Miami basketball's Jim Larranaga keeps it real after Nijel Pack's triumphant return from injury in Clemson upset

The Miami basketball team picked up a huge win at home on Wednesday night as the Hurricanes defeated #16 Clemson basketball 95-82. The game was pretty back and forth for awhile and Miami trailed for the first few minutes of the second half, but they eventually pulled away for the impressive, comfortable victory. Miami has a couple of tough blowout losses this season, but outside of those two games, they have looked good, and they are now 11-2.

“I thought that was a great college basketball game, very entertaining, both teams played very hard, very well,” Miami basketball head coach Jim Larranaga said after the game, according to an article from 247 Sports. “We had three guys over 20. From an offensive standpoint, those three guys really played at a very high level, but we had five guys in double figures and our defense in the second half–actually, the whole game was trying to contest them. There's such a good offensive team. If you let them get in rhythm and just move the ball the way they like to, every one of the guys can make shots and they did that for a stretch, but we also defended them pretty well and got some stops ourselves.”

One major bright spot for Miami in this game was the return and play of Nijel Pack. He had been out with an injury, but he played on Wednesday and had 25 points on 8/13 shooting, five rebounds and three assists. It was a huge performance, and a great way to come back from injury.

“I'm going to give him another two weeks off,” Jim Larranaga jokingly said after the game. “It's hard to play that well with two weeks of not playing, but he felt good. I played him pretty much the whole game. Played 35 minutes, which was shocking. But he was playing great. It was hard to actually take him out, but he's a great shooter, a great point guard and a great teammate. It was a hell of a game for him to come back with.”

In the first half, Larranaga had Nigel Pack guarding Joe Girard, one of Clemson's best players. After Miami made a switch in the second half, it seemed like everything fell into place for them to succeed.

“Did you see Nigel Pack guarded Joe Girard until the second half and we switched him over to Wiggins, who's 6-10, and we put our freshman Kyshawn George on him and he did a terrific job,” Larranaga said. “When a freshman like Kyshawn George is improving at that end of the floor, then it allows him to play with tremendous confidence on offense. And here's another guy, he played 37 minutes. He's only 4 for 12, but all four of those were 3s, so he had 12 points on 12 shots, that's one point per shot taken and we take that every time from him.”

Pack defended well for Miami in the game, he grabbed rebounds, he scored and he made timely buckets. It was an all around good performance from him, and Larranaga discussed how some of the plays that he made led to other players getting open for baskets later on.

“Well. I didn't draw anything up. We called the time out,” Larranaga said in regards to a play made in the second half after a timeout. “The first offense that we ran had Nijel going cutting to the middle and catching it and shooting a jump shot, which he made. They made an adjustment on that. The game is like a chess match. So, OK, if they make the adjustment now, they're sticking with him and matching up with him, he's not going to be open every time, so we switched our offense so that Mat was flashing in there and not Nijel. Matt got in there and it's his decision to shoot it, pass it, drive it, make a good decision. And he did. He just flashed in it, turned and faced and buried a 15-foot jump shot.”

It was a great game for Pack, but he wasn't the only Miami player to have a huge performance. Norchad Omier and Matthew Cleveland both had 23 points.

“I think it's the first time in my 50 years,” Larranaga noted in regards to having three players score at least 23 points. “It's hard to get two guys in the 20s and it's really hard to get them 23 or more, three of them. That's definitely a first in my coaching career. I had a game at Bowling Green when the leading scorer had 40 and the second-leading scorer had 32. Forty is the most ever scored playing for me and it was her son. Did you know that it was your son? Antonio Daniels had 32.”

Miami basketball has some momentum right now after the big win, and they will be back in action on Saturday against Wake Forest.