Miami leading scorer Norchad Omier out for Syracuse game

Miami will be without its leading scorer for Saturday’s game against Syracuse. Forward Norchad Omier will miss the contest according to multiple reports, including one from Mike Waters.

Omier averages a team-high 17.3 points and 9.3 rebounds per game. He is shooting 62 percent from the field and better than 80 percent from the free throw line on the season.

Being without Norchad Omier is a big loss for a Miami team that enters Saturday’s game struggling.

The Hurricanes have dropped three of their past four games, including home losses to Louisville and Florida State.

Now they are going on the road to face a Syracuse squad that has been up-and-down this season. The Orange are 3-2 in their past five games with blowout losses to North Carolina and Duke and wins over Pitt twice and Boston College.

Norchad Omier isn’t the only Miami player who has been banged up this year. The top four scorers for the Hurricanes have all missed at least one game this season in Omier, Matthew Cleveland, Wooga Poplar and Nijel Pack.

This has been a disappointing season for a Miami team coming off of back-to-back Elite 8 appearances, including a Final 4 last year.

Jim Larranaga shares challenges Florida State’s defense presented Miami

On Wednesday night, Miami Hurricanes head coach Jim Larranaga watched as the Florida State Seminoles were able to go into Miami and come out with a win.

After the game, Larranaga shared what Florida State was able to do on defense to challenge Miami’s offense.

“We start our offense normally with a pass to Norchad Omier and then he hands it off or passes it to the next guy,” Jim Larranaga said. “And we couldn’t do it. We came out in the second half and we backdoored them because we knew they’d be doing that and they blocked the shot. That’s the difference.”

In the end, Miami lost 84-75, despite coming into the game as a 7.5-point favorite. There were plenty of issues for the Hurricanes, but Florida State’s length and size on defense gave Miami a ton of problems getting comfortable throughout the game.

By the end of the game, Miami had 13 turnovers, while shooting 25% from three-point range and 46.6% from the field. The Hurricanes had 10 assists on the game to 17 by the Seminoles.

“When you execute a play and the defense is still able to stop it, you’ve got to give credit to the defense. It’s not the offensive player. We didn’t do anything wrong except we didn’t get the two points, but that’s when you have a lot of size and shot-blocking ability.”