Kameron McGusty part of a growing trend in Miami Hurricanes basketball

Kameron McGusty is looking like he could be the latest Hurricane to come to the University of Miami as a transfer and become the next star.

Last year it was Zach Johnson, who came from Florida Gulf Coast and balled out as a senior. A couple years before that, Angel Rodriguez returned home after spending his first two years at Kansas State and led the Hurricanes to the NCAA Tournament.

This is starting to become head coach Jim Larranaga’s recruiting signature in Miami. By bringing in transfers like McGusty, Miami gets a more complete player ready to go after a year of development.

“The good thing about sitting out is you can identify the areas of your game that you want to pay close attention to and improve,” Larranaga said. “In Kam McGusty’s case, one of the things he wanted to do is to get stronger, to really be in the weight room and work on his body. The second thing is he really wanted to work on his three point shot and [assistant head coach Chris Caputo] worked with him every day and Kam worked on that part of his game. The last thing was we wanted him to play multiple positions. So now in the games that we already played, he’s played the 1, the 2, the 3 and the 4, and that’s unusual for a perimeter player.”

McGusty’s improvement jumped out of the box score on Saturday’s 80-52 win over Quinnipiac. He shot 7-of-11 from the field, including 4-of-6 3-pointers, scoring a game-high 22 points.

“I see the improvements in a little bit of everything,” McGusty said. “My conditioning is a little better. I’m a little stronger on the court. My decision making is better, I just think overall I’m a better player.”

McGusty came to Miami after two years at Oklahoma. Due to the NCAA’s rules on transfers, he had to patiently wait a year for his opportunity.

“Probably the hardest part is not being able to suit up with the people that you practice with and the guys that you train with,” McGusty said. “It’s very difficult but it does build character. I felt it gives you more motivation going into the next year stepping on that court.”

It was just as hard on the rest of the team as it was for him. The Hurricanes only had seven recruited scholarship players to work with last season and the lack of depth proved to be their downfall, resulting in a 14-18, and 5-13 conference record.

Center Rodney Miller took a non-medical redshirt last season to better condition himself and develop his game, which kept McGusty company.

“It was a good year for us to grind together,” McGusty said.