McClinton Keeps Season Alive for Canes

It looks like the Miami Hurricanes basketball team isn't ready to make reservations for the NIT quite just yet. A week after pulling off a rare ACC road win at Virginia Tech, the Canes repeated the feat in Atlanta today with a 64-63 nail biter against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.

Today's hero was---surprise, surprise---Jack McClinton, whose late 3's helped propel his team to a victory. McClinton finished the afternoon with 23 points, and Miami needed every last one of them. That's because despite the win, the Hurricanes did not have an easy time of it.

In fact, the offense again failed to get on track, as the team finished with another disappointing performance from the field (35%). The team was also out-rebounded and had less assists than their opponents. What they were not, however, was out-hustled. Miami's effort resulted in 22 forced turnovers, which helped ease the negative impact of their own 18 miscues.

Frank Haith clearly has his team believing that a miracle turnaround is possible. Now they return home for a Wednesday showdown with 2nd ranked Duke and probably don't expect to come out on top. That's why today's game was a must-win if the Canes had any hope of securing an NCAA bid. The victory puts them at 4-6 in the ACC, when 8-8 is the unwritten minimum if they expect to be a bubble team.

The good news is that though the Duke game probably won't result in a win, the other 5 ACC games are all against beatable teams if Miami is playing their best. These last two road wins were absolutely crucial and showed us how much character this team has. They were left for dead at 2-6, but now have a legitimate shot at sneaking their way into the ACC tournament and beyond.