KANSAS CITY, Mo. — On the eve of the University of Miami men's basketball team playing a game where a win would deliver the team's first Final Four berth, the quiet conversation floating through the team hotel did not revolve around all that the Hurricanes had accomplished this season.
Instead, they talked about what had happened to bring last season to a close.
The sting of an Elite Eight defeat was fresh to those who were there, and they made everyone else feel it, too.
"That loss sat with me for a really long time," fifth-year senior guard Jordan Miller said. "It doesn't go away, and the fact that we had the opportunity to come back and make amends, make it right, that's what was pushing me."
Miller responded with a perfect performance against second-seeded Texas in the Midwest Region final Sunday. Along with Atlantic Coast Conference player of the year Isaiah Wong and March Madness dynamo Nijel Pack, Miller rallied the fifth-seeded Hurricanes from a 13-point deficit in the second half for an 88-81 victory that clinched that long-awaited trip to the NCAA semifinals.
"How hard we fought to come back in this game, especially on a stage like this, it's an amazing feeling," said Pack, one of Miami's newcomers. "I know how much these guys wanted to win this game, especially being here last year and losing in the Elite Eight, and now being able to take it to the Final Four is something special."
Miller finished with 27 points, going 7-of-7 from the field and 13-of-13 from the foul line, while Wong scored 12 of his 14 points in the second half against the Longhorns (29-9), who had been the highest seed remaining in a topsy-turvy NCAA tournament.
Now the Hurricanes (29-7) have a date with No. 4 seed Connecticut (29-7), the West Region winner, on Saturday night in Houston. Two more Final Four newbies, fifth-seeded San Diego State (31-6) out of the South and No. 9 seed Florida Atlantic (35-3) out of the East, will face off in the first semifinal at 6:09 p.m. Eastern.
It's the first time since seeding began in 1979 that no team seeded better than No. 4 made the Final Four, so perhaps it is fitting that Miami coach Jim Larrañaga is involved. He took George Mason there as a No. 11 seed 17 years ago to the day.
"No one wanted to go home," said Miller, who played his first three seasons at George Mason. "We came together. We stuck together. We showed really good perseverance and the will — the will to just want to get there."
Miller joined Duke's Christian Laettner in the 1992 East Region final against Kentucky as the only players since 1960 to go 20-for-20 combined from the field and foul line in an NCAA tourney game.
After Miami climbed back from a 64-51 deficit with 13:22 to play, the game was tied at 79 when Norchad Omier was fouled by the Longhorns' Brock Cunningham while going for a loose ball. He made both of the foul shots to give the Hurricanes the lead, then stole the ball from Texas star Marcus Carr at the other end, and Wong made two more free throws with 34 seconds remaining to keep them ahead for good.
Miller kept drilling foul shots down the stretch to ice the Midwest title for the Hurricanes.
Wooga Poplar scored 16 points, and Pack followed up his virtuoso performance in the Sweet 16 against top-seeded Houston with 15.
Now a school that once dropped basketball entirely in the 1970s will play on the biggest stage.
"You just love when your players accomplish a goal they set out before the season," Larrañaga said.
Carr led the Longhorns with 17 points, though he was bothered by a hamstring injury late in the game. Timmy Allen added 16 and Sir'Jabari Rice had 15 in the finale of a season that began with the firing of Chris Beard over domestic violence charges that were later dropped and ended with interim coach Rodney Terry consoling a heartbroken team.
"These guys more than any group I've worked with in 32 years of coaching have really embodied, in terms of staying the course, being a team," Terry said, choking up so hard on the postgame dais that he could barely speak. "They were so unselfish as a team, and they gave us everything they had. They really did."
The Longhorns revealed about 90 minutes before tipoff that Dylan Disu, the Big 12 tourney MVP and early star of the NCAA tourney, would miss the game with a foot injury. He hurt it in the second round against Penn State and played only about 90 seconds in the Sweet 16 against Xavier before watching the rest of that game in a walking boot.
Without their 6-foot-9 star, the Longhorns' deep group of dangerous guards resorted to potshots from the perimeter against Miami's porous defense. Rice hit two 3s early, Carr two of his own, and the Longhorns stormed to a 45-37 halftime lead.
The Longhorns' advantage stretched to 13 in the second half, and tension built on the Miami bench. At one point, Harlond Beverly and Larrañaga got into a verbal spat, and the 73-year-old coach yanked the backup guard from the game.
Fortunately for the Hurricanes, Pack and Wong were poised, Poplar and Miller seemingly possessed.
"We just all bought into staying together, keeping that hope alive," Miller said, "and the way we just willed this one through, I think everybody played really well, and I think it really shows the poise of this squad."