He doesn’t want them to be Cinderella, like much of America sees them following Wednesday’s 89-79 upset of SMU in the First Four game in Dayton.
Just do their thing and he’s willing to take his chances.
“Number one, have fun,” said Steele, whose RedHawks were probably a bit weary after flying here right after they finished celebrating. “Enjoy it, because this is what you work your lifetime for.
“It’s really surreal. At the same time, our guys know our level of expectation is to advance. I recruited each guy in our locker room to try to get to the NCAA Tournament. That’s when anything can happen.
“You’re 40 minutes away. The best team doesn’t have to win. This isn’t an NBA series, best of seven. It’s 40 minutes and our guys are really confident.”
Why not? After shaking off the disappointment of seeing their perfect season ruined in Sunday’s 87-83 Mid-American title game loss to UMass. Miami took it to SMU from the outset with a 3-point barrage that never let up.
Now they want to extend their stay until Sunday when they’d take on the Virginia-Wright State winner in the Midwest Regional round of 32.
“I’d say we’re super fortunate for the opportunity,” said guard Peter Suder, who shares Miami’s leading scoring honors with Brant Byers, both averaging 14.4. “But don’t count us out.
“I think we do belong here. I think we showed that last night.
“There was a lot of hate, a lot of doubt that we couldn’t accomplish what we did. But we do such a good job as a group and a whole of just blocking that noise out, just going out there and competing as much as we can. We have a group of guys that collectively do such a good job of ignoring all the outside noise and getting it done on the hardwood floor.”
“We’re not really trying to prove it to media, fans or whatever,” added sharpshooter Luke Skaljac, who scored 17 against the Mustangs, topped only by Elan Elmer (23) and Barry (19). “We all know inside the locker room who we are as a team.
“We’re just taking it day by day.”
To get past Rick Barnes’ 22-11 sixth-seeded Volunteers the 11th-seeded RedHawks know the key will be on the boards.
“They have a huge size advantage,” said Elmer, their leading rebounder (5.9) despite being just 6-6. “We know that they’re probably the best offensive rebounding team in the country, so we have to match their size with our physicality.
“That’s the same thing we had to do last game. Just go out there and be ourselves.”
Steele’s all too aware of that problem, but says one other key will be putting the Vols on defense as much as possible.
“How do we make what makes us really special come to life?” pondered Steele, while emphasizing nothing positive was gained by having that first loss. “How do we attack them from an offensive standpoint?
“How do we take away what they do great, which is the offensive glass, and their spacing makes it very conducive for them to offensive rebound?
“All their bigs are extremely physical, strong, and big. So we know we’re going to be in an absolute war down there. We have to gang a rebound and limit them to one shot and one shot only.
“We know we’re going to have our hands full.”
So will Tennessee.
“It’s a great story line, number one, and certainly, I thought they were terrific last night,” said Barnes, whom Steele’s never faced but greatly respects. “Everybody is going to talk about their three-point shooting, but there’s so much more than that.
“They’re a really good basketball team and extremely well-coached, play hard, and that do everything you have to do to win that many basketball games. We have to do what’s got us here at a very high level.
“We certainly have great respect for them. I think our team understands that we’re not one of those teams that can just show up and beat anybody. We learned that this year.”
Meanwhile, Miami’s learned that they’re 40 minutes away from being another 40 minutes away. More important, now that the dance is already underway, started, they don’t want to see it end.
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