Seeking its first 10-game winning streak since 2017, Miami faces Notre Dame on Tuesday in South Bend, Ind.
The Hurricanes (14-2, 3-0 ACC) defeated Georgia Tech 91-81 on Saturday afternoon for their ninth straight win. Not only did they collect 30 points in Monday’s Associated Press Top 25 poll — good for 32nd place in the voting — they climbed to No. 33 in Monday’s NET rankings.
Even with the winning streak, the Hurricanes know they still have room to get better.
“The building can’t be comfortable,” Miami head coach Jai Lucas said after the game. “… We gotta continue to grow defensively because if we can get that clicking to the level that we have had it before, with where our offense is, I think we have a chance to be pretty good. But if not, we just don’t know where it can go. Good teams gotta guard.”
That starts with a matchup against Notre Dame (10-6, 1-2), which lost Saturday at home to Clemson, 76-61. It was the Fighting Irish’s second consecutive loss in conference play and they dropped to 3-3 since losing leading scorer Markus Burton to an ankle injury.
Clemson’s physicality made things difficult for Notre Dame, but head coach Micah Shrewsberry hopes it served as a primer for handling Miami.
“It’s their first time playing against it,” Shrewsberry said. “Now you gotta learn from it. (The) Miami game is gonna be the same exact way physicality-wise. You have to use this experience to grow from it, or you’re gonna take steps back if you’re not.”
Notre Dame continues to lean on freshman guard Jalen Haralson for scoring. Haralson averages 14.9 points per game and has hit double figures in 14 straight games. Braeden Shrewsberry leads the ACC in 3-point accuracy at 44.9% — though he has canned just 6 of 21 from long range in conference play — and hopes to boost a Fighting Irish offense that ranks 16th in the ACC in scoring (73.5 ppg).
For the Hurricanes to extend their winning streak to 10, they will look to Malik Reneau. The senior forward ranks fourth in the ACC with his 20.6 points per game thanks to career highs in field goal percentage (57.5%), 3-point percentage (37.8%) and free-throw percentage (80.7%). Tre Donaldson stands second in scoring (16.6 ppg) while ranking second in the league with 6.9 assists per game.
