“We’d been working really hard in practice, but I’d say we really weren’t in rhythm,” forward Moulayna Johnson Sidi Baba said. “We weren’t making the layups that we were supposed to.”

For the fifth time in his coaching career, Jim Larrañaga got the better of legendary Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, with pivotal second-half adjustments corralling Miami (12-3, 4-0 Atlantic Coast Conference) from a 14-point deficit at the break.

McGusty is now the third Hurricane in program history to win ACC Player of the Week multiple times.

The Hurricanes enter the final week of the calendar year tied with North Carolina for third place in the ACC, despite losses to UCF and Dayton.

“We’re sharing the ball consistently well,” Miami head coach Jim Larrañaga said. “We’re getting good balance in our offense.”

Redshirt senior guard Kameron McGusty delivered his fourth 20-point game of the season, pouring in a career-high 29 points in Miami’s 76-59 victory over the Lipscomb Bisons (5-5) on Wednesday night at the Watsco Center.

“We talk about this all the time, we think the ACC is the best league in the country,” Larrañaga said. “We wanted to represent the ACC as best as we could.”

“Duke came out in a totally different defense that we went through in film,” Hurricanes head coach Manny Diaz said. “For him to go for [349] yards, that’s incredible. That’s special.”

While college basketball fans chow down on their turkey day feasts on Thursday, the Miami Hurricanes will be stuffed with seven other NCAA Tournament teams.

“It was a reward for the older guys, for the seniors,” head coach Manny Diaz said. “We've had guys here in the past that have chosen and they've not always finished what we started. That is kind of what we had challenged them and the team; if you start something, you finish it.”