PHILADELPHIA — Tiki Wackowski can finally take a shower. Regrettably.
Wackowski is one of the Miami (Ohio) fans who has been front and center amid the program’s memorable past week, right alongside the Speedo-wearing members of the swim team. He painted his face and torso red ahead of the RedHawks’ NCAA Tournament run and vowed not to shower until they were knocked out of the Big Dance.
That day came a lot sooner than Wackowski and RedHawks nation hoped it would. No. 11 seed Miami’s magical season came to a disappointing end Friday in a 78-56 loss to No. 6 Tennessee in a Midwest Region matchup at Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia.
Behind a phenomenal performance by 6-foot senior guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie (29 points, 9 assists, 3 steals), the Volunteers dominated every facet of the game. They held Miami, which came in averaging 90.6 points per game (second in Division I), to 35 percent shooting and controlled the glass (39-24). Known for their proficiency from behind the arc, the RedHawks hit their first two 3-pointers, then connected on just five of their next 27 attempts.
Tennessee freshman Nate Ament — a 6-foot-10 forward who’s projected to be a lottery pick in the 2026 NBA Draft — didn’t score a point in 18 minutes of action and the Vols still cruised to victory, setting up a Round of 32 matchup against third-seeded Virginia on Sunday.
There were a lot of tears in Miami’s locker room afterward. It wasn’t the way the RedHawks wanted to go out, but coach Travis Steele encouraged his players to consider the bigger picture.
“Coach’s message was just that we have to get up to 30,000 feet and look down and be able to reflect on what we’ve done the entire year and be proud,” assistant coach Khristian Smith told Hoops HQ. “It’s hard to kind of put that all into perspective right now after a tough loss, but to break every record possible at Miami and to actually win a tournament game and go the entire regular season undefeated — I mean, there are not a lot of teams in the history of college basketball that can say they did that.”
Indeed, it has been a remarkable season for the RedHawks, one that will live on forever in the college hoops world. This team didn’t merely etch its name into the record books with a 31-0 regular season; it galvanized the entire Oxford community like no RedHawks team since the days of Wally Szczerbiak and represented on the national stage for all of the overlooked mid-majors.
“I think a lot of mid-majors have taken that pride that we’re Division I basketball players as well,” 6-foot-6 junior guard Eian Elmer told Hoops HQ. “And us being a face of that, it’s something that we’re truly blessed with.”
“They would win some games in our league, make no bones about it,” Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said in his postgame presser.
Despite their incredible record, the RedHawks entered the Dance with a fair share of skeptics. They hadn’t played a single Quad 1 game, so few thought they stood a chance in a First Four matchup against SMU. But in front of a raucous, pro-RedHawks crowd at Dayton’s UD Arena, Miami knocked down 16 three-pointers en route to a statement 89-79 victory.
“Everybody was talking about what we couldn’t do all year long,” Smith said. “And we just continued to prove them wrong. And when we got that opportunity in Dayton, we made the most of it. We just ran into a buzzsaw tonight with a Tennessee team that’s going to make a deep run in this Tournament.”
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The bitter ending can’t take away from what Miami accomplished this season, including:
- Fifth team this century to go undefeated during regular-season play, joining Saint Joseph’s (2003-04), Wichita State (2013-14), Kentucky (2014-15) and Gonzaga (2020-21).
- First team since 1978-79 Indiana State, which was led by Larry Bird, to enter their conference tournament unbeaten after being unranked in the preseason AP poll.
- First Miami team to win a March Madness game since 1999.
- First Miami team to move into the national rankings since 1999.
- Best start to a season in MAC history.
- Longest win streak in MAC history.
- Led the country in field goal percentage.
- Ranked second in the country in points per game.
The list goes on and on. Along the way, the team recaptured and reenergized a once-dormant fan base. Senior guard Eli Yofan, the only player on Miami’s roster who has been with the program for four seasons, estimated that there were around 1,500 people at his first game at Millett Hall during the 2022-23 campaign. The RedHawks finished that season eighth in the MAC with a 6-12 league record (12-20 overall).
At each of its last four home games this season, Miami welcomed in 10,000 or more fans.
“This has been just an unbelievable ride,” Yofan told Hoops HQ. “And all the guys on the team made it that much better.”
As time wound down on an epic season, the RedHawks’ supporters who had made the trek to Philly rose to their feet. Miami might have lost, but this team was more than deserving of a standing ovation.
“There’d been that gap for about 20 years or so where we didn’t have the success that we were used to. And we’re back now and it just shows that it can be done anywhere,” Steele said. “We’re not where we were, but we’re not where we want to be yet, either. My goal is to get this thing to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament. We fell short of that goal this year, but we’ll be back.
“I’m very, very, very confident of that.”
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