Hurricanes Redemption

An Elite Eight in 2022.

A Final Four in 2023.

Things had never been better for the University of Miami Men’s Basketball Program.

Expectations come and go, but with an upward trend, the 2024 Canes were all set to be the best team in school history.

Disaster Months in the Making

This team is currently a shell of the team that I encountered at the ACC Basketball Tip-Off in Charlotte in October.

Gone is the swagger and confidence of a program that knew this year would be the year they finish the job. In its place is uncertainty, hesitation. 

Even before the Canes’ first misstep this season (a blowout National TV loss to Kentucky), there were signs that this team was very much a work in progress. It was about the time that the Canes fell behind by 12 to FIU in the 2nd half of a November home game that we all realized something was amiss in Coral Gables. The Canes rallied to win that game by 6, but it was merely a portend of things to come.

A fully healthy Hurricanes team was played off the court by Kentucky and Colorado.

And then the injury bug hit…first Nijel Pack, then Wooga Poplar, then Norchad Omier, and now Matthew Cleveland. The Canes are a veritable MASH unit.

With that context fully acknowledged, the extent to which everything has gone sideways is still staggering.

• Louisville is 1-9 in conference. That 1 win was against Miami.
• They managed to lose to FSU at home, again.
• Matthew Cleveland’s buzzer beater rimmed out against Wake Forest, turning a win into a loss.
• Syracuse hit a buzzer beater against the Canes, turning an OT opportunity into a loss.
• Recently, against NC State, the Canes lost by 6 in a game they probably win if they simply make layups.

With 5 conference losses, the Canes have already matched last year’s total. At 7 losses, they’ve already eclipsed last year’s loss total for the regular season.

What started out as a dream season has turned into a nightmare. The 2024 Canes will be condemned to the dustbin of history, only mentioned as a cautionary tale. of hype with no substance. Too short, too shallow on the bench, not enough to compete.

One Shot

But here’s the thing…you don’t have a funeral while the patient is still alive. There are still games to play, wins to gather.

It’s time for the 2024 Canes to show what they’re made of.

They won’t get sympathy from anyone. No one cares about their injuries, and certainly no one cares that they are undersized.

No help is coming. Constantin Popa is not coming in to play center. The Canes have whoever they have, and whoever is healthy needs to go out there and get the job done.

And that’s the salient point. The Canes don’t need Constantin Popa. The best center in school history is the current starter, Norchad Omier. They don’t even need Tim James (well, they could use Tim James. Everyone could always use Tim James). 

This is still the same team that the ACC Media (not Miami homers) picked to finish 2nd in the conference. The potential is there.

• 10 games for the Canes to show who they are.
• 10 games to play Miami Basketball.
• 10 games to erase the pain.
• 10 games to ante up and kick in. 

Jon Rothstein quips that the Canes have “more guards than Shawshank” in reference to the movie Shawshank Redemption. Well, it’s time for the “Redemption” part. That movie surely wouldn’t be as popular if Andy Dufresne instead of being the man who “crawled through a river of $#*% and came out clean on the other side” was the man who “crawled through a river of $#*% and got stuck in the pipe.”

The only thing better than the schadenfreude of high expectations and low results is the redemption of those downtrodden, ruled out, left for dead, rising one last time to heroically vanquish the opponent.

There are 10 opponents left to vanquish. There are blank pages at the end of the 2024 Canes’ book. They have the pen in hand, and they can still write a hell of an ending.

The Canes just have to believe what they know to be true: that they are one of the best teams in the country, that while imperfect individually, together, they are the better of most. 

If you believed in November, there’s no point in letting go of the rope now. The season can still be the one that was hoped for, the one of dreams.

There is still magic in the Magic City. The Canes have everything they need, the right players, the right people. And if they put it all together, a Category 5 Hurricane can still blow through the ACC and into the NCAA Tournament. 

The Canes have crawled through a river of $#*% and its time to come out clean on the other side.

Vishnu Parasuraman is a show host and writer for @FiveReasonsSports. He covers Miami Hurricanes Basketball for @buckets_canes part of the @5ReasonsCanes Network. You can follow him on twitter @vrp2003