Miami held its own, but losing streak hits seven with 75-62 loss to top-ranked Tennessee

Michelle Kaufman, Miami Herald on Dec 10, 2024

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The slumping Miami Hurricanes had a chance to make a major statement on Tuesday night against top-ranked Tennessee at Madison Square Garden in front of an ESPN audience.

They held their own, took a brief lead midway through the first half, got within seven late in the game, but fell short 75-62 in the Volunteers’ closest game of the season.

It was the Hurricanes’ seventh loss in a row and the team dropped to 3-7. Miami has lost 17 of its past 20 games dating to the end of last season.

Despite the losing streak, the Hurricanes had promising stretches against Tennessee in the Jimmy V Classic, as they did in losses to Clemson and Arkansas the past few weeks.

They made four of their first seven 3-point attempts, including back-to-back threes from Matthew Cleveland, and took a two-point lead on a Lynn Kidd hook shot at the eight-minute mark of the first half.

The Miami bench erupted and Hurricanes fans watching on TV had reason to hope that an upset was not out of the question.

But the Volunteers ended the half on a 14-0 run and never trailed again.

“In the first half we had a terrible last seven minutes,” UM coach Jim Larranaga said at his postgame interview. “We were awful. It was like we never practiced together before. It was like we just met each other at the last time out. It didn’t look like our team.

“Everyone was shooting off the bounce, no passes, no assists, bad shot selection. When you do that, it’s really demoralizing and hard to play good defense when everybody’s mad we took such a bad shot.”

Kidd kept UM alive, scoring 12 of his 14 points in the final 20 minutes. The Vols never let up and opened an 18-point lead at 55-37 with 12:14 to play in the game.

Looking for a spark, Larranaga decided to put in the freshman trio of Austin Swartz, Divine Ugochukwu and Isaiah Johnson-Arigu along with Kidd and A.J. Staton-McCray. They responded. Ugochukwu and Swartz made driving layups to ignite a 7-0 run and a pair of Ugochukwu free throws got Miami to within seven, 63-56 with under six minutes to go.

Nijel Pack connected on back-to-back threes down the stretch to keep the Hurricanes within striking distance, but Tennessee scored the last five points to secure the victory.

“We got a little anxious, had three freshmen on the court at that time, they got a little excited, and hurried to try to cut the lead even more,” Larranaga said. “We made two real critical errors, and it immediately went back to 10 [point deficit] and that ended our chances of winning the game.”

Kidd recorded a double-double with 14 points and 12 rebounds for UM. Pack added 12 and Staton-McCray added 11. Cleveland had nine, Ugochukwu and Swartz finished with eight.

Larranaga said his players have been focusing on rebounding and defense in the past two weeks and have improved in both areas. “Eventually, the winning will follow, and that’s what I told the team after the game,” Larranaga said. “You have to follow the process. If you’re not good at something, get better at it.”

Chaz Lanier scored 22 points to lead the Vols. Igor Milicic Jr. added 16 and nine rebounds and Zakai Zeigler added 13 points and nine assists as Tennessee remained undefeated at 9-0.

“You’ve got to give a lot of credit to Tennessee,” Larranaga said. “Rick Barnes does an amazing job. His players are playing great. Zakai Ziegler is an amazing player and Chaz Lanier, we played against him last year and he was good, with this group around him, he’s really special.”

The Hurricanes are back home at the Watsco Center Sunday at 2 p.m. ET against Presbyterian.

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