High-powered No. 25 Miami (Ohio) has been pushed to the brink in its last two games but has answered the bell each time in overtime.
The RedHawks will meet their latest challenge when they host Massachusetts in a Mid-American Conference contest Tuesday night in Oxford, Ohio. Miami entered the Associated Press Top 25 poll on Jan. 19 for the first time since Feb. 15, 1999.
Thanks to overtime wins against Buffalo at home and Kent State on the road, Miami (20-0, 8-0 MAC) remains one of three unbeaten teams in Division I, along with No. 1 Arizona and No. 7 Nebraska. The 20-game win streak is the best start to a season in school history and the longest for any MAC program, surpassing the 19-0 start by Western Michigan in the 1975-76 season.
UMass (13-8, 4-5), coached by Frank Martin, has won its last two games.
Perhaps the most famous meeting between teams for Martin and current Miami coach Travis Steele came in 2010 when the former was head coach at Kansas State and the latter was an assistant at Xavier. Martin’s Kansas State squad won in double-overtime in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament in Salt Lake City.
“I’ve coached against Frank Martin (twice) in my career, lost both times, unfortunately, as an assistant at Xavier,” Steele said. “One of the best games I’ve ever been a part of was in the Sweet 16 out in Utah, an elite game.
“But his teams always play really, really, really hard, and they are physical. They take on his personality, tough, nasty. They’re athletic. They try to turn you over.”
UMass is coming off a dramatic 68-67 win at Buffalo on Friday when guard Marcus Banks Jr. scored a team-high 19 points and knocked down four 3-pointers. Guard Leonardo Bettiol followed with 16 points, shooting 7-for-10 from the field.
“We got a bunch of guys that care,” Minutemen forward Daniel Hankins-Sanford said, per MassLive.com. “It might not be pretty, but we bought in to the right type of stuff. Head down in practice and that’s just the recipe. You got to keep listening and trusting Coach and go win the game, go make the tough plays at the end of the game.”
Bettiol leads UMass in scoring at 17.1 points per game and Banks is second at 16.2. Senior Hankins-Sanford registered his eighth double-double of the season with 15 points and a game-high 10 boards against Buffalo.
Since the loss of Miami starting point guard Evan Ipsaro to a torn ACL on Dec. 20, Luke Skaljac and Peter Suder have helped to pick up the slack for the RedHawks. Suder hit the game-winning three against Buffalo in the last seconds of overtime on Jan. 17 as the team won its 26th straight at home.
Skaljac forced overtime at Kent State with a running bank shot with 6 seconds left in regulation last Tuesday to help Miami remain unbeaten. Suder had 27 points and 10 boards.
“I think Luke’s really settled in at the (point) very nicely,” Steele said. “We’ve done a great job taking care of the ball. Peter Suder, obviously, has been a huge part of these past two games. He scores 37 or seven, he’s just playing to win, and he knows those moments when he needs to really, really elevate, and he’s more than capable of doing it.”
Miami has scored at least 100 points in their last three games, and seven times this season – the most in program history. In the 107-101 overtime win over Kent State, the RedHawks made 38 of their 70 shots, the 16th time this season they have shot 50% or better from the field.
