CORAL GABLES, Fla. — Isaiah Wong hit a 3-pointer. Norchad Omier dunked the ball on a fast break on the next possession.
The nearly sold-out crowd at the Watsco Center was going wild.
The Miami Hurricanes were off and running, eventually building a lead against rival Florida State that swelled to as many as 25 points.
And then, as UM coach Jim Larranaga put it, the Hurricanes’ “battery died.”
When Matthew Cleveland dribbled down court and swished a buzzer beater as time expired, it capped an epic second-half comeback for the Seminoles, ending with an 85-84 loss for Miami — its first at home this season.
“It appeared to me that to start the second half, our battery died,” Larranaga said. “We didn’t have the energy or juice and it showed most of all with our defense. You give up 50 points in a half. That’s no defense right there.”
Even after such a drastic second-half turnaround, the Hurricanes appeared ready to escape with their 16th home victory, eighth in a row and stay on course for a potential ACC regular season title after Jordan Miller sunk a corner 3-pointer to give Miami an 84-82 edge with six seconds left.
But FSU chose not to take a timeout and pressed the action down the court as Cleveland dribbled his way past Miami’s defense and hoisted up a good look at the buzzer.
“It didn’t make sense for us to call a timeout because it would have given them a chance to set up their defense,” FSU coach and former Hurricanes coach Leonard Hamilton said.
The 13th-ranked Hurricanes (23-6, 14-5), who were playing without starting guard Nijel Pack (lower extremity injury), missed out on what would have been their first regular-season sweep of Florida State since the 2015-16 season. They also fell to third place in the ACC standings and one game in the loss column behind Pitt and Virginia.
The Seminoles beat Miami for the fifth consecutive season at the Watsco Center.
Larranaga said he was hopeful Pack would be available for Miami’s game against Pitt. Without him, the Hurricanes leaned on Bensley Joseph, who scored 12 points and had seven rebounds and five assists over a season-high 37 minutes.
Miami closes the regular season next Saturday at home against Pitt and can still secure a double-bye that would put it in the quarterfinals of the conference tournament with a win or if Duke loses one of its final three games.
“(This shows us) We’re not unbeatable,” said Miller, who led the Hurricanes with 21 points and seven rebounds. “I wouldn’t say we felt that way, but we were on a seven-game winning streak and we were feeling good so this loss brings us back into perspective. We just have a bunch of big games coming up so how we finish the regular season and how we play in the tournament will define us.”
The shift in offensive efficiency in the second half was stark.
Miami shot 65% from the field in the first half and 56% from 3-point range. In the second half, the Hurricanes shot 37.9% overall and made just 3 of 10 attempts from 3. Florida State shot only 37.5% in the first half and made 5 of 14 shots from 3-point range. In the second half, the Seminoles shot 67.7% from the field and crushed Miami in the paint 34-16.
“They just outran us in the second half,” Larranaga said. “They scored 18 points in the first five minutes of the second half. If they had been able to do that the whole game that would have scored 100 points. That’s how fast they were playing and how slow we were playing.”
Miami never allowed FSU to make it a game the first time the teams played Jan. 24 in Tallahassee and the Hurricanes cruised to an 86-63 win.
But on Saturday, an 11-0 Florida State run narrowed the gap to 68-66 with 7:25 to go. The Seminoles took an 80-76 lead on Cleveland’s breakaway dunk with 2:37 left. After Miami scored the next five points, Caleb Mills’ shot high off the glass over Norchad Omier with 22 seconds left put FSU ahead 82-81.
“We did not tell our players anything at halftime that we didn’t tell them before the game started,” said Hamilton, who has endured one of the most trying seasons of his career with FSU (9-20, 7-11) riddled with injuries and struggling to their worst record since he became the Seminoles’ coach in 2002.
“We just locked in. I thought we changed our mindset and executed a lot better.”
