{"id":452859,"date":"2026-02-10T02:52:33","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T02:52:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/452859\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T02:52:33","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T02:52:33","slug":"miami-hurricanes-preview-showdown-vs-no-11-north-carolina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/452859\/","title":{"rendered":"Miami Hurricanes preview showdown vs. No. 11 North Carolina"},"content":{"rendered":"

Miami<\/a> welcomes No. 11 North Carolina on Tuesday at 7 p.m. with the opportunity to snatch a marquee win against one of the nation\u2019s hottest teams. The Tar Heels, winners of their last five games, are coming off an emotional 71-68 win over No. 4 Duke, which ended on a last-second three by veteran guard Seth Trimble.<\/p>\n

The main story of that rivalry game, however, was the performance put on by freshman phenom Caleb Wilson<\/a>, who will be a focal point for UM\u2019s defense. Wilson scored a team-high 23 points against Duke, connecting on eight of his 12 shots. With season averages of 20.2 points and 9.6 rebounds per game, he\u2019s considered a contender for the Naismith College Player of the Year award.<\/p>\n

Wilson\u2019s trademark trait is his athleticism. He leads the sport in total dunks this season with 66, using his wiry frame and leaping ability to finish above the rim.<\/p>\n

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Against Duke, Wilson didn\u2019t throw down any dunks but instead scored most of his points away from the basket. He has a post-fadeaway in his bag of skills that\u2019s difficult to defend.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe\u2019s really good. I see what all the hype is about,\u201d Miami head coach Jai Lucas said. \u201cThe thing that shows just from watching him \u2013 I\u2019ve watched him, also when he was on the circuit and in the summer and stuff \u2013 his ability to give everybody else confidence on the court as a freshman is the most impressive thing. Like they have a guy they feel that they can go to, and he usually delivers, and you can just see the life he gives everybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson is joined by Arizona transfer Henri Veesaar in UNC\u2019s frontcourt. Veesar, at a well-built 7 feet and 225 pounds, is a nightmare matchup for opposing big men, many of whom struggle to contain his size. For the season, Veesar averages 16.6 points and 9.1 rebounds per game. He\u2019s also a threat from behind the arc, shooting 46% on 2.7 three-point attempts per game.<\/p>\n

Miami forward Malik Reneau says that physicality will dictate this matchup between starting center Ernest Udeh Jr. and him against Wilson and Veesar.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me and Ernest, I think we got to be the more physical group out of the bunch, and being dominant on the court, rebounding the ball at a high aspect, guarding their frontcourt players too,\u201d Reneau said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot that goes into it, but just being sharp for all 40 minutes and not taking our head off the swivel and being there for the whole 40 minutes to get this win.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hurricanes, with their two bigs as well as their emphasis on pushing the pace, play similarly to North Carolina. Lucas thinks that their game will \u201ccome down to whose identity shows more.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of scary because we run a lot of the same stuff. It\u2019s very similar in what we do, and that\u2019s why I feel like it is a good matchup for us \u2026 I think it\u2019s going to come down to whose identity shows more because we\u2019re very similar in how we play,\u201d Lucas said. \u201cWe both are high-scoring teams, both like to play in transition, both play double bigs, love to rebound, offensive rebound. So that\u2019s going to be a big part of the game. So it\u2019s going to see who wins those trenches, who wins those wars more will kind of be the separator in the game to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also of note, Miami will most likely be playing in front of its largest home crowd of the season on Tuesday. The student section tickets have already sold out, according to Miami Athletics.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like our guys deserve it, the way they compete, the way they play. It\u2019s just a testament to them to get some engagement and to put us in situations like this where we get the fans out, and we need them out this game, but every game, especially down the stretch,\u201d Lucas said. \u201cSo I\u2019m excited to just feel the building and see the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

A final thought from Lucas about his team\u2019s improvement throughout the season?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve just grown, and we\u2019ve gained confidence throughout. To start the season, we had a lot of people who played in a lot of games. We\u2019re a new team, and so these moments that we\u2019ve been in are a little bit different. But now, we\u2019ve been in tight games. We\u2019ve won tight games. We know what it means to execute down the stretch. We\u2019ve played top-10 teams. We played Florida, we played BYU, we played Clemson on the road. So we have all this data and all these experiences that should help you in February when you\u2019re closing down the stretch going into March. So this is our next test to be able to show it and see where we are. And like I told them, it\u2019s time for us to put our stamp on the season, and this is our first opportunity to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Miami welcomes No. 11 North Carolina on Tuesday at 7 p.m. with the opportunity to snatch a marquee…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452860,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5107],"tags":[194,29,5176,5,195,4,20655],"class_list":{"0":"post-452859","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-carolina-hurricanes","8":"tag-carolina","9":"tag-carolina-hurricanes","10":"tag-carolinahurricanes","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-hurricanes","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-regwall"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116044074896544033","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}