Hurricanes Basketball, Transfers, and the NCAA

First, I want to thank the fellow Canes behind the Seventh Floor blog for letting me contribute on what I think is a vastly under-reported sport at the U, Miami Hurricanes Basketball. What I hope to do along with Popa's Shoes is to shed some much needed light into what is happening with the program, recruiting and the season as the team goes on its quest to return to the NCAA tournament.

With that said, let's get our feet wet.

My biggest concern right now is we have a senior laden team with tons of talent that could get the rug pulled out from under it by the NCAA. Should the NCAA come down with sanctions before the season and find that the former staff was culpable in the Shapiro scandal, it could levy a post season ban on the basketball team which IMO would be far worse than losing a scholarship or two as this is the year I believe we can make a serious run in the ACC.

What gives me some comfort is the fact that the NCAA is coming down harder on the "adults" aka
coaches who committed the violations by levying show cause penalties (see Bruce Pearl and Donnie
Jones), and less harsh on the students who had nothing to do with it. Time will tell but based on
rumblings in the press perhaps Miami will learn its fate sooner than later.

For now, however, lets focus a bit on recruiting. Coach Larranaga has the reputation for finding the right
talent to fit his up tempo offense and "scramble" defense, and we were disappointed that Mel Johnson
couldn’t qualify academically at Miami. However, it looks like Deandre Burnett will be enrolling this fall versus
going prep, so that may not be a bad trade. Burnett, a local star from Miami Carol City, is a 6-1 senior
guard who averaged 36.2 points per game this past season and according to MaxPreps was ranked third-
highest in the nation at one point in the year. 36 points a game tells me the kid can flat out shoot the
rock.

According to the Miami Herald on July 23rd:

Carol City High assistant basketball coach Dennis Alexander said UM informed him Monday that
it has changed its mind and wants high-scoring combo guard DeAndre Burnett to enroll at UM in
August instead of going to prep school for a year. "DeAndre is excited," Alexander said. "It’s 95
percent set that he’s going to UM" this fall.

This is terrific news as the Canes only had 1 scholarship slot to give this year and will likely have 6
open after this season, unless someone redshirts that hadn’t previously. With Durand Scott, Reggie
Johnson, Trey McKinney-Jones, Garrius Adams, Julian Gamble and Kenny Kadji graduating Coach L will
have his work cut out for him in 2013. I wouldn't be surprised to see us take 1-2 transfers, especially with 445
college basketball players transferring in 2012 alone there should be many available to pick from.

If you're curious, Jeff Goodman at cbssports.com has compiled an extensive list of transfers.

Coach Jim Boeheim recently commented on this growing trend.

"It just shows that if kids don't play right away, they're going to leave," Boeheim said. "It's just the way it is."

Unlike in football, college hoop coaches almost always back off recruiting a player once he verbally commits to a school. Because of this there is less chance of a kid “flipping” to another school despite a change of heart, which could fueling some of the transfer bonfire that is building.

*Just a side-note on me; I am a University of Miami grad, class of 89. I was at the U for the re-birth of CanesHoops and was fortunate to be one of the student managers for the team from 85-89. My goal is to help create more CanesHoops junkies like myself, spread the word!