Three Takeaways From Miami Basketball's Back-to-Back Loses Between Clemson and FSU
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CORAL GABLES, Fla. — It was another loss for the once-red-hot Miami Hurricanes. After the best start in program history by a first-year head coach, the Canes have dropped the past two games against No. 22 Clemson and Florida State.
The Canes clean up a few issues, but with a fair schedule ahead of them, they can fix them.
Head coach Jai Lucas already has his war helmet and is prepared to answer those questions as soon as possible.
They also need to find a way to produce on offense even when things are not fully clicking.
A Run of Tournovers
There is a turnover problem afoot for Jai Lucas’s squad. They have struggled to find consistent offense, and when they can’t find anything in the first half, they struggle to come back and score. This was a familiar feeling against BYU, where the Canes struggled to score, and they continued to throw the ball away. In back-to-back games, the first-half turnovers have increased. 23 total in the past two games, for a very slow descent into the issues of the Hurricanes' offenses.
Malik Reneau Slows
Everyone knows that the Hurricanes' leading scorer is Reneau, but he has started to slow down with more attention being drawn to him. Anything he is on the block, he instantly gets doubled and struggles to either pass out of quickly or make a move.
He has slowed in his production; however, it's not from a lack of effort. He has to be quicker with his decisions. The second he does, he unlocks his game and the level around them as well.
Scoring Hesitation
"We just look gunshy," Lucas said after the FSU loss. "You know, we just looked like we were second-guessing and hesitant. And that's not us. And that's not who we are. Um, and who we've been. And I got to figure out why uh, why we are that way. And once we get that cleaned up and figured out, we'll be fine. But right now, we just kind of look we just look gunshy. And it just felt like the game, like we were just kind of hesitant a little bit."
The Hurricanes were never going to be an elite level three-point shooting team, but they need to let them fly. It's not that they don't have open shots, like lucas said they just need to let them go.
"With Dante and then Timo and Noam, you know those guys, they're our floor spacers, so they got to shoot some of these threes that they're getting," Lucas said.
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Justice Sandle is a graduate of Mississippi State University earning a Bachelor of Arts and Science in Communications with a concentration in Print and Digital Journalism. During his time in Starkville, he spent a year as an intern working for Mississippi State On SI primarily covering basketball, football, baseball, and soccer while writing, recording, and creating multimedia stories during his tenor. Since graduating, he has assumed the role of lead staff writer for Miami Hurricanes On SI covering football, basketball, baseball, and all things Hurricanes related.