what\u2019s considered to be a weak bubble<\/a>, but the questions are going to swirl until the selection show starts because they have one of the lowest strength of schedule ratings in the sport. Miami entered play Thursday rated 344th out of 365 teams in strength of schedule, according to the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET), which measures a team\u2019s schedule strength by calculating the difficulty to win each game on it for a tournament-caliber team.<\/p>\n\u201cIt would be a complete embarrassment if this league doesn\u2019t get two teams in,\u201d said UMass coach Frank Martin, the former South Carolina and Kansas State coach who said he was \u201cmore nervous\u201d for the Miami game Thursday than any in his coaching career \u2014 which included a Final Four berth with the Gamecocks in 2017.<\/p>\n
Martin, overcome with emotion thinking about his eighth-seeded (in the MAC) Minutemen recovering from an 11-point second-half deficit to upset the RedHawks, added after a long pause, \u201cI feel bad for Miami, but I\u2019m happy for our guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miami, which had won its last three games by 2 points apiece and had nine wins this season in overtime or on the game\u2019s final possession, led the Minutemen by 11 with 8:19 to go before UMass came storming back. An 11-2 run over the next three minutes enabled the Minutemen to tie the score at 71 with 5:22 left, and then guard Marcus Banks\u2019 3-pointer with 3:54 put the Minutemen ahead, 77-76. They never trailed again.<\/p>\n
UMass (17-15) was led by Leonardo Bettiol\u2019s 25 points and Banks added 18 points. Miami sophomore Brant Byers finished with 17 points. The RedHawks were destroyed on the glass, 41-24. Miami beat UMass by 2 in January and by 9 on the road last month.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an amazing opportunity to get to play an undefeated team and being the first team that beats them all season long,\u201d Bettiol said. \u201cBut at the end of the day it\u2019s just another game. You can\u2019t really look at records or anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
The last time the RedHawks lost a game was here in Cleveland, at Rocket Arena, in last season\u2019s MAC tournament final on March 15, when they blew an 18-point lead to Akron. What happened after that was nothing short of, choose your adjective here.<\/p>\n
On Jan. 27, as fate would have it, Miami hosted UMass in the game the RedHawks ultimately won by 2. The Miami men\u2019s swim team showed up for that game in Speedos, skull caps, and goggles. A few days later, with the RedHawks already the sport\u2019s lone undefeated team, Steele was asked during an appearance on ESPN\u2019s \u201cCollege GameDay\u201d if he would wear a Speedo for the tournament selection show on CBS. \u201cDone deal,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Steele, 44, took over at Miami in 2022 after he was fired from the same job at Xavier. The RedHawks won 12 games in his first season and a program-record 25 last year, setting the stage for the campaign he hopes will continue next week. Miami averaged 2,600 fans for its home games last year, but this season set attendance records all over the place, from the 10,640 total fans who attended a win over Northern Illinois, to the 5,800 students (a third of the student body) who showed up for the UMass game.<\/p>\n
Steele said opposing teams distributed free beer to their fans when Miami was in town for road games. Charged atmospheres became customary when the RedHawks showed up. During a recent win at Western Michigan, Steele was so frustrated with the game officials that he blasted the DJ\u2019s speaker and knocked it over while storming to the locker room. The RedHawks also survived an overtime scare on the road at its archrival, Ohio University, last weekend to complete the regular season with no blemishes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a blast,\u201d Steele said, \u201cOur guys have really enjoyed the ride.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thursday, the RedHawks did not enjoy. Not only were they outrebounded nearly two-to-one, and not only did they blow a double-digit lead in the second half, but all the experience gained from those close wins didn\u2019t pay off when they needed it.<\/p>\n
Steele described an emotional, quiet postgame locker room in which his players had to shake off the feeling of a loss for the first time in a calendar year, made heavier by the unknown it caused for their NCAA Tournament fates.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re upset that we lost this game,\u201d said Miami\u2019s Peter Suder, the team\u2019s leading scorer, who contributed 10 points on eight shots against the Minutemen. \u201cIt obviously hurts. No one likes losing. But we had a great regular season and we proved that we\u2019re a really good team and we\u2019re really fun to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n
Does the selection committee agree, and is it enough for its members to put Miami\u2019s name on a bracket line early Sunday evening? Those are the questions left for the RedHawks to ponder in what is sure to be a long three days.<\/p>\n
Said Miami guard Trey Perry: \u201cIt\u2019s out of our control now, gotta see what happens on Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND \u2014 Miami (Ohio) hadn\u2019t lost in 362 days. As the RedHawks\u2019 undefeated season continued, the school\u2019s swim…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":189112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2537,123,23531,125,124,45056],"class_list":["post-189111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-mens-college-basketball","tag-miami","tag-miami-oh-redhawks","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-umass-minutemen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}