Miami Heat - 2006 NBA Champions!

Back to back losses for the Canes at the College World Series just got a little bit easier to swallow for South Florida - as the Miami Heat took home the 2006 NBA Championship.

Down 0-2 against Dallas and in deep trouble down the stretch in Game Three, Miami miraculously pulled out the win - as well as the next three - thanks to the NBA's newest superstar, Dwyane Wade.

Congrats to Pat Riley and the Miami Heat. This one was 18 years in the making. Finally.

Between the Canes nine titles (football/baseball), the Dolphins two Super Bowl wins (forever ago - but back on the right track), the Marlins two World Series rings (don't look now - but a nine game win streak is underway) - the Heat have officially made it 14 big time championships for the City of Miami since 1972.

Hope you weren't looking for a bucket hat...

.... because your Hurricanes Baseball team bought us out a few days back.

Coach Morris' Canes headed back to Miami from Oxford by way of Tennessee to Texas to South Florida. A few hours later, they were packed and Omaha bound.

Before making the journey, several Baseball Canes were in store - all scoring our Aussie-style bucket hats for their College World Series experience. Look for you Canes sporting these around Omaha this week.

We'll have the Miami Aussie Fisherman's Cap back in stock in the coming days. If you needed one before then, we're sorry. Blame Miami Baseball for buying us out.

Go Canes.

Miami Baseball - Headed to Omaha for 22nd Time

The Canes are headed back to Omaha and based on the ups and downs of the 2006 season, that feat is nothing short of amazing.

The same Canes who went 1-2 in the ACC Tournament and didn't host a Regional -- let alone a Super Regional -- are headed back to the College World Series.

Miami took down Ole Miss this past weekend in dramatic fashion.

Friday night's game saw the Canes jump out to a 9-3 lead by the top of the fifth inning. Three outs later, the Rebels had tied it and by the end of six, they were up 11-9 and never looked back.

Playing on the road for a Super Regional is difficult enough in its own right, without falling in an 0-1 hole. The Rebels were hungry, one win away their first trip to the College World Series since 1972. They came close last year - actually one OUT away from making the journey.

Miami had other plans, though. After skunking the Rebels 7-0 in front of 9,139 at Swayze Field on Sunday evening - the series was tied 1-1 and Monday's game was anyone's for the taking. Miami ace Danny Gil (4-2) threw one of the best games of his career with six innings of shutout ball - allowing only four hits and posting three strikeouts.

On offense, it was the Nebraska Regional MVP providing the highlights yet again. Jemile Weeks went 3-for-4 with a pair of home runs and had a career-high five RBI, going along with an intentional walk.

On Monday night there were a few heroes.

First and foremost, hat's off to head coach Jim Morris for some gutty in-game moves. Most importantly, his decision to go with closer Chris Perez in the fifth inning. Perez entered the game with Miami trailing 8-7 in and effort to stop the bleeding.

The Canes had a comfortable 3-0 first inning lead, which the Rebels quickly tied up after two. After the third, Miami stretched the lead to 6-3 - but back came Ole Miss in the fourth, holding a 7-6 lead until the bottom of the sixth inning.

The U took an 8-7 lead in the sixth after Tommy Giles and Jon Jay both singled. Giles scored on a Valencia sacrifice fly while Jay stole second and third before scoring on a throwing error.

Par for the course, Ole Miss tied the game back up top of the seventh with a quick solo shot by Chris Coghlan. The Canes survived the inning behind Perez (retiring the next three batters.)

Then Miami broke it open.

Roger Tomas bunted his way on base, Eddy Rodriguez moved him over with a sacrifice bunt, Weeks was intentionally walked, Tommy Giles singled (driving in Tomas), Jay was hit by a pitch and with the bases loaded Valencia stepped to the plate and with two outs and a 2-2 count, delivered the Super Regional knock-out blow in grand fashion. The bases cleared and Miami was ahead 13-8 and never looked back en route to a 14-9 victory.

The Canes square off Saturday night against the Oregon State Beavers at 7pm ET on ESPN. Miami is in Bracket #2 and will face the winner/loser of the Georgia v. Rice contest.

Bracket #1 is 75% teams from the ACC as it features Clemson, Georgia Tech and North Carolina - along with Cal State Fullerton.

Thankfully for the Canes, the bats seem to be waking up before Omaha -- which is the perfect time to get hot. 9 runs on Saturday, 7 on Sunday and 14 on Monday had the Canes averaging 10 runs per game against the Rebels.

They'll need that same kind of action the next few games. Beating Oregon State is a must if Miami is going to do ANYTHING in Omaha this year. Crawling out of the loser's bracket with this year's pitching staff will be difficult. Same to be said for a best-of-three format for the Championship Series.

Regardless of how things play out in Omaha, this is one of those seasons where simply making it to the College World Series is good enough (... almost.) Of course once you get there, why not set your sights on winning?

Curious to see how it all plays out. To think that a few weeks back these Canes were getting smacked up in the ACC Tournament and now they're Omaha-bound. Definitely a testament to how difficult this new conference is and how battle-tested the Canes are after year two in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Hurricane Baseball... on a roll and thinking Omaha

Nothing wrong with a little help from Lady Luck, is there?

Last Friday, Hurricane Baseball fans we're thinking about the 2005 season and how everything came to a crashing halt when Nebraska swept Miami 2-0 in the Super Regionals.

Few were optimistic about returning to the scene of the crime. Even the premise of heading to Lincoln, NE (not the easiest city in the world to drag a collegiate baseball team to at short notice) - it seemed a daunting task.

The teams were seeded Nebraska Corhuskers (1), Miami Hurricanes (2), San Francisco Dons (3) and Manhattan Jaspers (4).

Miami took care of business, whooping San Francisco, 11-2 in the opening game. More exciting than that win was seeing #4 seeded Manhattan take it to #1 Nebraska, 4-1. That opened the door for the Canes to steal this regional and that's exactly what they did.

Already in the loser's bracket, #1 Nebraska inexplicably fell to #3 San Francisco, 5-1 on Saturday morning - setting up a Miami v. Manhattan night game.

The Canes rolled, 8-2.

Sunday morning Manhattan and San Francisco battled it out, with the Jaspers pulling out the 6-4 victory. Pitted against Miami later in the day, Manhattan was out of steam and the Canes posted a convincing 10-4 victory in front of thousands of Nebraska fans who rooted against Miami the previous season. Gotta love the iront in that - especially with the Huskers going 0-and-2, bar-be-que.

It proved to be "one of those weekends" for several teams in the opening round of the Regionals. Some other upsets:

- #3 seed Stanford knocked out #1 Texas, the defending National Champions.
- #2 South Carolina knocked off #1 seed Virginia in Charlottesville, VA.
- #3 Oral Roberts took out #1 Oklahoma State in Fayetteville, AR.
- #2 seed College of Charleston won the Lexington regional - which featured Notre Dame going 0-2 (after complaining about their seed.)
- #4 Missouri won in Malibu, beating #1 seeded Pepperdine.

* Four ACC teams will be made it to this weekend's Super Regional -- Georgia Tech, Clemson, Miami and North Carolina.

This weekend Miami travels to Ole Miss for a best of three series kicking off Saturday eve at 7pm ET on ESPN2/ESPN-U. The Canes (39-21) and the Rebels (43-20) play Sunday at 7pm ET and again Monday at 7pm ET (if necessary.)

Ole Miss hosted the first round and beat Bethune-Cookman, 3-2 in the opener before taking down South Alabama, 9-7 on Saturday. They ended the opening round with a 12-4 beat down of Tulane.

Neither Miami or Ole Miss faced too much competition in the opening round and both play in brutal conferences during the regular season. Regarding how the two teams match up on paper:

- Ole Miss: .311 team batting average... 55 home runs in 63 games... 93 stolen bases in 114 attempts... 4.51 staff ERP and they've given up 54 HRs in 63 games. Their opponents' combined batting average is .273 - though their .973 fielding percentage is extremely impressive.

- Miami: .311 team batting average... 56 home runs... 84 stolen bases in 114 attempts... 4.29 staff ERA. The opponents' combined batting average is .238 and the Canes sport a .968 fielding percentage.

While the two almost sound like mirror images on paper, Ole Miss won the SEC tournament and are one of the hottest teams in college baseball (winning 12 of their last 13) while Miami got worked in the ACC tournament and recently lost #2 starting pitcher Carlos Gutierrez for the season (torn ligament in pitching elbow.)

Anything is possible in a three game series. Hell, just look at what happened to Texas, Virginia, Oklahoma State and Pepperdine last weekend.

Miami fans and players feel they match up well with Ole Miss and the Canes have one thing the Rebels don't -- which is vast postseason experience. Ole Miss came close to Omaha last season, which was reason for celebration. In Coral Gables, it should be noted that Miami is experiencing their 34th straight postseason appearance.

Omaha is second nature for Miami and with the Canes two wins away from the College World Series, it's not time to write off this bunch just yet.