After missing the season opener, the Hurricanes' projected starter at point guard made his presence felt in a big way on Friday afternoon as the Hurricanes took down the Golden Eagles , 70 to 60. Hurdle finished with 13 points in 24 minutes and helped lead the Canes to the semi-final round of the Paradise Jam tournament. The Canes play the winner of tonight's Connecticut/LaSalle match-up on Sunday night at 6:00 PM EST.
The senior added explosiveness to a Hurricane squad in need of a spark. Hurdle had numerous highlight reel plays, including a fast break that saw him blaze through the Golden Eagles' defense by himself and finish with an easy bucket.
"We're a different team with Lance," said Head Coach Frank Haith in a post-game interview. "We play at a different speed when he's out there."
Hurdle had his typical solid day from the free throw line, missing only one attempt (5 for 6) from the charity stripe and finishing 3-5 from the field, including two three-pointers. As the buzzer sounded, Hurdle sent the Canes to the locker room up by 12 at half with a crazy-looking three point shot that bounced high off the rim and sailed right back through.
"Lance was outstanding," Haith added. "To be honest, I'm pretty surprised he was able to play this well today without playing in our first few games."
Senior Jack McClinton added 13 points of his own, finishing 3 for 6 from downtown. He missed a free throw in the second half that saw his streak of 44 consecutive free throws made come to an end.
"What's great is we do it without Jack having to have a monster game, and I think that's the development of this team, getting the other guys involved," Haith said. "We want to create our own identity, throw different guys at you, and I think we did that today."
The Canes had nine players register points today, including 22 from frontcourt mates Dwayne Collins (14) and Jimmy Graham (8).
Southern Miss was lead by junior Jeremy Wise (21 points) and senior Courtney Beasley (14 points). R.L. Horton and Andre Stephens both fouled out of the game for the Golden Eagles.
The Canes were slow from downtown early on (starting only 1 for 9), but finished a much more respectable 6-20 (30%) by the game's conclusion. The Canes struggled with bad shot selection early in the first half, but settled in to finish the game shooting 44% from the field.
Redshirt junior Cyrus McGowan fouled out of the game late in the second half, finishing with four points in 24 minutes. Graham came in to stabilize the front court after Cyrus' foul-plagued outing.
"I thought Graham had a very good game off the bench," said Haith about his the senior, who added six rebounds and a few strong blocks to his eight point totals.
The Canes will have to play consistently better on both ends of the court to enjoy any type of success if they end up (as expected) playing UConn on Sunday. The Canes let up too many breaks after bad shot selection early, and played very streaky throughout the game, ending the first half up 12 on a 10-0 run, just after allowing an equally dominant run by the Golden Eagles. Miami will also have to rebound better (only won the battle on the boards by four - 32-28) if they hope to contain the Huskies' monstrous front court, including 7-3 junior Hasheem Thabeet.
In the end, however, the Canes got the job done and played well for a good chunk of the game today against a far-from-horrible Southern Miss team. If they can play with more consistency and get contributions from their bench as they did today, the Canes should stand a good shot of running with the #2 Huskies on Sunday night.
Let's see what happens as the rest of Day One from the Virgin Islands unfolds.
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