Single digit wins are a bit misleading as a stat. We beat UCF by single digits, but were up 15 late. Hardly what one would call a great Coach L finish. Today's finish (and other critical plays and inbounds after timeouts that make one scratch their head) seem to be a bit off, to put it mildly.
Any individual single digit win can be misleading, but not when you look over the course of the season, and especially, over the course of multiple seasons.
Included in that larger samples of single digit wins/losses are games where Miami blew a lead, where Miami held a lead, where Miami made a come back, and where Miami failed to make a comeback. There are games that were tight for the majority of the game that became less tight by the end (like vs. UCF, where we trailed a few minutes into the 2nd half), and games that were blowouts the whole game that had us on the edge of our seats at the end (like vs. Illinois).
Single digit wins are therefore a good proxy for late game execution, even if they're not perfect. If you want to use the score at the 5 minute mark to define a close game, be my guest. I think that's probably a better metric. Go ahead and put in the time to pull those numbers if you'd like. But I doubt you want to do that, so single digit wins seems like the best option.
My overall point is that our late game execution has been consistent with our overall execution. Yes, we've had tons of blunders. We have tons of blunders at all points in all games. That's because we're not very good overall, not because we're any worse late in games. And if you watch other college basketball games (esp. those involving mediocre teams), that's just what late games look like. Winning a game in college basketball doesn't mean you execute well and make spectacular plays. It usually means you avoided disaster while the other team shot itself in the foot.
Of all of the things to complain about this program over the past few years, late game execution is low on the list.
