How the Hurricanes are using Heat guard Tyler Herro. And Diaz addresses a UM dilemma

A six-pack of Miami Hurricanes notes on Wednesday:

▪ While watching the Miami Heat’s impressive rookie guard during the NBA Finals, ABC’s Mark Jackson cracked that “A Herro is more than just a sandwich.”

Tyler Herro, apparently, also can now be found in the UM basketball playbook.

Hurricanes coach Jim Larranaga is using some plays during the Miami Heat’s playoff run as a teaching tool with his players and has even added a new play and named it after Herro.

“We’ve added a sideline out of bounds play that we call Herro, named after Tyler Herro,” Larranaga said in a phone conversation this week. “We have repeatedly shown our players highlights of Heat games. We’ve shown them defensive clips of how they cover certain situations that we will see. They have had a great impact [on our teaching].

“We’ve always used NBA clips [as a tool], more from the Heat than from any other team. We showed a Kobe Bryant clip in the last practice, shown clips of Giannis Antetokounmpo and Kemba Walker and Jayson Tatum and LeBron James.”

Larranaga said he “was texting with [Heat president] Pat Riley throughout the playoffs. I’m very excited and proud of the job his team did.”

▪ We’ll have more on UM’s highly-regarded freshmen (Earl Timberlake and Matt Cross) in the coming days. But Larranaga believes the third eligible newcomer — former Cincinnati center Nysier Brooks — is going to help.

“Nysier brings a physical presence like a Tonye Jekiri and Ebuka Izundu,” Larranaga said of two former Hurricanes centers. “He’s a very vocal defender. Tonye and Kamari Murphy are probably the best frontcourt defenders we’ve had because of their ability to talk their teammates through screens and be prepared to help when necessary. I am hoping Nysier can do the same thing. Defensive and offensive rebounding are things we are counting” on from him.

Brooks, 6-11, averaged 8.1 points, 6.3 rebounds and 1.5 blocks — and 22.9 minutes per game — in 35 appearances (all starts) for Cincinnati in 2018-19. Brooks, who has never attempted a three-pointer in a game, sat out last season under NCAA transfer rules.

▪ It would be very surprising if guards Chris Lykes and Kam McGusty aren’t starters, but the other starting jobs are wide open. “Isaiah Wong, Sam Wardenburg, Rodney Miller, Harlond Beverly, Anthony Walker are all back and all competing for starting jobs,” Larranaga said.

Cross, Timberlake and Brooks might enter the mix, too. At the very least, UM expects those three players will get minutes.

“I think we have a good team,” Larranaga said. “The question is always how good is the ACC going to be. There are certain teams that you can look at and project them to be top 10 — Virginia, Duke, North Carolina, Florida State. We’ve got other very talented teams: Louisville, Syracuse, Notre Dame. I’m confident we have a good team but our league has some” excellent teams.

UM will open its yet-to-be-announced 25-game schedule in late November.

▪ A few quick hits from Larranaga: He said he doesn’t anticipate having fans in attendance for home games through the end of the calendar year and “it won’t be determined if there are fans in January until much closer to that date.”…

UM’s five non-conference games will be against FAU, three other schools in Florida or the Southeast (not yet announced) and a Big 10 team (not yet disclosed)...

Larranaga said players have missed practices the past two weeks for assorted reasons (death in the family, child with a cold, nagging injuries) but nobody is on track to miss the opener and nobody on the team has contracted COVID-19.... We’ll have more UM hoops notes in the days ahead.

▪ Two of the UM football players who bypassed their senior seasons to turn pro this year — receiver Jeff Thomas and cornerback Trajan Bandy — are out of the NFL completely, not even on practice squads. And it’s not the first time that players have left UM early over the years and then faced unemployment within months.

But if this angers coach Manny Diaz, he wasn’t letting on during his Wednesday news conference.

Asked what can be done about UM players leaving early and whether he will mention the Thomas/Bandy examples to players this year, Diaz said:

“We always show our players the facts every year. We show all of our guys where they go, what their contracts are like, how an NFL contract breaks down to try to arm them with as much information as possible. We’ve got all kinds of data on how many early entrants get drafted. It’s not a Miami issue. This is an issue that’s occurring all over college football.

“But it’s still their personal choice and it’s hard to make a wide sweeping decision on it because you can’t unpack, in each of these individual cases, the financial realities of these families. To your point, being unemployed eight months later doesn’t help that financial reality but that’s not the way the world looks before the jump.

“So our job is to be nothing but be a mentor and provide information. No matter what they choose, it’s up to them to make their decision right.”

Financial issues were in play with Bandy when he decided to turn pro, according to a source. The Pittsburgh Steelers moved Bandy to their practice squad on Labor Day weekend but released him Sept. 25. As for Thomas, the New England Patriots released him after training camp and didn’t sign him to their practice squad. Neither player was drafted in April.

Even if a player turns pro early, UM pays that player’s tuition if he returns to school to get his degree. Former UM president Donna Shalala implemented that policy, and current president Julio Frenk has displayed no inclination to change it.

▪ One Hurricanes player who needs to improve to make a case for NFL teams: defensive tackle Jon Ford. A former UM assistant coach said he thought Ford had first-round talent when UM recruited him. Ford has been serviceable but hasn’t lived up to those lofty expectations.

He has six tackles and one quarterback hurry this season.

“He’s a big load inside,” defensive coordinator Blake Baker said. “Sometimes he doesn’t necessarily show up on the stat sheet but he’s doing a nice job occupying blocks. There’s areas he can improve in and he knows that, but overall he’s been really solid.”

Baker said the other starting defensive tackle, Nesta Silvera, “has taken his game to the next level. I talked to him [Sunday] night, was as proud of him in that [Pittsburgh] game as I’ve been since I’ve been here. A couple of times he got banged up, went to the tent, fought through those injuries. He has stepped his game up to an All-ACC level.”

Diaz said Silvera “has good foot speed. When your big guys can run, that presents problems in a lot of different ways.”

Adam Beasley and I have three Wednesday stories on the Dolphins quarterback change - comments from Brian Flores, comments from a candid Ryan Fitzpatrick and remarks from Tua Tagovailoa. Please click here to read all of them.