Larranaga: No fans expected through December, ACC stacked with talent

It’s a good news, bad news situation for the Miami Hurricanes basketball team, which began official practices on Wednesday.

The good news? The team returns six of the top seven scorers from last season, with the lone loss DJ Vasiljevic, who averaged 13.2 points.

The bad news? While coach Jim Larranaga told CaneSport he expects this team to be "very solid,” the ACC is also stacked with talent. So, playing a COVID-19 shortened 25-game schedule that will only include five non-conference games (opponents are not announced yet but are expected to include teams in Florida so there won’t be air travel involved), there is a limited opportunity to showcase for the NCAA Tournament committee how UM can fare against non-conference teams. In other words, UM has to do well in ACC play to make the tournament field.

“The thing about the ACC is it’s so deep this year, like many years, but Virginia, Duke, Carolina, Florida State, Louisville, Syracuse, Notre Dame, Georgia Tech - all these teams are coming off of good seasons with a lot of very good players on their roster,” Larranaga said. “I’ve talked to a number of people who do the preseason prognostications, and they’ve indicated to me that we’re probably going to be chosen 10th in the league. I think they may be right based on how talented the teams are that are in front of us.”

The Canes' key returners?

That would be point guard Chris Lykes (15.4 PPG, 2.4 APG, 24 starts), guard Kam McGusty (12.5 PPG, 21 starts), guard Isaiah Wong (7.7 ppg, 13 starts), guard Harlond Beverly (7.2 PPG, five starts), center Rodney Miller (7.2 PPG, 5.5 RPG, 28 starts) and forward Sam Waardenburg (5.9 PPG, 6.0 RPG, 28 starts).

Lykes is the senior veteran who will make it all go - he played the final half of last season banged up (missing five games) and is now healthy.

"I think Chris Lykes had a very good junior year when he was healthy - unfortunately he dealt with a groin injury midway through the ACC race which hampered him, it took him a while to come back, and late in the year caught an elbow to the face, broken nose and cheek and had to wear a mask the last couple of games,” Larranaga said. “I can say this: He is practicing now better than he has in his three previous years. He’s shooting the ball great, defending much better, he’s playing with a ton of energy. I think he’s playing with a tremendous amount of confidence not just in himself but in his teammates.”

Along with the returners there are big additions, including senior center Nysier Brooks, who redshirted last year after transferring from Cincinnati. In 2018-19 Brooks started 35 games, averaging 8.1 points, 6.3 rebounds and 1.5 blocks in 22.9 minutes.

"Nysier I think is going to be an instrumental part of our team,” Larranaga said. “He’s 6-11, 250. Even though he transferred and sat out, a good portion of the year he was rehabbing an injury that he had sustained at Cincinnati. He had surgery at the end of August and wasn’t even able to practice (till January). At some point in January we weaned him off of rehab into practice, and at that time of the year you’re not putting things in, you’re in game preparation. So this is really his first summer and fall in the program learning our offenses and our way of approaching defense.”

Plus the team got back big man Deng Gak earlier than expected off a season-ending knee injury - he’s returned to practice after originally being slotted to be back in November.

And a lot is expected out of second-year power forward Anthony Walker.

"Last year Anthony showed signs of brilliance, but because they were few and far between he never had a chance to play and contribute at a high level,” Larranaga said. “Since this summer, when we came back and he started practicing, his effort has been much more consistent and as a result his performance has been much better. He is really someone at this moment I am counting on to have a much better sophomore year than he did freshman year.”

Then there's the newcomers. The team will benefit from a couple of highly touted freshmen - guard Earl Timberlake and forward Matt Cross. Timberlake was Rivals.com's seventh ranked small forward in the nation, and Cross was the No. 17 ranked power forward.

"They’re two very different players, and both add a different dimension to our team,” Larranaga said. “In Earl Timberlake we have a player that is very multi-dimensional. During the course of the season he’ll play the 1, 2 and 3. At 6-5, 215 pounds he’s very strong, very competitive, a high-energy guy, plays very hard. He’s not a lights-out three-point shooter, but he’ll make threes. He’s not a pure point guard, but he’ll run the point some. He’s to me what a Jimmy Butler is for the Miami Heat.

“Matt Cross, on the other hand, he’s like our Duncan Robinson, a three-point shooter.”

Where UM had little depth the last couple of seasons, that certainly shouldn’t be the case this year.

“The most important thing we can do is keep our players healthy - stay away from someone coming down with the virus, keep them healthy and away from sprained ankles, sore knees and bad backs,” Larranaga said. “My No. 1 wish for the season is we stay healthy and play all 25 games with a full roster of guys. If we do, we’ll be very competitive.”

Because of the aforementioned coronavirus outbreak, practices look quite different than a year ago. Players have their own chairs in the practice facility, spaced at least six feet apart, and wear masks whenever they are not actively playing. They each have their own water bottles.

“The coaches all wear masks, some of the coaches wear shields as well,” Larranaga said. “And we don’t really have the group meetings we’ve had in the past, and whenever we do meet we socially distance in the practice facility so we put the video up on a wall so that guy scan sit far apart and not be on top of one another like they would be in a video room.”

Then there’s the question of fans and games.

The start of the season was already pushed back two weeks to Nov. 25.

And Larranaga told CaneSport the expectation is there will not be no fans at the home games through at least the end of the year.

“From what I’ve heard there will be no fans until the new year, and in the new year it will be re-evaluated,” Larranaga said. “We’re very fortunate, excited our football team has already been able to play four football games (with limited fans), but that’s outdoors.”

Certainly Larranaga has high hopes for his team once things do get underway.

“We’ve got a good team,” Larranaga said. “This can be a very solid team with good, good depth at every position.”

* Stony Brook transfer Elijah Olaniyi is not seeking a waiver to play this season and will sit out the year.

* While UM’s seniors are granted an extra year of eligibility, Larranaga says his expectation is none of them will return after 2020-21.

“They’re allowing the seniors to come back and play one more year, but in my own estimation and talking to my own players about this every one of them feels they have an opportunity to play professional basketball,” Larranaga said. “I don’t think they’ll be coming back to play amateur basketball anymore.”

Those seniors: Lykes, Brooks, Miller, Waardenburg and McGusty.

Larranaga said he anticipates adding six recruits this cycle - so far UM has commitments from Jakai Robinson, Nisine Poplar and Bensley Joseph.

* With a curtailed season and a strong ACC, it might be more difficult for UM - and other quality conference teams - to make the NCAA Tournament compared to a normal year when they would be able to showcase their ability against 10 non-conference opponents.

“The ACC head coaches made the suggestion that because of such a strange year the NCAA Tournament should be open to everybody, 350 schools,” Larranaga said. “It did not get any traction so it’s still at 68.”