NCAA Basketball: How UConn, Miami, FAU and San Diego State got to the Final 4

The Miami Hurricanes have some of the best guards in the country

Jim Larranaga has now brought his second team to the Final Four after guiding the Miami Hurricanes to the Midwest regional title by taking out the top two seeds, Houston and Texas in succession and in convincing fashion. The Hurricanes have one of if not the best group of guards in the country and have ridden that group all the way into Houston.

The starting quartet of Nijel Pack, Jordan Miller, Isaiah Wong, and Wooga Poplar have been dominant for the Hurricanes. Just how dominant has this fearsome foursome been? In the first four games of the tournament, the Hurricanes have scored 325 points and they have scored all but 71 of them.

What makes this group so tough is, if you focus on shutting down one of them, the other three can still hurt you. That has been illustrated by Wong, Pack, and Miller leading the team in scoring in three of the four games. The fourth member, Poplar had 16 points, six rebounds, and four assists in their comeback win over Texas.

It isn’t just their offensive production that has been good for Miami. In their four wins, they have amassed 27 assists to 23 turnovers and have 15 steals. Eight of those steals came in the regional final win over Texas that had Miami trailing by 12 with 10:09 left to play. They say guard play wins in March and the Hurricanes are proving that to be true.