With Nijel Pack’s return, Miami basketball should have an outstanding perimeter for 2024-25.
Nijel Pack announced on Thursday that he will return to the Hurricanes for the 2024-25 season, giving the Miami basketball team an excellent backcourt. Miami signed five-star Jahlil Bethea and four-star perimeter shooter Austin Swartz for the 2024 class. Bethea and Swartz should relieve some of Pack’s backcourt load. Pack is Miami’s first major player to return from the 2023-24 roster. Guards Kyshawn George and Wooga Poplar, as well as forwards Matthew Cleveland and Norchad Omier, have yet to decide whether to return to Miami for the following season. George is expected to be selected in the first round of the NBA draft. Poplar could be selected in the late first or early second round of the NBA Draft.
Cleveland and Omier are not expected to be NBA Draft picks, but they might play professionally overseas, go via the transfer portal, or return to Miami. Following the end of the Hurricanes’ season, five Miami players entered the transfer portal. Bensley Joseph, a guard, is Miami’s most notable transfer. Pack averaged 13.1 points a game but had the lowest outputs of his career, shooting 39.8 percent from the field, 35.3 percent on three-pointers, and 77.6 percent from the free throw line. Pack has missed eight games this season due to a knee ailment. Pack struggled towards the conclusion of the season when he did play.
Miami concluded the season with ten consecutive losses. In the season-ending loss to Boston College, Pack scored 18 points (7-16 from the field, 3-7 from three). Pack went scoreless in his last two regular-season games and had two in an early February loss to Virginia.
After February 3, Pack appeared in just seven games. George, Joseph, and Poplar were Miami’s key guards after Pack left. Pack is projected to return to the form he showed during the 2022-23 season, when he was voted the Midwest Region’s Most Outstanding Player and Miami advanced to the Final Four.