Miami Hurricanes Glide Past Drexel, 66-46 in Charleston

For the second consecutive game, there would be no doubt who the best player on the floor is.

Suffering no hangover from their upset win over 8th ranked Florida, Miami coasted to a 66-46 win over Drexel behind the great all around play of Angel Rodriguez.

This time around though, Rodriguez got a lot of help from his friends.

UM made a concerted effort to get inside early on and it payed off in the opening minutes, with Tonye Jekiri scoring once on a post up and once off a pretty feed from Rodriguez.

Damion Lee would knock down a pair of triples though, to put the Dragons up early, 8-6.

The 'Canes would take their first lead of the game on a three by Manu Lecomte and add on to it after another bomb by James Palmer.

Their passing was particularly sharp early on, but on defense they still had quite a few lapses.

That's probably why Coach Jim Larranaga switched to a box and one zone, with Lecomte chasing Lee around all over the court.  It payed off handsomely as UM was able to force Drexel into a number of contested shots leading to a 12-0 run.

In fact, Drexel would go over 10 minutes with out a bucket, and Miami would methodically build a 28-20 lead at the intermission.

UM was just 10-28 from the floor in the first 20 minutes, but that was white hot in comparison to the 6-22 that the Dragons put up.

Rodriguez has 3 assists and 3 steals in the first half, but just 5 points.

In the final 20 minutes, the 'Canes shooting would pick up and pick up dramatically and their heady PG was the spark.

After a lethargic start to the second half by the Hurricanes, Rodriguez would finally get Miami's offense going, with two triples and a pair  of breakaway lays in off a couple of more great passes, one each for Sheldon McClellan and Jekiri.

His personal 10 point burst would put UM up by double figures.

The Dragons would try to hang around by playing very physical defense and hitting a few jumpers.

But Jekiri dominated the glass and the inside, and JaQuan Newton would add a couple of big buckets to extend the lead to 15 with 10 minutes to go, and that would pretty much seal the deal.

Over the final quarter of the game Miami would extend the lead to nearly 20 and keep it there for the most part,  behind the hot shooting of  Lecomte.

UM finished the game 11-21 from three.

The Hurricanes next face Akron, tomorrow at 2:30PM (ESPNU or ESPN2). The Zips defeated USC 66-46 in the early game at TD Arena.