National Basketball Association
Miami-Florida 88, Alabama A&M 74
When: 2:00 PM ET, Saturday, December 14, 2019
Where: Watsco Center, Coral Gables, Florida
Officials:
# Trey Styons, # Tony Henderson, # Ted Valentin
Attendance:
4649
By Field Level Media
Kameron McGusty scored a game-high 21 points, and Chris Lykes added 13 points, a team-high five assists and three highlight-reel plays, leading the host Miami Hurricanes to an 88-74 win over the Alabama A&M Bulldogs on Saturday afternoon.
Lykes made a four-point play in the first half. In the second half, he faked out two defenders with a hesitation move and a layup along the right baseline. He then scored after a spectacular spin move for his third impressive play.
Miami (6-3) was also led by Dejan Vasiljevic's 17 points on 5-for-6 three-point shooting, most of those shots from several feet beyond the line. He is four points away from becoming the 40th Hurricanes player to reach 1,000 for his career.
Alabama A&M (2-6), which was predicted to finish eighth in the 10-team Southwestern Athletic League, battled the entire game and was led by reserve Jalen Johnson, who had a team-high 14 points.
The Hurricanes, who had gone 27 days without a home game prior to this event, played without coach Jim Larranaga, 70. Larranaga missed the game due to back spasms and was replaced by associate head coach Chris Caputo.
Alabama A&M, which had its two-game win streak snapped, has seven freshmen on its roster, including Johnson and also Garrett Hicks, who had 12 points. Four of the Bulldogs' freshmen started on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the Hurricanes, with reserve Deng Gak recently ruled out for the season due to a right-knee injury suffered in practice, have just nine available scholarship players. That includes graduate-transfer power forward Keith Stone, who suffered an ACL injury in January and on Saturday played just his second game with Miami, scoring four points.
Early on, Alabama A&M seemed to outhustle Miami. There were four lead changes in the game's first nine minutes. But then Miami got hot, led by as many as 11 points and took a 44-35 lead into halftime. Miami shot 51.6 percent in the first but didn't stop Alabama A&M, which shot 57.7 percent.
Miami, leading by just five points, pulled away in the final four minutes of the game, and both teams finished the contest shooting 52 percent from the floor. Miami, though, had 22 made free throws to just five for the Bulldogs.
--Field Level Media
Top Game Performances
| Alabama A&M |
|
Miami-Florida |
|
Jalen Johnson 14 |
Scoring |
Kameron McGusty 21 |
|
Cameron Tucker 5 |
Assists |
Chris Lykes 5 |
|
Garrett Hicks 5 |
Rebounds |
Sam Waardenburg 9 |
|
Walter Jones Jr. 2 |
Free Throws Made |
Harlond Beverly 6 |
|
EJ Williams 2 |
Steals |
Chris Lykes 1 |
|
Gerron Scissum 2 |
Blocks |
Rodney Miller Jr. 2 |
Team Stats Summary
| Team |
Points |
FG% |
3PM-3PA |
FTM-FTA |
Assists |
Rebounds |
Blocks |
Steals |
Turnovers |
| Alabama A&M
|
74 |
51.7 |
7-21 |
5-8 |
20 |
26 |
2 |
5 |
11 |
| Miami-Florida
|
88 |
51.8 |
8-19 |
22-30 |
16 |
31 |
7 |
3 |
10 |
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