What you should know as No. 16 Hurricanes face improved NC State on the road Saturday

Jim Larranaga has been coaching long enough to know that a month is an eternity during the college basketball season.

The fact that the Miami Hurricanes beat North Carolina State at home on Dec. 10 has practically no bearing on the Saturday noon matchup on the road at PNC Arena, he said.

After sixteenth-ranked UM beat Boston College 88-72 on Wednesday night, Larranaga was asked about the upcoming game against NC State. He said: “We played them back in…[pause] 2001, seems like. We played them a long time ago. Since that time, they have really elevated their game. They’ve made some adjustments. They played great against Duke and won, played great against Virginia Tech on the road and won.”

The Pack has won five of six games since losing to the Hurricanes, including a 24-point win over then-No. 16 Duke on Jan. 4. They have forced their opponents into 14.5 turnovers during that stretch and lead the ACC with 8.9 steals per game.

The last time they played, UM guards Jordan Miller and Isaiah Wong combined for 47 of the Canes’ 80 points. Wolfpack guards Jerkel Joiner and Terquavion Smith teamed up for 45 of their team’s 73 points.

Smith scored 16 of his 19 points in the first half and Wong scored 16 of his 22 points in the second half that night.

The guard matchup figures to once again be a key to Saturday’s game. Larranaga called the NC State guards among the best in the country.

Wong added: “They have two great guards and a lot of good players. After we won against them they’ve been scoring a lot and beating good teams, so it’s probably going to be a different game.”

The battle in the paint between transfers D.J. Burns and Norchad Omier should also be entertaining. Burns, who went to NC State from Winthrop, is 6-9 and 275 pounds and has great moves around the basket. UM power forward Omier, an Arkansas State transfer, is a 6-7 and 248-pound bundle of energy.

NC State (13-4, 3-3 ACC) and Miami (14-2, 5-1 ACC) rank second and third in the conference in scoring. The Pack averages 79.4 points per game while the Canes average 78.0 points per game.

Larranaga said his goal is to have five players in double figures every game. They aim to average at least 75 points, and they want each of the five positions to average 15 points.

Wolfpack coach Kevin Keatts expects another tough game.

“Miami is really good,” he said. “Obviously, the backcourt is really solid. I thought the two guys that really played well against us were Wong and Miller. Every game that you play takes its own identity. It’ll be a completely different game than it was the first time around.”

The Hurricanes have a tough three-game stretch coming up with the NC State game, a home game against Syracuse on Monday and a road game at Duke on Jan. 21.