Trayce Jackson-Davis and Jalen Hood-Schifino. Top-seeded Houston was one of the best and most balanced teams in the country who never dropped out of the top five in the AP Poll all season long. Two-seeded Texas was one of just three teams to finish in the top 15 of KenPom offensive and defensive efficiency metrics. Past Miami teams would’ve fallen at some point along this road.
These weren’t your regular ol’ Hurricanes.
The difference this year was that Miami was able to shift into another gear that’d been non-existent in past teams, which was essentially just blitzing other elite opponents as opposed to getting blitzed. The killer instinct that’s carried many teams deep into March was never there until this season. To be honest, I think it started with this video.
Against the Hoosiers, Wong dropped 27, Dennis Rodman-lite Norchad Omier grabbed 17 rebounds, and Miami ended the game on a 45-26 run.
Against the Cougars, Miami never allowed Houston to generate much rhythm on offense. They forced UH (who averaged around 22 attempted threes per game) to take an uncharacteristically high 31 triples, as Omier & Co. did a remarkable job of shutting down the paint defensively. On the other hand, Miami lit up one of the best defenses in the country, which included Nijel Pack burying seven threes in the upset victory.
The game against Texas was a slightly different story. Unlike the previous two games, Miami found themselves down by double-digits in the second half; they needed to make a run. It was then an unexpected hero emerged. Wooga Poplar saw Timmy Allen guarding his baseline out-of-bounds pass with his back faced to Poplar. Many players have taken this chance and succeeded. Poplar did as well.
This act of inbounds mischief sparked an offensive hurricane, as Miami went on a 37-17 run to end the game after the perfectly executed ass pass. Every starter scored double figures, including Jordan Miller, who shot a perfect 7/7 from the field and 13/13 from the charity stripe. One of the stalwarts of stability for UM since he arrived as a transfer prior to the 2021-22 season, Miller’s apex performance landed him in rather elite company.
This was another difference between this year and all other years: Miami’s big time players stepped up in big games (hi Santana Moss!) and had more than a couple of players play exceptionally. In 2013, several ‘Canes put up bottom-tier performances against Marquette. In 2016, no one outside of Sheldon Mac and Angel Rodriguez stepped up against Villanova. In 2018, Walker IV was held to just 12 points, committed a crucial turnover in the final 30 seconds and missed the front end of a one-and-one that could’ve eliminated the possibility of a buzzer-beater against Loyola Chicago. Then, there was last season, when everyone went quiet in a disastrous second half against Kansas.
On the women’s side, the Hurricanes drew a similarly difficult path. Eighth-seeded Oklahoma State was one of the more potent offenses in the nation that didn’t have a single freshman on the roster. Despite being down 17 at halftime, the Hurricanes’ offense withstood every tumbleweed Oklahoma State threw into its defensive attack. (
Up next was top-seeded Indiana, who put together their best season in program history and was a perfect 16-0 at home entering the tournament. Miami, on the other hand, had the second-most road losses of any Power 6 team entering the tournament. Finally, prior to Stanford falling to Ole Miss, one seeds had won 96 (!) consecutive home games prior to the Sweet 16 dating back to 2010. History despised Miami more than Florida State fans.
Forget history. Charity stripe sharpshooter Haley Cavinder told it to shut up for a moment as she hit one of the coldest free throws of the tournament to keep the ‘Canes in the game late. It was destiny. Literally. Destiny.
The ‘Canes then faced fourth-seeded Villanova and scoring machine Maddy Siegrist, whose 29.2 points per game was the third-highest single season average in women’s college basketball history. Siegrist dropped 31-13, but met an unexpected match in UM’s Jasmyne Roberts, who dropped a career-high 26 points in Miami’s 70-65 triumph.
Both programs faced the toughest possible path for their seed, and they put themselves into not just UM history books, but national college basketball history books. Prior to this season, seven other five-seeds had made the Final Four in the men’s bracket since 1985; only Auburn in 2019 endured as difficult a path to the Final Four ((12) New Mexico State, (4) Kansas, (1) North Carolina, (2) Kentucky) as Miami did this season in terms of seeds faced. Since the modern-day women’s bracket was introduced in 1994, only three teams seeded ninth or lower made the Elite Eight prior to this season, and two of them had happened in the previous five tournaments.
Of course, both teams’ dream runs came to an end, but on high notes. The men were dominated by eventual national champion UConn, but their margin of defeat was the lowest of any of the Huskies’ victimes during their title romp. While the women literally couldn’t buy a bucket in their Elite Eight loss to LSU, they held the eventual national champion and offensively-spectacular Tigers to their lowest scoring game of the season.
Now, it’d be malpractice to completely gloss over the massive elephant in the room that has the letters “N”, “I” and “L” and the phrase “transfer portal” written on its trunk, because they played a huge part in UM’s success this season. Pack was legally paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in NIL money as a highly-pursued transfer out of Kansas State. Several other ‘Canes have NIL deals as well courtesy of booster John Ruiz.
The women were punished for a violation during their recruitments of the Cavinder twins, Haley and Hanna, transfers from Fresno State whose joint TikTok account has 4.5 million followers. Meier was suspended for three games, and the program was placed on probation for a year because Ruiz treated the twins to a meal.
Many people were critical of these transactions. Many people have been critical of NIL and the modern nature of the transfer portal, especially when talking about Miami, an institution known for dishing out mind-blowing benefits to players that some might have considered…illegal.
While it’s understandable to think negatively of the deals with Pack and the Cavinder twins, this is all a product of a perfectly ok part of college basketball (and college sports in general). Sure, it’s more natural and wholesome if a team wins a national title with no transfers or massive NIL deals. Look at the UConn men this season! But these are things that have already happened and are going to keep happening in the future, and there are going to be some teams that are going to be in a more advantageous position within the portal/NIL than others.
Alright, back to our regularly scheduled programming.
The number one feeling that’s radiated throughout both tournaments has been joy. Larrañaga added to his collection of heartwarming old man moves after leading an underdog to the Final Four, just as he did with George Mason in 2006. I’d never seen Katie Meier as happy as she was after her team’s victory over Villanova. After years of seasons ending too early, years of promise being dashed anticlimactically, these smiles and feelings of happiness on Red Bull felt the realest of any run in program history.
For both programs, the future is unknown. The men appear to be in relatively good shape, as Miller is the only player that’s definitely not coming back next season; his college eligibility is up. Everyone else has at least one year of eligibility remaining, and we’ve seen that continuity wins in March. The women are in a similar state, as Harden is the only main contributor whose college eligibility is up.
No matter what the future holds, however, this ride was one UM fans will remember for a very long time. For a couple of weeks, Miami basketball was on the national stage like never before, with players and coaches that’d given everything and more to the school getting deserved time under the sun. For a couple of weeks in March 2023, it sure was great to be a Miami Hurricane.