Men’s College Basketball 2021-2022 Season Preview: Miami Hurricanes

The college basketball season is just over two weeks away — time is just flying by. To get you ready for the season, I’m previewing the season in men’s college basketball, team by team. In these previews I will highlight key departures, additions, returners and overall DFS viability for each team. These previews will be heavily focused on DFS and fantasy in general, so keep that in mind when I’m talking about the relevancy of a player or team rotations.

We kick things off with the ACC, a conference that severely underperformed in the pandemic-impacted season last year. While the conference will inevitably have a handful of DFS staples for us to use each slate, it still seems like the ACC lost more talent than it was able to gain. With the transfer rules changing after March Madness ended it ultimately led to what was essentially free agency in CBB. There were coaching changes as well which I will talk about throughout this breakdown because new philosophies will mean new strategies for our DFS builds. 

In this one, Miami (FL).

(Check out our full college basketball season preview!)

Miami Hurricanes 2021-2022 Season Preview

2020-2021 record: 10-17 (4-15 ACC), 13th in ACC
Postseason: None

Key Departures | Miami Hurricanes

• Earl Timberlake (transferred to Memphis)
• Chris Lykes (transferred to Arkansas)
• Nysier Brooks (transferred to Ole Miss)
• Elijah Olaniyi (transferred to Stony Brook)
• Matt Cross (transferred to Louisville)

Key Additions | Miami Hurricanes 

• Charlie Moore (transferred from DePaul)
• Jordan Miller (transferred from George Mason)
• Jakai Robinson (top 75 recruit)
• Bentley Joseph (top 100 recruit)

Returners | Miami Hurricanes

• Isaiah Wong (17.1 PPG/4.8 RPG/2.4 APG/1.1 SPG)
• Anthony Walker (9.6 PPG/4.7 RPG/1 APG)
• Kameron McGusty (13.3 PPG/3.8 RPG/2.8 APG)
• Harlond Beverly (6.7 PPG/4.5 RPG/3.3 APG/1.5 SPG)
• Rodney Miller (0.4 PPG/0.4 RPG)

Miami Hurricanes Outlook for 2021-2022

The Hurricanes have dealt with major injuries for two straight years now, at points last season struggling to dress even 6-7 players. They’ve apparently made some changes to their staff and overhauled their training program. This team has some solid pieces to it and if they can finally stay healthy this will be a fantasy viable group.

Isaiah Wong was really the only key player who was able to make through the entire season last year without missing significant time. This led to career highs in most statistical categories, and he led the team in usage/shot rates. I like him a lot and think the addition of Charlie Moore to the team will help take a lot of the ball handling responsibilities off Wong’s plate. Moore was a 14/4/4 guy at DePaul last year and should see similar numbers when looking at the makeup of this roster. Harlond Beverly has struggled with efficiency since he came to Miami, so the Moore addition surely moves him to the bench this year. Kam McGusty is the super senior on this team and will operate off the ball more this year which should help with his volatility that we saw in 2020.

Anthony Walker oozes potential in the front court and ended the season on a high note, scoring at least 30 fantasy points in three of his last four games. The addition of swingman Jordan Miller will help bolster the front court and having him on the floor won’t sacrifice anything on the offensive end as he averaged over 15 PPG with George Mason last year. Rodney Miller, Deng Gak and Sam Waardenburg have all dealt with injuries the past year or two but should be healthy now. They don’t offer much on the offensive side of the ball though which makes the Jordan Miller addition that much more important.

(Check out our rankings of the top 100 teams and top 100 players for men’s college basketball in 2021-2022.)

Summary

This team must have ticked off the basketball gods at some point, because they’ve dealt with a bad case of the injury bug for the last two seasons. The team has a plethora of wings who can get buckets, but the frontcourt might be a serious weakness for this team outside of Anthony Walker.