University of Miami basketball: Men look to return to NCAA Tournament while women seek breakthrough

For University of Miami men's basketball coach Jim Larranaga, the coronavirus pandemic has not only upended his professional career, but also his personal life.

The longtime coach, who has been at UM since 2011, has been rocked by COVID-19, losing both a friend and a former player to the respiratory disease. But he's still ready to coach basketball this winter, altered schedule and all. 

"It's a very dangerous virus," Larranaga said during UM basketball's virtual media day on Oct. 30. "Our players have been very, very smart dealing with it so far. But you can't let down your guard, especially with there being more and more cases diagnosed each day. Instead of this going away, it's getting worse. And we want to keep ourselves safe so we can really have a basketball season."

The season starts in less than a week, with a home game Sunday against North Florida. But even that has been changed. The original season opener against Stetson was postponed to Dec. 4 following a positive COVID test within the Hatters program earlier this month.

More:Miami Hurricanes men's basketball reschedules Stetson game to Dec. 4

More:Stetson-Miami college basketball game postponed due to COVID-19

And since Larranaga's comments in October, cases, hospitalizations and deaths have continued to rise in Florida.

"I'm very, very proud of our guys with the way they've handled it so far," Larranaga said then. "But we've almost been in our own bubble. Our practice facility has been limited to our players, our coaches and a couple of managers. And that's it. And they've all been tested. At one time, it was once a week. Now it's twice a week."

The Hurricanes won't have to leave the friendly confines of Coral Gables until mid-December, although fans won't be allowed to attend games. UM is, however, leaving open the possibility of having fans at games in 2021. 

UM opens the season with six home games, including hosting Purdue on Dec. 8 as part of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge. The Canes also begin conference play at home, against Pittsburgh on Dec. 16, before concluding the five-game non-conference schedule against Jacksonville three days later. 

After March Madness was cancelled last year — one of the first big events to be affected by the pandemic — Larranaga and his players are hoping for an unaltered postseason. 

"As long as we're smart about who we interact with when we're not at practice, I think we can stay safe," said Larranaga. "But when you're dealing with teenagers and young adults who already have been basically quarantined since last March, you got guys maybe with COVID fatigue. And will they, you know, go out and interact with people? So we need to be very, very diligent and be on our toes throughout this entire school year."

Along with the five non-conference games, Miami will play 20 ACC games, 10 at home and 10 on the road. That includes six games against teams ranked in the top 25 of the preseason USA Today Sports coaches poll, including a home-and-away with No. 16 North Carolina and No. 18 Florida State.

On the court, the Hurricanes will lean on senior guard Chris Lykes, a preseason All-ACC first-team selection, as they look to get back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2018. Lykes averaged 15.4 points per game last season and is the first Hurricane to earn multiple preseason All-ACC honors (he was preseason second-team last year).

But UM will be without 6-foot-10 forward Sam Waardenburg, who was lost for the season with a left foot injury sustained in practice. The senior from Auckland, New Zealand, was a major shot-blocking presence.

"He was our most experienced frontcourt player, our leading rebounder from last season, he was practicing extremely well and we're going to dramatically miss his defense, his rebounding, his experience and just his overall demeanor on the court. He was someone that did a lot of things for us," Larranaga said. Sophomore Anthony Walker, freshman Matt Cross and junior Deng Gak are competing for Waardenburg's starting power forward position. Gak can also help at center along with 7-foot Cincinnati transfer Nysier Brooks. 

While just 5-7, Lykes is the Canes' savvy floor general and led the team in scoring, assists and steals last season. But he cares about just one number in his last run in Coral Gables.

"I'm not necessarily trying to stand out. I'm really just trying to win as many games as I can," said Lykes, who got a taste of the NCAA tournament as a freshman in 2018 before the Canes finished with losing records the past two seasons. "Yes, I've felt like I had a solid career here at UM, but I think careers are always defined by winning. Unfortunately, I haven't won much here, so if that's standing out, then I'm going to do what it takes to stand out. But that's in tune with winning. I'm really just trying to win as many games as possible. That's how I'm going to end my career."

In the preseason poll, the Hurricanes were tabbed to finish seventh in the ACC. 

UM women shoot for breakout season

While Larranaga leans on Lykes in the hopes of staying competitive in the always-stacked ACC, Canes women's coach Katie Meier hopes this is the year her team can translate its consistent regular-season success into a deep run in March.

"I think that we need to break through the second weekend, third weekend of March. That's obviously something that we're trying to do. But overall, I think the 100 percent graduation rate and 10 straight postseasons is pretty impressive. The culture is good," said Meier, who's run up a gaudy .610 winning percentage in 15 seasons at UM but has never guided the Canes past the second round of the NCAA tournament. 

The senior guard duo of Endia Banks and Kelsey Marshall will try to help change that. They've got one more shot.

The Canes' chances took a blow Tuesday when it was announced fellow senior guard  Mykea Gray was out for the season after suffering an ACL injury in practice. 

Still, Meier has a truly international team with five players from France, Croatia, Spain and Sweden. The pandemic gave the group a chance to bond more than it would have in a normal setting.

And junior forward Destiny Harden turned the gym into her personal playground during the pandemic. Meier thinks that work will show once the season starts.

"She was hungry," said Meier. "When it was like, when can we come back, she was the one that was saying, coach, I need a place to work out, I want to lift. And that's when the university didn't make it mandatory but they made the facilities and everything available in July for the basketballs, and a lot of people couldn't get back yet, but Destiny was the first up, like, let's go. 

"She was frustrated not having anywhere to work out. And it shows. She's just really active and she's playing really well."