Hurricane Uprising

Through mad strokes in a keyboard, the resident Miami Hurricane fanatic proclaims his presence on THE South Florida Fan Blog. 'Tis a pleasure to join the family. Let's get started...

Despite recent football woes (and football is king, still, no matter what anybody tells you), the University of Miami has much to be proud of recently. Besides the Panthers near-playoff run and the Marlins early success, there have been precious few South Florida sports stories to relish. One of them was the emergence of the Hurricane basketball team, which was an extra minute of basketball away from stunning Texas and moving on to the NCAA Tournament's Sweet 16. ESPN's college basketball insider, Andy Katz, looking at what's coming back next year (The ever-so-clutch Jack McClinton, the silky-smooth James Dews, the inconsistent-but-promising Dwayne Collins, and a bevy of exciting newcomers including the high-flying Daquan Jones), even had the Hurricanes #12 on his early pre-season top-25. And the architect behind this resurgence, head coach Frank Haith, has been locked up for another 5 years, so sunny skies ahead for Hurricanes basketball.

Don't look now, but the baseball team is #1 in the nation. Despite a humbling loss to FAU, all signs point to this being a dynamic and special team that will make noise in Omaha. I'm none too concerned about the loss to FAU. In baseball, bats go eerily silent, pitching falters, and losses happen. Consider the in the bigs you can lose 70 times and still prove yourself the best at the end. Jemile Weeks, Yonder Alonso, Blake Tekotte, and Eric Erickson providing quality experience, I'm predicting championship glory when it's all said and done. And that prediction has nothing whatsoever to do with my innate biases. Well, maybe it has everything to do with them. But at least the writers of Baseball America won't be putting up too vehement an opposition.

So, two reasons to be at least somewhat geeked about South Florida sports have something to do with the boys in orange and green. Obnoxious optimism about Hurricane football to come...