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“I knew they were coming out hard,” said Bramos, who only
visited the charity stripe for those three shots “When I was
in the air, (Jason Love) hit my arm, and I didn’t anticipate
it.”
Said RedHawks coach Charlie Coles, “Whoa, Christmas time. I
was thinking, ‘Is that the best shot we can get?’”
Overall, Coles was ecstatic because of the game’s hype and
eventual beating against a top-tier area team.
“Great, great team effort,” said Coles, whose RedHawks moved
to 82-22 in home openers. “It all be good. … To have our
crowd respond, and to have Xavier in the house, and to know
how good they are and the coaches they have, it’s all good.”
Tim Pollitz scored a game-high 21 points and grabbed seven
rebounds for Miami, while junior transfer Kenny Hayes
bucketed 18 points and Bramos had 15.
“I’m not going to lie, I was so nervous at the beginning of
the game,” said Hayes, who arrived from Cincinnati State.
“They all told me to keep my confidence and keep shooting,
and that’s what I did.”
With 6,140 in attendance, Miami saw its largest crowd at
Millett Hall in three years.
“First of all, I want to say Miami has a good basketball
team — great crowd tonight,” Xavier coach Sean Miller said.
“Being down 11 points at home, and coming back is hard to
do, and they did it.”
Derrick Brown (12 points, six rebounds), B.J. Raymond (11
points) and C.J. Anderson (10 points) led Xavier (1-1) in
scoring.
After the Musketeers went into the half with a 32-21 lead,
three Pollitz lay-ups, a Bramos 3-pointer and Hayes lay-up
gave Miami an 11-2 run to cut the margin to 34-32 with 15:49
left to play.
Xavier’s largest lead was six from then on, before the
RedHawks sparked the comeback.
Anderson sunk two free throws with 35 seconds remaining to
put the Musketeers ahead 57-56, and on the ensuing Miami
possession, Coles asked for a timeout.
“We wanted to get a good shot, hopefully Tim Pollitz,” the
coach said. “Let’s play off of Tim. With him down low on
most nights requires more than one guy to guard him. So that
freed somebody up to shoot the ball.”
When asked if he was contemplating a second timeout with 13
seconds left in the game to set up a play, Coles said, “Not
now. Let’s go ahead and see what happens.”
Bramos was the one who got freed up for his 3-point attempt
when Love fouled him in the act. Bramos calmly sunk all
three free throws and blocked a Drew Lavender runner as time
expired.
“We’ve never got over the hump. We can pull out these games
against the bigger opponents,” Pollitz said. “Getting over
the hump to compete with these guys, it gives us confidence,
knowing that we can compete.”
Miami has nine days off before traveling to the West Coast
for the Anaheim Classic Nov. 22-25. The RedHawks face South
Alabama in the first game on Thursday, Nov. 22 at 9:30 p.m. |
