The Miami (OH) RedHawks‘ surreal season continued on Saturday with its most wild win in a season stuffed with them.
Miami (19-0, 7-0 in MAC) remained undefeated with a 105-102 comeback win over the Buffalo Bulls (13-5, 3-3 in MAC), needing a buzzer-beating three on the finish of regulation to tie the sport and one other deep make with 1.5 seconds left in time beyond regulation to seal the inconceivable victory.
Per ESPN Analytics, the RedHawks’ win chance dipped as little as 2.1 p.c when senior guard Peter Suder missed a three-pointer with three seconds left.
Sophomore 6-foot-8 guard Brant Byers tapped out the offensive rebound to junior guard Eian Elmer, who drained a 26-footer to ship the sport to time beyond regulation.
Suder, who scored a game-high 37 factors on 13-of-22 capturing, together with 7-of-10 from past the arc, acquired redemption throughout the additional interval with the profitable shot.
Wild win continues unbelievable Miami season
The win continues the very best begin in program historical past and ties the very best begin in MAC historical past. Head coach Travis Steele has completed a exceptional job at a spot and not using a wealthy basketball custom.
He arrived at Miami (OH) in 2022 after 4 seasons at Xavier, the place he went 70-50 and was fired during the team’s 2022 NIT title run. He inherited a Miami program with one profitable file — 12-11 within the condensed 2020-21 season — since 2009-10 and went 27-37 in his first two seasons.
Steele led the RedHawks to a program-record 25 wins a season in the past, which led to heartbreak with a 76-74 loss to Akron within the MAC championship sport. Miami led by as many as 18 however misplaced on guard Nate Johnson’s floater with 2.3 seconds remaining.
Coming into Saturday, Miami ranked fifth within the nation in scoring (93.3 factors per sport) on the heels of outstanding capturing. The RedHawks rank first in general discipline aim proportion and three-point proportion, with these charges rising after capturing 38-of-66 (57.5 p.c), together with 13-of-29 (44.8 p.c) from deep, in opposition to Buffalo.
At the same time as considered one of D-I’s highest-scoring groups, Miami might want to proceed racking up wins to even be thought of for an at-large bid. Per KenPom, Miami ranks No. 353 out of 365 groups in opponents’ internet ranking — a strength-of-schedule metric. However to its credit score, the 12 groups under it common 7.5 losses, displaying that a simple schedule would not mechanically translate to wins.
Miami, No. 47 in NET rankings, is the one workforce within the high 50 and not using a Quad 1 sport. Its best wins got here in Quad 2 at Wright State (83-76) and Bowling Inexperienced (93-83) and at dwelling in opposition to Akron (76-73).
Steele spoke in regards to the battle of fixing the surface notion of this system after the workforce’s 100-61 win over Central Michigan on Tuesday.
“I believe we’ve a chip on our shoulder, for positive,” Steele mentioned, then including, “You may’t management it. We simply gotta proceed to make a press release each time we step on that ground” (h/t FOX19’s Jeremy Rauch)
The RedHawks must keep away from any extra shut calls. Their solely remaining regular-season video games are in opposition to Quad 3 or Quad 4 opponents, making it crucial they’re on their A-game each evening.
Chances are high, the RedHawks will as soon as once more enter their convention match needing to win it to go dancing. However in contrast to final season, based mostly on Saturday’s win, destiny could also be on their aspect.
