Miami Preview

Miami vs. Clemson, 2/13, 12:00pm, Littlejohn

Stop me if you've heard this before, but Miami is struggling to live up to expectations. They got off to a good start with victories over Minnesota and Wake Forest en route to a 15-1 record, but ACC play has exposed their mostly soft early schedule. Outside of the those two teams, the next highest rated team they played according to Kenpom was USuCk, with the #189-ranked Florida Atlantic as the next strongest team.

I think Miami expected more from their offense this season, which has ended up really in the middle of the ACC pack. They still shoot the ball reasonably well, equally dangerous from inside and outside. They have three legitimate three-point threats in James Dews, Adrian Thomas, and Malcolm Grant. They are also good on the offensive glass; good shooting + good offensive rebounding is normally a pretty potent combination for an offense. However, they have struggled mightily in two areas offense this season: FT shooting and turnovers. The gameplan on defense practically writes itself for the Tigers, pressure defense early and often and put Dwayne Collins (Miami's primary inside force this season) on the line whenever he gets the ball inside for a shot. Collins has shot by far the most FTs for Miami but sports a miserable 53.1% mark.

On top of their offensive struggles, Miami's defense has arguably taken a step down from last season. While they have been decent at limiting opposing team's FG percentage, they haven't been able to come up with much in the way of turnovers and have also sent opposing teams to the line at a pretty high rate relative to other ACC teams. They have been better at stopping the three than the two, which I expect will lead to a greater emphasis on the inside game for the Booker brothers on Saturday. Miami does have an inside presence and manages to block quite a few shots, but at the same time they struggle at bit controlling the offensive glass. This will hopefully lead to some easy putbacks for the Tigers, even if they are (as usual) having trouble shooting from point-blank range. And hey, we might see yet another "breakout game" from Jerai Grant.

All in all, this is a pretty good matchup for Clemson and we should really expect a margin of victory of around 7-12 points. But I have a bad feeling about this game. Its a short turnaround for a noon game on a Saturday. I don't expect to see a lot of energy from Clemson tomorrow in Littlejohn, with or without a decent student turnout. Purnell played his regulars hard on Wednesday night, likely a tacit admission of how much was at stake against FSU and how we should be able to win against Miami even if we're a little winded. Let's hope Trevor Booker is back to 100%, Demontez Stitt starts to approach 100%, and the coaching staff is willing to stick with Devin Booker, who should have about the freshest legs on the court. 'Cause I suspect we're going to have to press Miami all game long to keep them from mounting a comeback. GO TIGERS!!