{"id":455011,"date":"2026-02-12T00:06:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T00:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/455011\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T00:06:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T00:06:15","slug":"what-does-an-upset-victory-vs-unc-mean-for-hurricanes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/455011\/","title":{"rendered":"What does an upset victory vs. UNC mean for Hurricanes?"},"content":{"rendered":"

CORAL GABLES \u2014 Miami coach Jai Lucas had just secured the biggest win in his UM tenure and walked over to shake UNC coach Hubert Davis\u2019 hand.<\/p>\n

Behind him, the Hurricanes fans who filled the Watsco Center stormed onto the court to celebrate Miami\u2019s 75-66 win over No. 11 North Carolina.<\/a> It was the first ranked win for the Hurricanes since Lucas took over the program, as well as the first ranked win for UM since they beat Clemson on Jan. 3, 2024. The victory shows a sharp change of fortune following UM\u2019s seven-win season last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think (the team is) resilient and I feel like they\u2019ve shown that all season,\u201d Lucas said. \u201cAll the close games that we\u2019ve been in \u2014 the Pitt game, we were down and had to come back. Wake Forest. I think about all these games on the road where we\u2019re battling, competing, and to finally get one over a ranked opponent \u2014 I think it\u2019s our fourth one we\u2019ve played \u2014 to finally get one over a ranked opponent feels good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lucas and his players credited the fans for helping create a tough environment for the visiting Tar Heels. UM announced student tickets sold out on Monday, and the announced attendance was 7,355 \u2014 Miami\u2019s highest-attended home game this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought the student section was electric,\u201d Lucas said. \u201cThis is what I envisioned this building being and what we have to make it moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fans are everything,\u201d Miami center Ernest Udeh Jr. said. \u201cYou hear them screaming, whether it (is) the first bucket, the last bucket, we get a stop, a turnover, making a free throw \u2014 all of it plays into our success on the court. So we\u2019re always grateful for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to building enthusiasm for this year\u2019s team, the win also builds Miami\u2019s NCAA Tournament resume. It is another Quad 1 victory for the Hurricanes, who are 3-3 against Quad 1 opponents. UM is now 36th in the\u00a0NET rankings<\/a>, which ranks eighth in the ACC. Miami has four upcoming games against conference opponents currently ranked ahead of them in the NET rankings.<\/p>\n

The victory earned the Hurricanes national attention from college basketball analysts. ESPN\u2019s Dick Vitale called Miami the \u201cteam of the night\u201d and said Lucas is a \u201crising star.\u201d CBS Sports\u2019 Jon Rothstein said he believed the Hurricanes are a tournament team.<\/p>\n

Lucas said he hopes Tuesday\u2019s win over UNC can help vault the Hurricanes into another gear in the final month of the regular season.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully the guys feel like they got over a hump a little bit, a quality win or whatever \u2014 a resume-(builder),\u201d Lucas said. \u201cBut like I was saying, we have six more Quad 1 games on the schedule. So it\u2019s not like the schedule gets any easier.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lucas also made sure to note that while the victory over the Tar Heels was a big step for the team, they still have tough opponents to play. Miami has two games against ranked opponents \u2014 a road game against No. 15 Virginia on Feb. 21 and a home game in the season finale against No. 24 Louisville \u2014 but there are also tough games against N.C. State, SMU and Virginia Tech coming up.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not over,\u201d Lucas said. \u201cThis ain\u2019t the championship or anything, but this, hopefully, will get us down this stretch because we got a tough stretch coming up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CORAL GABLES \u2014 Miami coach Jai Lucas had just secured the biggest win in his UM tenure and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":455012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5107],"tags":[194,29,5176,1879,5,195,1180,14735,4,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-455011","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-college-sports","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-hurricanes","14":"tag-latest-headlines","15":"tag-miami-hurricanes","16":"tag-nhl","17":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116054745713905295","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455011","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=455011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}