{"id":190155,"date":"2026-03-13T12:59:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T12:59:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/190155\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T12:59:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T12:59:19","slug":"miami-prepared-for-hard-nosed-battle-vs-no-10-virginia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/190155\/","title":{"rendered":"Miami prepared for ‘hard-nosed’ battle vs. No. 10 Virginia"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHARLOTTE — The moments will become a little bigger for 10th-ranked Virginia<\/a> and Miami when they meet in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament semifinals Friday night.<\/p>\n

Both teams survived in the quarterfinal round, coming up with clutch plays down the stretch in their respective games.<\/p>\n

“These guys have weathered storms, and they understand how to win in big moments,” Virginia coach Ryan Odom said of his team.<\/p>\n

Third-seeded Miami (25-7) avenged Saturday’s home loss to Louisville in the regular-season finale by defeating the sixth-seeded Cardinals 78-73 in Thursday’s quarterfinals. Now the Hurricanes will have a chance to avenge their only other loss since January — an 86-83 setback at Virginia on Feb. 21.<\/p>\n

The rematch could be entertaining as well.<\/p>\n

“It’s going to be a war,” Miami forward Malik Reneau said. “It’s going to be a hard-nosed basketball game, and we’ve got to be ready to play all 40 minutes — relentless 40 minutes.”<\/p>\n

Second-seeded Virginia (28-4) held off seventh-seeded North Carolina State 81-74 in Thursday’s first quarterfinal.<\/p>\n

The stakes are rising for Virginia and Miami.<\/p>\n

“We try to stay connected and together as much as possible,” Virginia guard Jacari White said. “A big game is a big game. But it’s still just — it’s basketball, at the end of the day. All we’ve got is us, and we focus on that a lot.”<\/p>\n

Miami is trying to reach the ACC tournament final for only the second time. The Hurricanes didn’t even qualify for the event last year.<\/p>\n

“The experience we’ve gained throughout the season to get to this point has kind of molded us to where I feel at this part of the season (is) where you want to be playing your best basketball,” Lucas said.<\/p>\n

Even in defeat, Miami put up the most points in a regulation game vs. Virginia this season. The Cavaliers generally are stingier on defense.<\/p>\n

“That’s our thing, defense,” forward Thijs De Ridder said. “We are a defensive-mindset team, and we just want the ball and play off — every time we play good defense, it mostly turns into good offense.”<\/p>\n

Virginia received eight blocked shots from Ugonna Onyenso vs. the Wolfpack, matching the second-highest total in a game in ACC tournament history. He was called on for about 16 minutes of court time in the first half, well above his average.<\/p>\n

“For him to step up and be able to go that long in this game says a lot about his physical fitness and the impact that he had within the game was huge,” Odom said.<\/p>\n

The Cavaliers also prevented NC State from registering any fast-break points on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Miami’s Reneau had 18 of his 24 points against Louisville in the second half.<\/p>\n

“I trust in myself a lot, and also my teammates trust in me to go get a basket at any moment,” Reneau said. “Just having that feeling that my team is behind me when we need a basket, a go-to basket, it gives me the utmost confidence to go do that.”<\/p>\n

–Bob Sutton, Field Level Media<\/p>\n

\n Copyright 2026 STATS LLC and Field Level Media. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Field Level Media is strictly prohibited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHARLOTTE — The moments will become a little bigger for 10th-ranked Virginia and Miami when they meet in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[8294,123,4641,125,124,4682],"class_list":["post-190155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-college-basketball","tag-miami","tag-miami-fla-hurricanes","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-virginia-cavaliers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190155","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=190155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}