For Miami Hurricanes Men’s Basketball, it’s been an incredible ride during coach Jai Lucas’s first season. Coming off a very disappointing record in 2024, the Canes rebuilt the team, imbued new energy, and won 24 games. That’s the most ever for a first year head coach for Canes Basketball, and the ride continues this week at the ACC Tournament.
After being predicted 8th in the preseason ACC poll, the Canes went 13-5 in conference to finish 3rd in the regular season. That performance earned Miami the #3
seed in the ACC tournament, and a double-bye to the quarterfinals. Here’s the full bracket:
The double bye means Miami gets to rest until the quarterfinals on Thursday. Their game will be at 2:30pm against the winner of the Louisville and the winner of SMU/Syracuse. The expectation is that this will be a rematch between Miami and Louisville, teams that just played on the final day of the ACC regular season.
According to our friends at FanDuel Sportsbook, Miami has the 4th best odds to win the ACC tournament at +1700. Notably, that’s below Louisville’s odds, which stand at +1300, and those teams are projected to meet in the quarterfinals if there are no upsets. Which means the odds as of now are for Miami to go 1-and-done in the ACC tournament.
The winner of the Miami quarterfinal will play the winner of the quarterfinal featuring #2 seed Virginia in the first semifinal on Friday. A tough road to the championship game, but this is tournament season, and the easy games are over.
Miami has exceeded expectations greatly this season, and they have another opportunity to do so this week in Charlotte. Time to put our best performances together as we compete in the ACC tournament and NCAA tournament beyond.
Let’s just go win it all, shall we?
