With basketball season just around the corner, the University of Miami men’s basketball team has released its conference schedule. The Hurricanes finished last season with a 10-game losing streak, all in conference, so no game can be taken lightly.

Aside from the ACC opener against a Clemson team that made it to the Elite Eight last year, Miami won’t play Duke until mid-January, if it even plays a team that even made it to the NCAA Tournament.

The Hurricanes’ schedule gets easier from there as they face the ACC’s new teams – SMU, Stanford and California – in a three-game stretch. Of those three, only SMU hit over .500 last season, and none of those teams made it to March Madness. Stanford had one of the worst defenses in college basketball in 2023-24, ranking 304th out of 362 teams. Miami will play Stanford and California in back-to-back games on the road.

After this West Coast road trip at the halfway point of the season, Miami will face Virginia, which finished third in the ACC last year. In the next six games, they will face teams with an average winning percentage of 44%, including Notre Dame and Louisville, who edged Miami for 13th and 15th in the ACC, respectively.

Miami’s toughest stretch came in the final four games of the regular season. Three of the final four games are against Duke, North Carolina and North Carolina State – the strongest teams in the conference last year. NC State struggled in ACC play last year but was able to finish the season strong, winning the ACC and losing in the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament. Duke and North Carolina will likely remain strong, but NC State lost DJ Burns Jr., who was the engine of their Cinderella run.

Miami’s late-season struggles, particularly in the conference, have devastated a team that started the season 11-2.

In response, the Hurricanes experienced an offseason full of changes.

New faces like freshman Jalil Bethea and transfers Jalen Blackmon, Lynn Kidd and Brandon Johnson are expected to make immediate contributions. Head coach Jim Larrañaga will need time to find the right lineups and there will be growing pains. This overall easy start to conference play gives Miami a chance to build some momentum, overcome the hurdles and be ready to attack the latter part of the season.

If the Hurricanes can withstand the early season woes that come with roster changes, this could be a good year of recovery for them. Miami’s season begins in just over a month on November 4th with a match against Fairleigh Dickinson.