Miami resident Dan Bumpus and his wife beamed with joy. As they stood outside the University of Miami’s Watsco Center, their young daughter positioned herself only a few feet away from them, high-fiving each of the towering Hurricanes men’s basketball players who walked past her and into a group of private charter buses parked nearby.
“We’re excited about what this basketball team has been able to accomplish this year,” Bumpus said of the regular-season Atlantic Coast Conference champions. “They’re a great group of young men, and it’s incredible to see the energy they’ve brought not only to this city but the state of Florida as a whole.”
Bumpus’ enthusiasm was the prevailing mood of the moment. With the Miami fight song blaring from loudspeakers, Hurricane well-wishers—from alumni and students to employees and residents—gathered outside the 8,000-seat arena on Wednesday to give the men’s squad a Sweet 16 sendoff, as it heads to Kansas City, Missouri, for an NCAA tournament Midwest region matchup against No. 1 seed Houston on Friday.
Only four hours later, the Miami women’s squad repeated the scene, boarding buses bound for the airport for a flight to Greenville, South Carolina, and an NCAA Women’s basketball tournament clash against Villanova on Friday at 2:30 p.m. on ESPN.
It’s hoops history at its best—the first time ever that both the Miami women’s and men’s teams have advanced to the Sweet 16 in the same season.
The 27-7 men’s squad, the regular-season Atlantic Coast Conference champions, punched their ticket by way of an 85-69 victory over Indiana last Sunday.
For the women, their path to Sweet 16 success came in much more dramatic fashion when 6-foot forward Destiny Harden sank a jumper in the paint with 3.5 seconds left to send her ninth-seeded team past top-seeded Indiana 70-68 on Monday night.
While fielding questions from a group of local reporters outside the Watsco Center, Harden had a message for Hurricanes fans: “We want to keep the momentum going into the Elite 8,” she said.
The teams’ successes have inspired each other, and like a family, the two squads have maintained a healthy, competitive vibe between them, women’s head coach Katie Meier said.
“If your brother does well in a game, you want to do well. If your sister wins an award and gets straight A's, then you want to get straight A's,” Meier said. “That’s how we are. We love each other, and we’re supportive of each other. When they win, we’re jumping up and down. But in the training room and in the hallways, we’re like, ‘Okay, guess what we just did?’ It pushes us to the next level.”
The men’s season of victory is what head coach Jim Larrañaga envisioned for the program when his magical ride at Miami started 12 years ago.
“We wanted to build a program that could develop tradition, meaning that our players do a great job in school. They graduate. They’re great representatives of the U but also play great basketball in a great conference like the ACC,” he said.
“We want to be one of the top basketball programs in the country like our football program has done and like our baseball program has done,” Larrañaga continued. “Right now, we’re experiencing some of the success that we envisioned. But the real challenge for any coach is consistency, just like the real challenge for our players is the ability to consistently play at a high level. Our guys have proven that throughout the season.”
Earlier in the day at the team’s practice facility, Larrañaga and his coaching staff put the team through its paces, leading them in a practice that included shooting, free throw, and other drills.
“We have to take away the paint from a great paint-shooting team,” he said to his players, referring to Houston’s knack for scoring points inside the key.
The contest, which tips off at 7:15 p.m. on CBS, could prove to be unlike any of Miami’s matchups against ACC schools like Duke and Wake Forest that have 7-footers on their rosters, according to Larrañaga. “Houston is much more like a mirror image of us size-wise, but they outweigh us,” he explained. “So, the physicality of the game is going to be very important.”
Aydin Melamed, a junior sport administration major and one of the team managers for the men’s squad, is ecstatic that he has been able to help the team prepare. “It means a lot to me,” he said during a break in Tuesday’s practice. “I know how hard they have worked for this, and I’m glad to have been able to support them.”
Bumpus, who is not a University alumnus but a self-described diehard Hurricanes fan, will be watching when both squads play. “UM is not only a football school anymore,” he said. “Times are changing.”
