Miami, coming off a season during which it finished 12-20 overall and 6-12 in the Mid-American Conference before a 91-75 loss to top-seeded Toledo in the conference tournament quarterfinals, is scheduled to open the 2023-2024 season on Monday with a non-conference game at Evansville.
The home opener is set for Friday — Veterans Days — at 11 a.m. against Texas State University in the opening game of the MAC-Sun Belt Challenge. The tipoff time will honor the 105th anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended World War I on Nov. 11, 1918.
The RedHawks will be missing their top three scorers from last season. Leader Mekhi Lairy graduated. No. 2 Morgan Safford has left the program. No. 2 Anderson Mirambeaux, the 6-foot-8, 305-pound center and transfer from Cleveland State, is injured.
“Anderson was playing good and looking forward to a huge year, but he’s not available,” associate head coach Rob Summers said on Monday during the program’s pre-season media session.
Summers was filling in for second-year head coach Travis Steele, who couldn’t make the session due to car trouble.
That leaves Miami, which hasn’t won a MAC championship since 2007, depending on three transfers and a highly touted five-player freshman recruiting class to produce the program’s first winning record since the 2008-2009 season.
The newcomers include transfers Darweshi Hunter, Bryce Bultman and Bradley Dean. The 6-foot-5, 200-pound Hunter might be familiar to Miami fans as a graduate of Cincinnati Princeton High School who played at MAC-rival Northern Illinois. Hunter and the 6-5, 200-pound Bultman, a forward and graduate-student transfer from Division II McKendree University, were voted by teammates as captains for the 2023-2024 season.
“I’m hoping to win some games in our MAC tournament and make it to the NCAA tournament,” Bultman said. “I am looking forward to the experience of getting to know my teammates and playing basketball on a Division I team in a new conference.”
“He does it all for us,” Summers said. “He’s been really great to have around the program as somebody who has played a lot of basketball and seen a lot. Being named team captain speaks volumes to his character and who he is.”
The three transfers join freshmen Eian Elmer, Evan Isparo, Reece Potter, Hampton Dauparas, Jackson Kotecki, Mekhi Cooper and Blake Anderson on the restocked RedHawk roster.
“The mesh has been great,” said 6-5, 195-pound sophomore guard Ryan Mabry, the second-leading returning scorer going into the season. “I feel way more connected with these guys. They want to be in the gym, but they also want to hang out outside the gym. I’m excited about what’s going to happen. I feel like I’m creating a brother with each and every guy.”
“The new guys look great,” Summers said. “The freshmen are getting better every day. The non-conference schedule will help them get ready for MAC play.”
Steele and the RedHawks went 3-0 against a team of all-stars from the Baloncesto Superior Naciunal during an August trip to Puerto Rico, where they bonded as much with off-court activities such as snorkeling. The 7-1 Potter led the RedHawks with an average of 15 points per game. Isparo averaged a team-high four assists per game and 6-8, 220-pound sophomore center Jaquel Morris pulled in an average of six rebounds per game.
They are hoping to build on that trip and the experience of winning four of their last five regular-season games and earning a berth in the 2022-2023 MAC Tournament. Besides the MAC-Sun Belt Challenge, Miami also is set to host the Miami Classic against Coppin State and Eastern Illinois on Nov. 17-19 at Millett Hall in Oxford. The non-conference schedule also includes games St. Bonaventure on Nov. 25, at Ohio State on Dec. 6, at Wright State on Dec. 19 and against Wilberforce in Oxford on Dec. 29.
The RedHawks’ regular-season MAC scheduled is scheduled to get under way on Jan. 2 against Western Michigan in Oxford.
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